Date: Oct 22, 2026

Deliberate Ignorance Can Establish Fraud Knowledge; Discovery Rules Can Limit Defense Evidence

Case: United States v. Jason Van Eman
Court: United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
Date: October 20, 2026
Docket: No. 22-12523
Disposition: Convictions and sentence affirmed.

Precedential status: The opinion is designated “NOT FOR PUBLICATION.” It applies established doctrine rather than announcing a new, binding circuit rule. Its significance lies in its combined treatment of defense-discovery violations, evidence of civil litigation, deliberate ignorance, and fraud sentencing.

1. Introduction

Jason Van Eman used his entertainment-industry connections to recruit producers seeking financing for films and other projects. Under their funding agreements, producers would deposit substantial sums, Benjamin McConley would match those deposits, and the combined funds would secure production-financing credit lines. The agreements promised that deposits would remain protected and would be refunded if financing did not materialize within the specified period.

The evidence established a different arrangement. McConley did not match the investments, no promised credit lines were obtained, and investors’ money was transferred into accounts controlled by the conspirators. False bank letters, including letters associated with Wells Fargo employee Benjamin Rafael, concealed the scheme. Later investments also financed settlements and partial repayments to earlier victims.

McConley and Rafael pleaded guilty. Van Eman proceeded to a 22-day trial, maintaining that he conducted legitimate business while McConley committed the fraud without his knowledge. The jury rejected that defense and convicted him on all 31 counts.

The appeal concerned the fairness of the trial and the calculation of the sentence, rather than a standalone challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence. The principal questions were whether the court could exclude undisclosed financial materials, admit evidence of earlier civil lawsuits, instruct on deliberate ignorance, and impose substantial sentencing enhancements. Van Eman also challenged a prosecutorial closing remark and sought direct appellate review of his lawyer’s effectiveness.

2. Summary of the Opinion

The Eleventh Circuit affirmed Van Eman’s convictions for conspiracy to commit wire fraud, 23 substantive wire-fraud offenses, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and six money-laundering offenses.

It also affirmed a sentence of 262 months’ imprisonment, followed by three years of supervised release, and restitution of $9,196,934.36. Its principal conclusions were:

Undisclosed defense evidence: Excluding financial charts and 72,000 pages of bank records was a permissible discovery sanction under the circumstances and did not violate Van Eman’s constitutional right to present a defense.
Civil-litigation evidence: Earlier lawsuits were relevant to knowledge, motive, and the scheme’s operation. Repeated limiting instructions addressed the danger that jurors might confuse civil allegations or findings with proof of criminal guilt.
Closing argument: Assuming the prosecutor’s challenged remark was improper, it did not prejudice Van Eman’s substantial rights.
Deliberate ignorance: The evidence supported the instruction. Alternatively, any instructional error was harmless because sufficient evidence supported actual knowledge.
Ineffective assistance: The record was insufficiently developed for direct appellate review. The court did not decide the claim’s merits.
Sentencing: The court upheld the loss calculation, four-level leadership enhancement, and two-level obstruction-of-justice enhancement.

3. Analysis: Legal Reasoning and Precedents Cited

A. Standards of Review Shaped the Appeal

The opinion distinguished legal questions from discretionary and factual determinations. That distinction mattered because many of Van Eman’s objections required more than showing that another judge might have ruled differently.

United States v. Underwood, 446 F.3d 1340 (11th Cir. 2006): Supplied de novo review for constitutional questions and abuse-of-discretion review for evidentiary rulings. The constitutional characterization of an objection did not eliminate the need to examine the evidentiary ruling itself.
United States v. Bender, 290 F.3d 1279 (11th Cir. 2002): Identified de novo review for ineffective-assistance claims. That standard did not resolve the separate question whether the appellate record permitted review at all.
United States v. Stone, 9 F.3d 934 (11th Cir. 1993): Supported de novo review of challenges to jury instructions, while later authorities recognized trial courts’ discretion in formulating legally accurate charges.
United States v. Isaac, 987 F.3d 980 (11th Cir. 2021): Established the sentencing framework: legal questions receive de novo review, factual findings receive clear-error review, and application of the Guidelines to the facts receives due deference.
United States v. Mena, 863 F.2d 1522 (11th Cir. 1989): Explained why the appellate factual account viewed the trial evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict.

These standards made credibility findings, estimates grounded in trial evidence, and reasonable evidentiary judgments particularly difficult to overturn.

B. The Right to Present a Defense Does Not Eliminate Discovery Obligations

Van Eman’s attorney failed to comply with orders requiring disclosure of proposed witnesses and exhibits. Counsel initially explained that the defense had no burden of proof and wanted to see how the prosecution’s case developed. During the defense case, however, Van Eman sought to introduce financial summaries and an extensive body of underlying bank records through former IRS employee Andre Noisette.

The district court found that late disclosure impaired the prosecution’s preparation and ability to cross-examine Noisette. It excluded the charts and records as evidence but allowed Noisette to testify and permitted a chart to be used as a demonstrative aid in closing.

Constitutional framework

United States v. Hurn, 368 F.3d 1359 (11th Cir. 2004), provided the governing sequence: determine first whether exclusion violated the defendant’s constitutional rights; only if it did must the court assess whether the violation was harmless beyond a reasonable doubt.

The court then relied on United States v. Mitrovic, 890 F.3d 1217 (11th Cir. 2018), and its discussion of United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303 (1998). Those authorities recognize that the right to present favorable evidence is not absolute. Evidentiary restrictions may serve legitimate trial-management and truth-seeking purposes, provided they are not arbitrary or disproportionate to those purposes.

As the panel framed the inquiry, Van Eman needed to demonstrate either a constitutionally defective rule or an abuse of discretion in its application. He did not contend that Rule 16 itself was unconstitutional.

Discovery sanctions and their application

Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 16(d)(2) authorizes exclusion of evidence that a party fails properly to disclose. Two Supreme Court decisions supplied particularly important support:

Taylor v. Illinois, 484 U.S. 400 (1988): Established that excluding defense witnesses can be a permissible sanction for violating discovery requirements. The Court’s emphasis on truthful disclosure supported the proposition that constitutional defense rights do not include an unrestricted entitlement to present an eleventh-hour evidentiary surprise.
Michigan v. Lucas, 500 U.S. 145 (1991): Confirmed that even probative defense evidence may sometimes be excluded for failure to comply with a valid discovery rule. Relevance alone therefore did not defeat the sanction.

United States v. Willner, 795 F.3d 1297 (11th Cir. 2015), defined abuse of discretion through such errors as applying the wrong law, relying on clearly erroneous facts, or making a clear error of judgment. The repeated disclosure orders, volume of undisclosed material, and resulting preparation difficulties supported the district court’s exercise of discretion.

The court also invoked United States v. Mosquera, 886 F.3d 1032 (11th Cir. 2018), for the requirement that a Rule 16 error prejudice substantial rights, and United States v. Camargo-Vergara, 57 F.3d 993 (11th Cir. 1995), for the significance of unfair surprise, inadequate preparation, and substantial influence on the jury.

Why the excluded materials did not establish constitutional injury

The financial materials purportedly showed that Van Eman transferred money from some investors into other production budgets. The panel reasoned that such transfers did not answer the evidence that he obtained investments through deception, supplied fabricated bank confirmations, and failed to honor the funding arrangements.

United States v. Petrie, 302 F.3d 1280 (11th Cir. 2002), supported finding no prejudice where excluded financial testimony would merely provide background information. United States v. Yates, 733 F.3d 1059 (11th Cir. 2013), reversed on other grounds, 574 U.S. 528 (2015), supplied an analogous principle: exclusion may not prejudice the defense when equivalent testimony remains available through another source.

The opinion’s description of Noisette’s permitted testimony is not entirely uniform: the background describes restrictions on discussing tax issues and using the charts, while the merits discussion states that he testified about their contents. The appellate reasoning nevertheless clearly relied on the remaining testimony and demonstrative use as mitigating the exclusion’s practical effect.

Scope of the holding: The panel upheld this particular sanction; it did not establish that every discovery violation justifies exclusion. Because it found no constitutional violation, it expressly declined to undertake constitutional harmless-error review under United States v. Hurn.

C. Earlier Civil Lawsuits Were Relevant to Knowledge and Motive

Van Eman argued that admitting civil lawsuits and a temporary restraining order risked confusing the lower civil burden of proof with the prosecution’s obligation to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.

The panel identified several legitimate uses of the evidence. Service of repeated lawsuits warned Van Eman that investors claimed their funds had been misused and their promised financing had not materialized. That notice contradicted his assertion that he remained unaware of wrongdoing. The lawsuits also explained why later investors’ money was used to settle earlier disputes and supported a motive to conceal the fraud.

The Rule 403 balance

Federal Rule of Evidence 403 permits exclusion when probative value is substantially outweighed by specified dangers, including unfair prejudice, confusion, and misleading the jury. The precedents emphasized that evidence harmful to a defendant is not necessarily unfair:

Sorrels v. NCL (Bahamas) Ltd., 796 F.3d 1275 (11th Cir. 2015): Explained that relevant evidence inherently affects the likelihood that a factfinder will accept a proposition.
United States Steel, LLC v. Tieco, Inc., 261 F.3d 1275 (11th Cir. 2001): Distinguished ordinary evidentiary prejudice from the unfair prejudice addressed by Rule 403.
United States v. Lopez, 649 F.3d 1222 (11th Cir. 2011): Supported using exclusion under Rule 403 sparingly.
United States v. Smith, 459 F.3d 1276 (11th Cir. 2006): Required reviewing the challenged evidence in the light most favorable to admission.

The civil materials had a direct connection to disputed knowledge and the charged scheme’s operation, rather than merely portraying Van Eman as someone who had been sued.

Why limiting instructions mattered

United States v. Calderon, 127 F.3d 1314 (11th Cir. 1997), recognized the capacity of cautionary instructions to cure potential unfair prejudice. United States v. Kennard, 472 F.3d 851 (11th Cir. 2006), supplied the presumption that jurors follow those instructions.

The district court repeatedly explained that the civil order involved a lower standard and that the criminal verdict required proof beyond a reasonable doubt. Those instructions supported admission.

Important limitation: A civil complaint’s allegations are not themselves proof of criminal guilt. The decision’s reasoning depends on the lawsuits’ relevance as notice, motive, and evidence of the scheme’s financial operation, together with safeguards against treating civil proceedings as a substitute for the criminal trial.

D. The Closing Remark Did Not Require Reversal

The prosecutor asserted that, without indictment and arrest, Van Eman “would be out there doing the same thing with somebody else.” Van Eman argued that the statement improperly encouraged conviction to prevent future crimes.

United States v. Nerey, 877 F.3d 956 (11th Cir. 2017), required both impropriety and prejudice to substantial rights. Its reliance on United States v. Eckhardt, 466 F.3d 938 (11th Cir. 2006), supplied the prejudice inquiry: was there a reasonable probability that the outcome would have been different without the remark?

United States v. Azmat, 805 F.3d 1018 (11th Cir. 2015), identified statements calculated to mislead jurors or inflame their passions as improper. Conversely, United States v. Reeves, 742 F.3d 487 (11th Cir. 2014), allowed fair responses to defense arguments. The government invoked that principle because the defense had portrayed Van Eman as a legitimate businessman unwittingly associated with McConley’s criminal conduct.

The panel did not decide that the prosecutor’s statement was permissible. It assumed impropriety and resolved the issue on prejudice. One statement after a lengthy trial, extensive victim testimony, and substantial documentary evidence did not create the required probability of a different result.

The court also relied on United States v. Bobal, 981 F.3d 971 (11th Cir. 2020), concerning instructions that lawyers’ statements are not evidence. Here, that warning had been delivered five times.

The holding therefore concerns the absence of reversible prejudice, not approval of arguments inviting jurors to convict because of feared future misconduct.

E. Deliberate Ignorance Could Establish the Required Knowledge

The central substantive issue was whether Van Eman’s claimed dependence on McConley justified a deliberate-ignorance instruction. The panel held that it did.

The governing rule

United States v. Prather, 205 F.3d 1265 (11th Cir. 2000), required materially accurate instructions that do not substantially misguide the jury in violation of due process. United States v. Williams, 526 F.3d 1312 (11th Cir. 2008), recognized broad discretion to formulate instructions that accurately reflect the law and evidence.

The knowledge authorities then established the instruction’s substantive basis:

United States v. Hristov, 466 F.3d 949 (11th Cir. 2006): Knowledge may be established through actual knowledge or deliberate ignorance.
United States v. Arias, 984 F.2d 1139 (11th Cir. 1993): Deliberate ignorance is the equivalent of knowledge, and circumstantial as well as direct evidence may establish it.
United States v. Matire, 898 F.3d 1151 (11th Cir. 2018): Both theories may be presented when supported by the evidence. A prosecution theory emphasizing actual knowledge does not automatically foreclose the alternative instruction.
United States v. Perez-Tosta, 36 F.3d 1552 (11th Cir. 1994), quoting United States v. Rivera, 944 F.2d 1563 (11th Cir. 1991): The defendant must be aware of a high probability of the relevant fact and purposely avoid learning the full truth to preserve a later claim of ignorance.
United States v. Calhoon, 97 F.3d 518 (11th Cir. 1996): The defendant’s own testimony may support the inference of deliberate ignorance.

Application to repeated warnings

The evidence went beyond a single overlooked irregularity. Van Eman received warnings that McConley lacked assets and supplied false bank letters. Producers complained that their deposits had disappeared. Numerous lawsuits alleged fraud. Several people informed him that Rafael had been fired or that his bank communications were suspect.

Despite those warnings, Van Eman testified that he continued to depend on McConley for bank confirmations and related financial information. He also claimed not to find it odd that letters from three banks used identical language. The panel regarded this combination as circumstantial evidence of purposeful avoidance.

The instruction expressly stated that negligence, carelessness, and foolishness were insufficient. That qualification was essential: deliberate ignorance cannot simply convert what a defendant should have known into what the prosecution must prove he knew.

The jury also had to find that Van Eman knowingly participated in the fraud and knew the conspiracy’s unlawful purpose and willfully joined it. The instruction did not dispense with those separate requirements.

Alternative harmless-error ground

Under United States v. Rivera, an erroneous deliberate-ignorance instruction is harmless when the jury is also instructed on actual knowledge and sufficient evidence supports conviction on that basis.

Rafael testified that Van Eman knowingly participated in the scheme and directed the content of fabricated bank letters. Employee Ross Marroso likewise described Van Eman’s authorship and coordination of the letters. Evidence that Van Eman knew Rafael no longer worked for Wells Fargo further supported actual knowledge.

The court therefore upheld the instruction on two grounds: the evidence justified it, and sufficient actual-knowledge evidence independently made any error harmless.

F. Ineffective Assistance Required a Better-Developed Record

Van Eman separately argued that his lawyer’s disclosure failures constituted ineffective assistance. Strickland v. Washington, 466 U.S. 668 (1984), required proof of both deficient performance and resulting prejudice.

The panel distinguished the apparent consequences of counsel’s conduct from the information needed to assess its professional reasonableness. The record did not establish when counsel received the records, how long Noisette needed to complete his analysis, or whether counsel had strategic reasons for the timing of the financial defense.

United States v. Curbelo, 726 F.3d 1260 (11th Cir. 2013): Explained the general refusal to decide ineffective-assistance claims on direct appeal when the trial court has not developed the relevant record.
Massaro v. United States, 538 U.S. 500 (2003): Favored initial district-court consideration, where evidence about counsel’s conduct and reasoning can be developed and the court has firsthand familiarity with the trial.
United States v. Verbitskaya, 406 F.3d 1324 (11th Cir. 2005): Recognized only rare direct-review exceptions when the record is sufficiently developed.
United States v. Puentes-Hurtado, 794 F.3d 1278 (11th Cir. 2015): Established that some evidence about counsel’s performance does not necessarily provide enough information for adjudication.
United States v. Padgett, 917 F.3d 1312: Reinforced that collateral proceedings are the preferred vehicle for such claims.

Prejudice was also not evident on the existing record: showing that some money financed other productions did not negate the extensive evidence of deception.

The court did not hold that counsel performed competently. It left the merits unresolved for a possible proceeding under 28 U.S.C. § 2255. The lawfulness of the trial court’s sanction and the effectiveness of defense counsel remained distinct questions.

G. Sentencing Accountability Extended Beyond Van Eman’s Claimed Personal Profit

1. Clear-error review

United States v. Green, 981 F.3d 945 (11th Cir. 2020), quoting United States v. Dimitrovski, 782 F.3d 622 (11th Cir. 2015), required a definite and firm conviction that a mistake occurred before overturning a sentencing factual finding. United States v. Almedina, 686 F.3d 1312 (11th Cir. 2012), added that choosing between two reasonable factual interpretations is not clear error.

2. Loss amount

The district court attributed approximately $60 million in loss to Van Eman and applied the 2021 Guidelines’ 22-level increase for loss exceeding $25 million but not exceeding $65 million.

United States v. Stein, 846 F.3d 1135 (11th Cir. 2017), placed the burden on the government to prove loss by a preponderance of the evidence. United States v. Rodriguez, 751 F.3d 1244 (11th Cir. 2014), supplied the rule that Guidelines loss is the greater of actual or intended loss.

Under the Guidelines provisions applied in the opinion, actual loss means reasonably foreseeable financial harm resulting from the offense. Intended loss concerns financial harm the defendant sought to cause, including harm unlikely or impossible to occur. Personal gain is an alternative measure only when loss cannot reasonably be determined.

Van Eman argued that approximately $20.9 million passed through his accounts and that he transferred approximately $20.7 million onward to projects. He therefore sought to focus on a retained amount below $200,000, which he claimed he legitimately earned. The court rejected that approach because personal enrichment was not the governing measure when victim loss could reasonably be estimated.

Three precedents supported the result:

United States v. Horn, 129 F.4th 1275 (11th Cir. 2025): Required a reasonable estimate grounded in reliable and specific evidence. The government’s financial evidence supplied that foundation.
United States v. McCrimmon, 362 F.3d 725 (11th Cir. 2004): Supported holding a recruiter accountable for the entire loss of the fraudulent scheme in which he participated, rather than only money he personally retained.
United States v. Gupta, 463 F.3d 1182 (11th Cir. 2006): Emphasized the sentencing court’s superior position to estimate loss from the evidence.

The financial expert traced more than $67 million in victim transfers into accounts that McConley emptied. Evidence concerning Adana’s approximately $28.6 million investment independently exceeded the enhancement’s $25 million threshold. Those figures should not be added together without determining overlap; the opinion used the Adana evidence as an independently sufficient threshold illustration.

The decision did not hold that every payment back to an investor is irrelevant to loss. It rejected Van Eman’s attempt to replace reasonably determinable victim loss with his asserted net personal gain. Nor did it equate the Guidelines loss figure with the separately imposed restitution amount.

3. Organizer-or-leader enhancement

The four-level enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(a) rested on Van Eman’s direction of another participant and the number of participants in the criminal activity.

United States v. Martinez, 584 F.3d 1022 (11th Cir. 2009), required control, influence, or decision-making authority over at least one other participant. Rafael’s testimony that Van Eman directed him to prepare false bank letters satisfied that requirement.

United States v. Holland, 22 F.3d 1040 (11th Cir. 1994), supported counting criminally responsible participants even if they had not been convicted. The panel identified more than five participants, including the principal conspirators and additional bankers and employees involved in the scheme.

United States v. Dixon, 901 F.3d 1322 (11th Cir. 2018), defeated Van Eman’s contention that McConley played the larger role: a criminal enterprise can have multiple leaders.

The relevant distinction is criminal responsibility, not merely employment or association. The ruling relied on the participants’ roles as established in the record, rather than a general proposition that everyone working for a fraudulent business counts toward the enhancement.

4. Obstruction through perjury

U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 permits a two-level enhancement for qualifying obstruction of justice. The court upheld the finding that Van Eman intentionally lied about material matters during his testimony.

United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87 (1993): Defined perjury as willfully false testimony about a material matter, excluding testimony attributable to confusion, mistake, or faulty memory.
United States v. Ram Kumar Singh, 291 F.3d 756 (11th Cir. 2002): Explained materiality through a statement’s tendency to influence the issue being decided and supported deference to trial-level credibility findings.
United States v. Lewis, 115 F.3d 1531 (11th Cir. 1997): Required findings encompassing the necessary predicates: testimony under oath, falsity, materiality, and intentional deception. A sufficiently comprehensive general finding can suffice.
United States v. Arguedas, 86 F.3d 1054 (11th Cir. 1996): Supported the framework governing adequate obstruction findings.
United States v. Gregg, 179 F.3d 1312 (11th Cir. 1999): Required substantial deference to the district court’s determination.

The sentencing court identified Van Eman’s denials of knowledge about McConley’s theft and Rafael’s termination. Other witnesses contradicted those denials, and his answers about authoring bank letters changed during cross-examination. The judge also observed his testimony firsthand.

The enhancement therefore rested on findings of intentional, material falsehood—not simply on the jury’s rejection of his defense. That distinction preserves the difference between exercising the right to testify and committing perjury.

H. Appellate Preservation Limited the Issues Decided

The panel declined to consider several issues because of how they were presented on appeal.

United States v. Moran, 778 F.3d 942 (11th Cir. 2015), supported treating arguments first raised in a reply brief as abandoned. Those arguments concerned venue, attribution of McConley’s conduct in restitution, an asserted violation of Weaver v. Massachusetts, 582 U.S. 286 (2017), and an asserted violation of Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 (1963).

Weaver v. Massachusetts and Brady v. Maryland were mentioned as bases for Van Eman’s belated claims, not applied to resolve their substance. The opinion establishes no merits ruling on either theory.

The court also rejected a perfunctory challenge concerning an excluded email from McConley to an attorney. Under Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 28(a)(8)(A) and Sapuppo v. Allstate Floridian Ins. Co., 739 F.3d 678 (11th Cir. 2014), passing references unsupported by record citations, developed argument, and authority do not preserve meaningful appellate review.

Finally, Van Eman conceded his objection to the sophisticated-means enhancement at sentencing. That enhancement was therefore not independently analyzed on appeal.

4. Potential Impact

Although unpublished and nonbinding, the opinion offers a useful account of how established rules interact in a complex fraud prosecution.

Defense disclosure is a substantive trial concern. A defendant’s lack of a burden to prove innocence does not excuse violating valid disclosure orders. Counsel should distinguish the prosecution’s burden of proof from the defense’s procedural obligations.
Civil litigation may become evidence of criminal knowledge. Repeated complaints and lawsuits can undermine claims of innocent reliance when the defendant continues the same transactions after receiving detailed warnings. Admission still requires attention to relevance, unfair prejudice, and limiting instructions.
Deliberate ignorance requires purposeful avoidance. The case supports instructions based on accumulated warnings and continued insulation from financial facts, not merely poor business judgment or a failure to investigate.
Actual-knowledge evidence can provide an alternative basis for affirmance. The opinion illustrates the importance of reviewing the instructions and evidence as a whole rather than isolating the deliberate-ignorance charge.
Fraud loss is not synonymous with personal profit. A recruiter who knowingly participates in a fraudulent enterprise may face substantial loss accountability even when another conspirator controls the accounts or receives more money.
Sentencing enhancements address distinct conduct. Directing another participant can support leadership; intentional material lies at trial can support obstruction. Neither requires the defendant to be the scheme’s sole leader or principal financial beneficiary.
Trial error and ineffective assistance remain separate inquiries. An evidentiary sanction may be lawful while counsel’s conduct still warrants later examination on a developed collateral record.

The decision should not be read as blanket approval of exclusionary sanctions, civil-case evidence, or inflammatory closing arguments. Each ruling depended on its specific evidentiary setting and applicable standard of review.

5. Complex Concepts Simplified

Deliberate ignorance: Consciously avoiding confirmation of a fact one believes is highly likely to be true. It is more than carelessness and can satisfy a knowledge requirement when the necessary conditions are proved.
Discovery sanction: A consequence for failing to disclose information as required. Excluding evidence is one available consequence, but its lawfulness depends on the rule and circumstances.
Demonstrative aid: A visual tool used to explain an argument or testimony. Permission to display a chart does not necessarily make the chart admitted evidence.
Unfair prejudice: A risk that evidence will prompt a decision on an improper basis, rather than simply make the opposing party’s position less convincing.
Preponderance of the evidence: The “more likely than not” standard used for the sentencing determinations discussed here and contrasted with the criminal trial’s higher burden.
Harmless error: An error that does not justify reversal under the governing prejudice standard. Different kinds of error carry different harmlessness tests.
Clear error: A demanding standard for overturning factual findings. A reasonable alternative view of the evidence is not enough.
Guidelines loss versus restitution: Guidelines loss helps determine the sentencing range; restitution orders compensation for qualifying victim losses. The figures need not be identical.
Collateral review under § 2255: A separate district-court proceeding through which a federal prisoner may challenge a conviction or sentence, often allowing factual development unavailable on direct appeal.

6. Conclusion

United States v. Jason Van Eman reinforces that defendants retain meaningful constitutional trial protections without an unlimited right to introduce undisclosed evidence or avoid the evidentiary consequences of repeated warnings.

The court sustained the convictions through both deliberate-ignorance reasoning and evidence of actual knowledge. It upheld sentencing based on victim loss, leadership, and specifically identified perjury, while leaving ineffective assistance for a properly developed record.

Its broader significance is practical rather than doctrinally novel: careful disclosure, precise limiting instructions, supported factual findings, and properly developed appellate arguments can determine the outcome of a complex fraud appeal.