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IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE SOUTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, )
)
Plaintiff, )
)
vs. ) Case No. 24-CR-30153
)
DANA C. HOWARD, RICHARD )
SCOTT MYERS, and GLENN )
SUNQUIST, )
Defendants.
MEMORANDUM AND ORDER
This matter is before the Court on Defendant Dana Howard’s motion to sever his
case from that of his codefendant Richard Scott Myers pursuant to Federal Rule of
Criminal Procedure 14(a). (Doc. 70). The United States has filed a brief in opposition.
(Doc. 91). The Court heard oral argument from the parties on May 14, 2026. For the
reasons that follow, the motion to sever is DENIED.
I. BACKGROUND
On November 20, 2024, Howard, Myers, and Sunquist were named as co-
defendants in a 13-count indictment. According to the indictment, Howard and Myers
were co-owners of Zoie LLC (“Zoie”) and Zade Trucking (“Zade”). Sunquist was an
employee hired to handle bookkeeping for the businesses.
The indictment alleges that, beginning in approximately April 2020, Howard and
Myers conspired to defraud the United States and the Small Business Administration.
They allegedly obtained a Paycheck Protection Program (“PPP”) loan of approximately
$1.426 million through false representations and then misused and diverted the loan
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proceeds. Specifically, Howard and Myers are accused of participating in a scheme to
secure and misuse the PPP funds and to conceal their use of those proceeds through
various financial transactions and bankruptcy filings. The defendants allegedly prepared
and executed the PPP loan application and related certifications, received the funds into
accounts controlled by their companies, converted the proceeds into cashier’s checks and
other transfers, and later submitted requests for loan forgiveness while hiding how the
money had actually been used. The indictment further claims that both Howard and
Myers initiated bankruptcy proceedings while still in possession of PPP-derived funds
and made false statements in those proceedings concerning their assets and bankruptcy
status.
The charges are as follows: Counts 1 through 3 charge all three defendants with
conspiracy to commit wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1349) and wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343).
Count 4 charges Howard and Myers with making a false statement (18 U.S.C. §
1001(a)(2)). Count 5 charges Myers with engaging in a monetary transaction involving
funds derived from specified unlawful activity (18 U.S.C. § 1957). Counts 6 through 8
charge Myers with bankruptcy fraud under 18 U.S.C. § 152(3) (Counts 6 and 7) and §
152(2) (Count 8). Counts 9 and 10 charge Howard with bankruptcy fraud under 18 U.S.C.
§ 152(3) (Count 9) and § 152(2) (Count 10). Finally, Counts 11 through 13 charge Howard
with willful failure to pay over Federal employee withholding taxes (“FICA” taxes) for
three quarters in 2020. (26 U.S.C. § 7202).
Howard argues that a joint trial would create a serious risk of unfair prejudice. He
contends that significant evidence relates exclusively or primarily to Myers’s conduct,
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conduct of which Howard claims he was unaware, such that neither limiting instructions
nor redactions would adequately protect him. The Government opposes severance,
asserting that the indictment describes a single, coordinated scheme centered on the same
PPP loan, the same financial transactions, and the same set of records. Given the
substantial overlap in the evidence against each defendant, the Government maintains
that any potential prejudice can be addressed through standard trial safeguards and that
the motion for separate trials should therefore be denied.
II. LEGAL STANDARD
The decision whether to grant a motion for severance rests within the sound
discretion of the trial court and is reviewed only for abuse of discretion. United States v.
McClurge, 311 F.3d 866, 871 (7th Cir. 2002); United States v. Stokes, 211 F.3d 1039, 1042 (7th
Cir. 2000); United States v. Edwards, 36 F.3d 639, 647 (7th Cir. 1994).
Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 8(b) authorizes charging more than one
defendant in an indictment so long as the defendants “are alleged to have participated in
the same act or transaction, or in the same series of acts or transactions, constituting an
offense or offenses.” FED. R. CRIM. P. 8(b). A “precise overlap in alleged misconduct” is
not required. United States v. Barton, No. 1:19-CR-00733, 2021 WL 3800171 (N.D. Ill. Aug.
26, 2021). “Instead, Rule 8(b) is broader, allowing joinder of defendants if they
‘participated’ in the same ‘series of acts or transactions, constituting an offense or
offenses.’” Id. FED. R. CRIM. P. 8(b).
However, Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 14(a) provides, “If the joinder
of...defendants in an indictment...or a consolidation for trial appears to prejudice
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a defendant or the government, the court may...sever the defendants’ trials, or provide
any other relief that justice requires.” FED. R. CRIM. P. 14(a). Working together, “Rules
8(b) and 14 are designed ‘to promote economy and efficiency and to avoid a multiplicity
of trials, [so long as] these objectives can be achieved without substantial prejudice to the
right of the defendants to a fair trial.’ ” Zafiro, 506 U.S. at 540 (quoting Bruton v. United
States, 391 U.S. 123, 131 n. 6 (1968) (internal quotations omitted)).
“In conspiracy cases, ‘there is a strong interest in trying defendants who have been
jointly indicted in a single trial.’” United States v. McClurge, 311 F.3d 866, 871 (7th Cir.
2002) (quoting United States v. Blassingame, 197 F.3d 271, 286 (7th Cir.1999)). A single trial
is preferred “because joint trials reduce the burdens on the judiciary, prosecutors, and
witnesses, because of the extra expenses incurred in two trials, and because they reduce
the chance that each defendant will attempt to create reasonable doubt by blaming an
absent coconspirator.” Id.
A defendant seeking severance bears the heavy burden of demonstrating actual
prejudice; that is, that “there is a serious risk that a joint trial would compromise a specific
trial right of one of the defendants, or prevent the jury from making a reliable judgment
about guilt or innocence.” Zafiro v. United States, 506 U.S. 534, 539 (1993). See also Edwards,
36 F.3d at 647 (“Actual prejudice means that the defendant could not have a fair trial
without severance, not merely that a separate trial would offer him a better chance of
acquittal.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
To prevail on a claim of prejudice based on disparities in the evidence or
evidentiary spillover, a criminal defendant must rebut the presumptions that a jury will:
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(1) capably sort through the evidence and (2) adhere to the Court’s instructions to
consider each defendant separately. United States v. Edwards, 36 F.3d 639, 647 (7th Cir.
1994); United States v. Smith, 995 F.2d 662, 671 (7th Cir.1993). “Mere speculation of ‘spill
over guilt’ is not enough to rebut these twin presumptions.” United States v. Lopez, 6 F.3d
1281, 1286 (7th Cir. 1993) (citing United States v. Doerr, 886 F.2d 944, 972 (7th Cir.1989)).
Even where some risk of prejudice exists, courts presume that properly instructed
juries will follow clear limiting instructions directing them to consider the evidence
separately as to each defendant and each count, and to decide each defendant’s guilt or
innocence solely on the evidence admissible against him. See United States v. Garvey, 693
F.3d 722, 726 (7th Cir. 2012); McClurge, 311 F.3d at 873 (quoting Zafiro, 506 U.S. at 540–41).
III. ANALYSIS
Howard does not contend that he and Myers are improperly joined under Rule
8(b). 1 He argues that severance is required under Rule 14(a). The Court disagrees.
Howard’s motion rests on the assertion that certain allegations against Myers, such as his
use of the conspiracy proceeds to acquire a home, his use of the conspiracy proceeds to
obtain a $100,000 cashier’s check, and his presentation of falsified expenses to a bank loan
officer, do not involve Howard and that he had no knowledge of those transactions. The
fact that a defendant was not aware of every step his co-conspirators took in furtherance
1 Nor could he. The indictment charges Defendants with conspiring with each other to defraud the United
States and the Small Business Administration by obtaining and misusing a PPP loan. Count 1 of the
indictment, which charges all three defendants, details the alleged conspiracy, including allegations that
Howard was aware of and participated in the overall scheme even though he did not participate personally
in each step of the scheme. See, e.g., United States v. Warner, 498 F.3d 666, 699 (7th Cir. 2007) (“Rule 8(b) is
satisfied when the defendants are charged with crimes that well up out of the same series of such acts, but
they need not be the same crimes.”) (internal quotation marks omitted).
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of the conspiracy does not create the severe prejudice required for severance. The conduct
Howard attributes solely to Myers concerns transactions involving the same funds
generated by the charged money-laundering conspiracy. Evidence of those transactions
is therefore relevant to proving the existence and scope of the conspiracy itself and how
the funds were dispensed and is admissible against Howard. See Warner, 498 F.3d at 701
(“evidence of one participant’s actions in furtherance of a scheme to defraud is admissible
against the other participants in that scheme, just as it is in a conspiracy case.”); United
States v. Adeniji, 221 F.3d 1020, 1027 (7th Cir. 2000) (“evidence established a single scheme
to defraud Motorola irrespective of whether or not Adediran and Allismith knew exactly
what the other was doing.”).
Further, defendants are not entitled to separate trials merely because the evidence
against one is more substantial than the evidence against another, nor because a co-
defendant faces additional allegations. United States v. Goines, 988 F.2d 750, 759 (7th Cir.
1993); United States v. Morales, 655 F.3d 608, 626 (7th Cir. 2011). The Seventh Circuit has
rejected severance arguments in conspiracy cases even where the disparity in alleged
involvement was greater than the disparity alleged here. See e.g., United States v. Morales,
655 F.3d 608, 625-26 (7th Cir. 2011). The risk of “spillover” prejudice that Howard points
to is the type of ordinary disparity that routinely arises in multi-defendant conspiracy
prosecutions and does not, by itself, justify severance.
Any risk of prejudice is cured by the standard limiting instructions the Court will
give. The jury will be instructed on the elements of each offense, the requirement that the
government prove Howard’s knowing participation in the conspiracy, and the obligation
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to give separate consideration to the evidence against each defendant. Such instructions
have been held sufficient to cure potential prejudice arising from overlapping evidence
in conspiracy cases. See Goines, 988 F.2d at 781; McClurge, 311 F.3d at 873; Edwards, 36 F.3d
at 648.
Finally, the motion suggests the trial could trigger concerns under Bruton v. United
States, 391 U.S. 123 (1968). Howard, however, does not identify any specific statement,
and as noted by the Government, if such issues arise, they can be addressed through
redaction and other trial management techniques. See United States v. Hoover, 246 F.3d
1054, 1060-61 (7th Cir. 2001).
IV. CONCLUSION
For these reasons, Defendant Dana Howard’s motion to sever his case from that of
his codefendant Richard Scott Myers pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure
14(a) (Doc. 70) is DENIED.
SO ORDERED.
Dated: May 28, 2026 Judge Digitally signed
by Judge Dugan
Date: 2026.05.28
Dugan 22:55:51 -05'00'
______________________________
DAVID W. DUGAN
United States District Judge
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