United States v. Reis and Hockridge, N.D. Tex. No. 4:24-cr-00287-O, Doc. 255: Government's opposition to Reis's motions to dismiss (venue; duplicity) (2025-07-21)
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The Government's opposition to defendant Nathan Reis's motions to dismiss, Document 255 in United States v. Nathan Reis (01), No. 4:24-CR-287-O, in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division, filed July 21, 2025. The Government opposes Reis's Motion to Dismiss for Improper Venue and his Renewed Motion to Dismiss Count One based on alleged duplicity. It argues that the motions are untimely because the deadline for filing pretrial motions was March 31, 2025, and that the claims are premature. The Government also argues that venue is supported in the Northern District of Texas, and requests that the Court deny both motions.
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“United States v. Reis and Hockridge, N.D. Tex. No. 4:24-cr-00287-O, Doc. 255: Government's opposition to Reis's motions to dismiss (venue; duplicity) (2025-07-21).”
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Case 4:24-cr-00287-O Document 255 Filed 07/21/25 Page 1 of 12 PageID 5307
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
NORTHERN DISTRICT OF TEXAS
FORT WORTH DIVISION
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
v. No. 4:24-CR-287-O
NATHAN REIS (01)
GOVERNMENT’S OPPOSITION TO DEFENDANT’S MOTIONS TO DISMISS
The United States, by and through the undersigned counsel, hereby opposes
defendant Nathan Reis’s Motion to Dismiss for Improper Venue, Dkt. 247, and Renewed
Motion to Dismiss Count One based on alleged duplicity, Dkt. 250, and, in support,
respectfully shows as follows:
I. Defendant’s motions should be denied because they are untimely.
The deadline for filing pretrial motions in this case was March 31, 2025. Dkt. 57.
On April 5, 2025, this Court permitted Reis’s counsel to withdraw, severed Reis’s trial
from the trial of his codefendant, and reset Reis’s trial for August 2025. Dkt. 119. On
April 6, 2025, Reis’s new counsel filed an unopposed motion to extend the remaining
pretrial deadlines that had not yet passed, including deadlines to designate experts, by
sixteen weeks to correspond with the continuance of Reis’s trial date. Dkt. 120. On April
7, 2025, this Court granted Reis’s motion in part, extending the deadlines for expert
designations and the meet-and-confer for the jury instructions but leaving in place
deadlines from the previous scheduling order. See Dkt. 121 (“The terms of the Original
Order shall continue to apply to the extent they are not inconsistent with this order.”).
Government’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss – Page 1
Case 4:24-cr-00287-O Document 255 Filed 07/21/25 Page 2 of 12 PageID 5308
The Court did not set a new deadline for motions to dismiss, which Reis could have filed
any time before the March 31, 2025, deadline. Because Reis filed his motion to dismiss
for lack of venue four months after the deadline, it is untimely and should be denied.
Meanwhile, the Court already denied Defendants’ joint motion to dismiss Count
One for duplicity after finding that the Defendants failed to carry their burden. Dkt. 137.
Reis seeks to renew his motion nearly three months later but once again fails to meet his
burden and fails to show why the Court should reconsider its prior decision. The Court
should therefore deny the motion to dismiss for alleged duplicity.
II. Defendant’s motions should also be denied because the claims are premature.
Courts routinely deny pretrial motions based on duplicity and venue because they
are premature. As to venue, “[w]hen considering a motion to dismiss based on improper
venue, the Court looks at the allegations made in the indictment and takes all well-
pleaded facts as true.” United States v. Sledziejowski, No. 3:16-cr-101-B, 2018 WL
1870082, at *2 (N.D. Tex. Feb. 15, 2018) (brackets omitted). “[I]f there is a facially
sufficient indictment, the Court cannot make venue determinations based on extrinsic
evidence in deciding a pre-trial motion.” Id. Thus, “as long as the indictment alleges
venue, a pretrial motion to dismiss based on contrary allegations by the defendant must
be denied.” Id.
As to duplicity, “[t]he question of whether the evidence establishes the existence
of a single conspiracy or multiple conspiracies is a question of fact for the jury,” United
States v. Shows Urquidi, 71 F.4th 357, 381 (5th Cir. 2023), and “[e]ven if the Court
determines that the indictment is duplicitous because it charges two or more separate and
Government’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss – Page 2
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distinct offenses in one count . . . this flaw does not require dismissal of the indictment.”
United States v. Simpson, No. 3:09-CR-249-D(06), 2011 WL 2880885, at *5 (N.D. Tex.
July 15, 2011) (quotation marks omitted) (emphasis omitted). “Rather, the Court may
require the government to elect the single count on which it plans to rely, and as long as
the evidence at trial is limited to only one of the charges in the duplicitous count, the
defendant’s challenge is likely to fail.” Id. (quotation marks omitted). “[T]he risk that the
jury will convict without unanimity on a single charge can be eliminated if the Court
instructs the jury that it must find unanimously that the defendant was guilty with respect
to at least one distinct act.” Id. (quotation marks omitted); see also United States v.
Creech, 408 F.3d 264, 268 (5th Cir. 2005) (“In the routine case, a general unanimity
instruction will ensure that the jury is unanimous on the factual basis for a conviction,
even where an indictment alleges numerous factual bases for criminal liability.”).
Here, the superseding indictment alleges that Defendant’s scheme involved
transactions with Lender-2, located in Bedford, Texas, and Bank-1, located in Happy,
Texas. Dkt. 163 at 2-3. Further, the Count One wire fraud conspiracy alleges that
Defendant’s crime occurred “in the Fort Worth Division of the Northern District of Texas
and elsewhere.” Dkt. 163 at 4. The substantive wire fraud charges in Counts Two through
Five similarly allege that Defendant’s crime occurred in the Northern District of Texas.
Dkt. 163 at 10. On its face, the superseding indictment properly alleges venue in the
Northern District of Texas. Accordingly, the Court should deny Defendant’s motions.
Government’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss – Page 3
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III. The law and the facts support venue in the Northern District of Texas.
Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss for Improper Venue is wrong on the law, because
venue is established when a defendant reaches into a district to commit a crime, and the
facts, because Defendant repeatedly reached into the Northern District of Texas as part of
his scheme to defraud the PPP. “When an offense is begun in one district and completed
in another, venue is proper in any district in which the offense was ‘begun, continued, or
completed.” United States v. Garcia Mendoza, 587 F.3d 682, 686 (5th Cir. 2009). “Venue
can be based on evidence of any single act that initiated, perpetuated, or completed the
crime, and circumstantial evidence suffices to establish venue.” Id. (citation omitted). “In
cases involving conspiracy offenses, venue is proper in any district where the agreement
was formed or an overt act occurred.” Id.
As to the nature of the overt act and whether it must be performed by a member of
the conspiracy physically in the district where the defendant was indicted, the Fifth
Circuit has observed:
The act must occur subsequent to the formation of the
conspiracy agreement and prior to or in completion of the
conspiratorial objective. It also must have been done in
furtherance of the accomplishment of that objective[.] No
distinctions are drawn based on the importance of the act to the
accomplishment of the objective or on the legality of the act.
A simple and commonplace legal activity may be sufficient,
even though the action may be one that would have been taken
in any event even had there been no illegal purpose. The act
can be that of a single conspirator or even an innocent
agent who is acting at his direction. The other conspirators
need not have counseled the commission of the act nor even
have been aware that it was to be done.
Government’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss – Page 4
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United States v. Perez, 223 F. App’x 336, 340-41 (5th Cir. 2007) (quoting 4 LaFave,
Israel & King, Criminal Procedure (2d Ed.1999), § 16.2(f) at 538) (emphasis added).
Contrary to Defendant’s assertion that Perez is somehow an outlier, courts
routinely find that venue has been established when a defendant reaches into a district to
commit a crime there. For example, in cases involving the enticement of minors, venue is
established in the district where the victims are located when defendants contact the
victims over e-mail or the telephone in furtherance of the crime, regardless of where the
defendants are located. See United States v. Rounds, 749 F.3d 326, 335-36 (5th Cir. 2014)
(venue established in Western District of Texas when defendant, who was in Houston,
communicated through phone calls and text messages with victim, who was in Odessa);
United States v. Pack, 255 F. Supp. 3d 695, 699 (S.D. Tex. 2017) (venue established in
Southern District of Texas when defendant, who was in San Antonio, communicated
through e-mail and messaging application with federal agent, who was in Laredo and
posing as a thirteen-year-old girl).
The calculus does not change when a defendant or his coconspirator reaches into a
district to direct the actions of an innocent third party in furtherance of a conspiracy. As
the Second Circuit has held, “When a conspirator uses a telephone call—by whomever
initiated—to further a criminal scheme, the conspirator effectively propels not only his
voice but the scheme itself beyond his own physical location into that of the person with
whom he is speaking.” United States v. Rommy, 506 F.3d 108, 122 (2d Cir. 2007). “The
conspirator’s commission of an overt act does not depend on whether the listener rather
than the conspirator initiates the conversation.” Id. “Nor does it matter whether the
Government’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss – Page 5
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listener is a confederate, an innocent third party, or an undercover agent.” Id. “What
matters is that the conspirator speaks, not to hear the sound of his own voice, but to
communicate to his listener because he thinks that, by doing so, he furthers a
conspiratorial goal.” Id. “Thus, the overt act may properly be understood to have
occurred at the site where the listener receives the conspirator’s message.” Id. The court
concluded that the conspirator’s “communication is a continuing act, supporting venue in
the district of its initiation as well as the district of its receipt.” Id.
Here, Defendant and his coconspirators chose to do business in the Northern
District of Texas by entering into the lender service provider agreement with Lender-2,
which allowed Defendant to further the conspiracy by, among other things, processing
fraudulent loans on behalf of Lender-2 and obtaining a percentage of the SBA fees paid
to Lender-2 for those loans. Defendant and his coconspirators repeatedly reached into this
district when they sent fraudulent PPP loans to Lender-2. Additionally, Defendant’s and
his coconspirators’ criminal conduct caused Bank-1 to send proceeds of fraudulent PPP
loans from this district. On top of all this, Defendant made communications in
furtherance of the conspiracy while he was physically present in this district. The
evidence at Defendant’s trial will be more than sufficient to establish venue for the Count
One conspiracy. 1
1
Confusingly, Defendant challenges venue only for Count One and not for the four substantive
wire fraud counts. See Dkt. 247. The conduct described in those counts is also alleged as part of
the Count One conspiracy. Dkt. 163 ¶¶ 17(d), (g)-(j). Defendant’s claims concerning venue fail
as to Count One and also as to the substantive counts.
Government’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss – Page 6
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To support his venue claims, Defendant cites United States v. Wieschenberg, 604
F.2d 326, 331 (5th Cir. 1979), for the proposition that, “‘[f]or a conviction of conspiracy,
there must be proof of . . . an overt act committed by one of the coconspirators in
furtherance of the conspiracy.’” Dkt. 247 at 3 (emphasis in Defendant’s motion).
Defendant extrapolates from this holding, stretching the text to support his argument. But
this case is consistent with the authority quoted above: By reaching into this district,
Defendant and his coconspirators performed overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy as
if they were physically present in the Northern District of Texas. See Rommy, 506 F.3d at
122 (“[T]he conspirator avails himself of modern technology to commit at long distance
the identical overt act that he would commit by being in the same room with a person and
whispering a conspiracy-furthering message directly into his listener’s ear.”).
IV. Defendant’s motion to dismiss based on duplicity is meritless.
“An indictment may be duplicitous if it joins in a single count two or more distinct
offenses.” United States v. Baytank (Houston), Inc., 934 F.2d 599, 608 (5th Cir. 1991).
“If an indictment is duplicitous and prejudice results, the conviction may be subject to
reversal.” Id. “[W]hen the indictment charges a conspiracy, it can allege in a single count
a conspiracy to commit several crimes without being duplicitous because ‘[t]he
conspiracy is the crime, and that is one, however diverse its objects.’” Simpson, 2011 WL
2880885, at *5 (quoting United States v. Lyons, 703 F.2d 815, 821 (5th Cir. 1983)).
“In considering whether one or multiple conspiracies exist, the principal factors
are (1) the existence of a common goal, (2) the nature of the scheme, and (3) overlapping
of participants in the various dealings.” United States v. Faulkner, 17 F.3d 745, 761 (5th
Government’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss – Page 7
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Cir. 1994). “Because one conspiracy may have many illegal objectives, it will necessarily
involve a number of sub-agreements to commit each of these specified objectives.” Id. at
760. “Some members may concur in only some of the many objectives, yet they are liable
for all because there is but one scheme, one enterprise, one conspiratorial web.” Id.; see
United States v. Calderon, 127 F.3d 1314, 1329 (11th Cir. 1997) (“It is often possible . . .
to divide a single conspiracy into sub-agreements. This does not, however, mean that
more than one conspiracy exists.”) (ellipsis omitted).
Defendant’s duplicity and multiple conspiracy claims are flawed for several
reasons. First, Defendant’s portrayal of the scheme as occurring in demarcated episodes
with clearly defined bookends is inconsistent with the evidence. Throughout the rounds
of PPP lending, Defendant’s scheme involved his and his coconspirators’ theft of the
same funds (PPP loan proceeds), many of the same coconspirators (Defendant himself, as
well as coconspirators such as Stephanie Hockridge, James Flores, Michael Cota, Vivian
Arriaga, and Coconspirator-2), and submission of the same types of false and fabricated
financial and tax documents. Indeed, in some instances, they were the exact same
falsified documents used to support loans in 2020 and 2021. The conspiracy also used
Lender-1 in both 2020 and 2021. And the government will prove at Defendant’s trial, as
it proved at Hockridge’s trial, that both Defendant and Hockridge were involved in the
conspiracy throughout 2020 and 2021, not one or the other in distinct “phases” as
Defendant suggests.
Defendant also exaggerates the differences in the PPP between 2020 and 2021.
While there were some changes that allowed Defendant’s conspiracy to be more
Government’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss – Page 8
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successful in 2021, the basic tenets remained the same. The program was designed to
help qualified applicants meet their payroll needs if they demonstrated eligibility through
information and supporting documents, which were required to be truthful and accurate.
Indeed, the PPP allowed borrowers who did not apply in 2020 to get a “first draw” in the
2021 phase and then come back and get a “second draw” in the same phase. In addition,
during the period after the first round of lending, Defendant and his coconspirators did
not sit idly by but instead prepared to commit more fraud during the second round. The
evidence will show—as it did at Hockridge’s trial—that Defendant and his
coconspirators expected Congress to authorize another PPP round and took steps in
anticipation of it, including by, among other things, negotiating a lender service provider
agreement with Lender-1 in October 2020 and recruiting Eric Karnezis to work with
Hockridge as part of VIPPP in December 2020. That Defendant’s scheme evolved over
time to more efficiently steal PPP funds does not mean that Count One is duplicitous or
that he and his coconspirators committed multiple conspiracies. See Faulkner, 17 F.3d at
760. Count One correctly charges one conspiracy.
Nor is Count One unconstitutionally vague. It alleges a conspiracy to obtain
fraudulent PPP funds and then describes the various methods Defendant and his
coconspirators used to accomplish that goal, including through VIPPP, which it explicitly
describes. Dkt. 163 at 6. “The purpose of an indictment is to allege each essential element
of the offense charged so as to enable the accused to prepare his defense and to allow the
accused to invoke the double jeopardy clause in any subsequent proceeding.” United
States v. Lawrence, 727 F.3d 386, 397 (5th Cir. 2013) (quotation marks omitted). “Thus,
Government’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss – Page 9
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an indictment is sufficient if it contains the elements of the offense charged and fairly
informs the defendant of the charge against which he must defend.” Id. (quotation marks
omitted). The superseding indictment against Defendant does exactly that, and
Defendant’s mere disagreement with the allegations in Count One is insufficient to
establish a constitutional defect. See United States v. Rafoi, 60 F.4th 982, 994 (5th Cir.
2023) (“[A] defendant may not properly challenge an indictment, sufficient on its face,
on the ground that the allegations are not supported by adequate evidence, for an
indictment returned by a legally constituted and unbiased grand jury, if valid on its face,
is enough to call for trial of the charge on the merits.”).
CONCLUSION
For the foregoing reasons, the government respectfully requests that the Court
deny Defendant’s Motion to Dismiss for Improper Venue, Dkt. 247, and Motion to
Dismiss based on duplicity. Dkt. 248.
Respectfully submitted,
NANCY E. LARSON MARGARET A. MOESER
ACTING UNITED STATES ATTORNEY CHIEF, MONEY LAUNDERING &
ASSET RECOVERY SECTION
s/ Matthew Weybrecht Criminal Division, U.S. Department of
MATTHEW WEYBRECHT Justice
Assistant United States Attorney
State Bar of Texas No. 24102642 s/ Elizabeth R. Carr
Telephone: 817-252-5200 ELIZABETH R. CARR
Fax: 817-252-5455 RYAN MCLAREN
matthew.weybrecht@usdoj.gov Trial Attorneys
Money Laundering and Asset Recovery
LORINDA I. LARYEA Section
Acting Chief, Fraud Section U.S. Department of Justice
Government’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss – Page 10
Case 4:24-cr-00287-O Document 255 Filed 07/21/25 Page 11 of 12 PageID 5317
s/ Philip Trout
PHILIP TROUT
Acting Assistant Chief
Fraud Section
U.S. Department of Justice
Government’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss – Page 11
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE
I hereby certify that on July 21, 2025, I electronically filed the foregoing
document with the clerk for the U.S. District Court, Northern District of Texas, using the
electronic case filing system of the court. The electronic case filing system sent a “Notice
of Electronic Filing” to the attorney(s) of record who have consented in writing to accept
this Notice as service of this document by electronic means.
s/ Philip Trout
PHILIP TROUT
Acting Assistant Chief
Government’s Opposition to Defendant’s Motions to Dismiss – Page 12
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