USCA4 Appeal: 20-4019 Doc: 67 Filed: 06/30/2022 Pg: 1 of 29 PUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 20-4019 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. LEE ELBAZ, a/k/a Lena Green, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Greenbelt. Theodore D. Chuang, District Judge. (8:18-cr-00157-TDC-1) Argued: December 9, 2021 Decided: June 30, 2022 Before RICHARDSON, RUSHING, Circuit Judges, and TRAXLER, Senior Circuit Judge. Affirmed in part, vacated in part, and remanded by published opinion. Judge Richardson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Rushing and Senior Judge Traxler joined. ARGUED: Eric Joseph Brignac, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. James I. Pearce, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. ON BRIEF: G. Alan DuBois, Federal Public Defender, Jennifer C. Leisten, Assistant Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUBLIC DEFENDER, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellant. Nicholas A. McQuaid, Acting Assistant Attorney General, Robert A. Zink, Acting Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Caitlin R. Cottingham, Assistant Chief, Fraud USCA4 Appeal: 20-4019 Doc: 67 Filed: 06/30/2022 Pg: 2 of 29 Section, Criminal Division, UNITED STATES DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE, Washington, D.C., for Appellee. 2 USCA4 Appeal: 20-4019 Doc: 67 Filed: 06/30/2022 Pg: 3 of 29 RICHARDSON, Circuit Judge: Lee Elbaz and her confederates orchestrated a multimillion-dollar fraud scheme, operating from Israel and targeting unsophisticated victims worldwide. Posing as an investment firm, Elbaz and her partners solicited “investments” that cost fraud victims over $100 million, including millions from victims in the United States. While vacationing in New York, Elbaz was arrested and later convicted for conspiring to commit wire fraud and for substantive wire fraud itself. She was sentenced to 22 years in prison and required to pay $28 million in restitution. Elbaz argues that the wire-fraud statute does not apply to her extraterritorial conduct, so she did not commit a crime under United States law. She also argues that the district court committed two procedural errors warranting a new trial: refusing to compel immunity for witnesses she planned to call and refusing to grant a mistrial after a juror overheard a disparaging remark about Elbaz. And, finally, she raises several challenges to her sentence. We reject most of these challenges. While the wire-fraud statute does not apply extraterritorially, the focus of the statute is on misuse of American wires. As her conduct misused American wires, she was properly prosecuted for a domestic offense. And the district judge properly refused to compel immunity to witnesses and denied a mistrial. But while we reject most of Elbaz’s alleged sentencing errors, we agree the district court erred in imposing broad restitution that went beyond victims of domestic wire fraud. 3 USCA4 Appeal: 20-4019 Doc: 67 Filed: 06/30/2022 Pg: 4 of 29 I. Factual Background and Procedural Posture A. The Fraud Elbaz and her partners’ fraud scheme involved so-called “binary options.” These all-or-nothing options place a bet on the price of an asset at a certain time. And …
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