Supreme Court Rules Federal Trial Is Where Crime Occurred

SEATTLE — The Supreme Court ruled unanimously in Abouammo v. United States that federal prosecutors may only try a defendant in the district where the crime was committed. This decision affirmed that venue is determined by the location of the prohibited act.

Justice Elena Kagan authored the nine-page unanimous opinion. The justices rejected a federal appeals court holding that the intent element of 18 U.S.C. § 1519 allows the government to prosecute a defendant based on the location of a federal investigation.

Ahmad Abouammo was convicted of falsifying an invoice on a computer in Seattle and emailing it to Federal Bureau of Investigation agents. Abouammo sought dismissal of the charge for improper venue, arguing that the statutory violation occurred upon the creation of the falsified document in Seattle. The court determined that the Western District of Washington was the legally proper venue for the trial.

“The only prohibited act in that statute is the falsification of a document,” Justice Elena Kagan wrote. “Once a person has committed that act (with the requisite intent), he need do nothing more to violate the law.”

Prosecutors allege Abouammo obtained private data on Saudi dissidents and provided it to a Saudi royal court official. In exchange, he allegedly received a luxury watch and three wire transfers of $100,000 each. The FBI opened an inquiry into unauthorized data access and dispatched two agents from Palo Alto to Seattle to interview Abouammo, who had moved to Seattle in 2015 to work as an independent social media consultant. Recovered metadata indicates Abouammo created a backdated $100,000 invoice while upstairs during the interview and subsequently emailed it to the agents.

“The trial for falsifying a document must take place where the defendant falsified the document,” Kagan wrote. “Here that was in Seattle, meaning in venue terms, the Western District of Washington. The trial should not have occurred in the Northern District of California because no conduct constituting the offense happened in that location.”