On January 30, 2017, the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey dismissed the government’s indictment against Guy Gentile for a pump-and-dump securities fraud scheme. After his arrest Gentile admitted to having engaged in the scheme and agreed to cooperate, which included signing two tolling agreements, each extending the statute of limitations for one year. In dismissing the indictments, the court held that the tolling agreements were invalid and the applicable statute of limitations for securities fraud was five years, not six years.
According to the opinion, Gentile engaged in a securities fraud scheme that indisputably ended in June 2008, at which time the statute of limitations for securities fraud was five years. In 2010, however, the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act extended the statute of limitations to six years for certain criminal securities fraud violations. Gentile was charged on June 25, 2012 and arrested on July 13, 2012, i.e. four years after the criminal conduct. Under interrogation, Gentile admitted to the fraud and agreed to cooperate with the government. Gentile entered into a tolling agreement with the government that tolled the limitations period from July 31, 2012 through July 31, 2013. Gentile subsequently signed a second tolling agreement, tolling the limitations period from July 31, 2013 through July 31, 2014. Gentile, however, refused to sign a third tolling agreement because he wanted all cooperation and criminal actions to be concluded by June 30, 2015. Critically, when entering the tolling agreements, both the government and Gentile assumed the statute of limitations was five years (the limitations period in effect at the time of the criminal conduct) and not six years (the limitations period in effect at the time of the arrest). Accordingly, at the time that the second tolling agreement expired, the government would have had to indict Gentile prior to July 31, 2015.
Unable to reach a plea deal, the government indicted Gentile in March 2016 and Gentile moved to dismiss. If the statute of limitations had been six years, the second tolling agreement would have presumably given the government until July 31, 2016 to indict. The court, however, disagreed. The court first found that, “limited to the specific facts of this case,” the tolling agreements were invalid because Gentile did not have a full understanding of the waiver. Slip Op. at 6. The court reasoned that “the waivers were executed unknowingly since Defendant clearly thought he was extending his exposure to criminal prosecution by two years when in fact, if the statute of limitations was six years, he was extending the period of exposure by three years.” Slip Op. at 7. That misunderstanding rendered the waivers invalid, with the effect that the statute of limitations was not tolled. Without a toll, the government’s deadline to indict was either June 30, 2013 (under the five-year limitations period) or June 30, 2014 (under the six-year limitations period). In either event, the March 2016 indictment was untimely.
After holding that the defendant’s ignorance of the potential six-year limitations period rendered the tolling agreements invalid, the court then held that the applicable statute of limitations is in fact five years, i.e., exactly what the Gentile had thought when he entered the tolling agreements. The court relied on the presumption against retroactivity absent express congressional intent. Since the applicable section of the Dodd-Frank act “contains no discussion nor mention of retroactivity, let alone clear intent that Congress intended th[e] section to apply to crimes committed prior to its enactment[,]” the six-year limitations period is not retroactive. Because the applicable statute of limitations was five years, even if the tolling agreements were valid, the indictment was untimely, as the tolling agreements would have only extended the statute of limitations until June 30, 2015.