From U.S. v. Abouammo, decided today by Ninth Circuit Judges Daniel Bress and Kenneth Lee and District Judge Yvette Kane (M.D. Pa.):
Ahmad Abouammo, an employee at the company then known as Twitter, allegedly provided confidential information about dissident Saudi Twitter users to a close associate of Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. In return, Abouammo received a lavish wristwatch and hundreds of thousands of dollars in payments from his Saudi contact. For his role in this arrangement and his efforts to cover it up, a jury convicted Abouammo for acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government or official, 18 U.S.C. § 951, conspiracy to commit wire and honest services fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1349, wire and honest services fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1346, international money laundering, 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(B)(i), and falsification of records to obstruct a federal investigation, 18 U.S.C. § 1519.
The court affirms Abouammo's conviction, concluding that there was enough evidence that he was acting on behalf of a foreign government official; that the statute of limitations hadn't run on the fraud and money laundering charges; and that there was no venue problem with the falsification of records charge. (Judge Lee concurred to say more as to venue.) Those discussions are long and technical, and you can read them in the full opinion. But here's the court's summary of the facts:
