United States v. Miroslaw Krejza

In the

United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit ____________________

No. 25-1770 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee, v.

MIROSLAW KREZJA,

Defendant-Appellant.

____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the

Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:19-cr-00226-9 — Virginia M. Kendall, Chief Judge.

____________________

ARGUED DECEMBER 8, 2025 — DECIDED AUGUST 18, 2026

____________________ Before ROVNER, JACKSON-AKIWUMI, and MALDONADO, Cir- cuit Judges.

JACKSON-AKIWUMI, Circuit Judge. Miroslaw Krezja was ac- cused of participating in a multi-year scheme which ulti- mately caused the collapse of Washington Federal Bank for Savings. Pursuant to the scheme, Krezja and other known as- sociates of the bank’s then-president received millions of dol- lars from the bank in the form of commercial real estate loans. Those loans were often insufficiently secured, improperly documented, and intentionally hidden from regulatory offi- cials. After a multi-week trial, a jury convicted Krezja of con- spiracy and aiding and abetting embezzlement. Krezja now challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain his con- victions and several of the district court’s evidentiary deci- sions. Because we find no reversible error, we affirm.

I

A. The Charged Scheme Washington Federal Bank for Savings (WFBS) was a fed- erally insured bank headquartered in Chicago. WFBS was regulated by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), which conducted on-site examinations of the bank every eighteen months. During the period relevant to this ap- peal, WFBS maintained a portfolio of residential and commer- cial real estate loans, including construction loans issued to developers throughout Chicago. At some point, at the direc- tion of then-bank president John Gembara, senior bank offi- cials started manipulating WFBS’s lending operations to ben- efit a select group of borrowers known as “friends of Gem- bara.” Those favored borrowers received accommodations unavailable to ordinary customers, including repeated pay- ment extensions, continued loan advances despite loan non- performance, and protection from collection and regulatory scrutiny. Miroslaw Krezja was among that group of favored borrowers.

Between 2005 and 2007, WFBS issued Krezja four residen- tial construction loans secured by three Chicago properties: 4207 N. Lawndale Avenue, 3135 N. Spaulding Avenue, and 2020 N. Tripp Avenue. At the time they were issued, the loans functioned consistent with industry standards: WFBS issued the loans and created loan files, the parties executed promis- sory notes, and Krezja pledged collateral and began construc- tion on the properties.

But the loans stopped functioning as traditional construc- tion loans sometime after the real estate market collapsed in 2008. WFBS insiders began to conceal the true condition of Krezja’s loans by manipulating accounting entries, altering loan files, and creating artificial banking records to prevent regulators from learning the truth. By 2017, the outstanding balance on Krezja’s loans totaled approximately $5.9 million, while the collective appraised value of the collateral stood at only $1.9 million. But that reality was not reflected in WFBS’s records, which were altered to create the appearance that those loans were performing. The OCC eventually learned the true status of WFBS’s loans, but by then it was too late.

During a 2017 examination, OCC examiners—led by Ex- aminer-in-Charge Billy Lyons—discovered that WFBS had supplied them with inaccurate information that omitted loans to the “friends of Gembara.” Examiners then determined that loan distributions to members of that group, including Krezja, had exceeded the amounts stated in the corresponding prom- issory notes, without adequate collateral. At some point dur- ing that OCC examination, the true status of the bank became clear and it failed, leaving approximately $67 million in non- performing loans. Lyons and his team subsequently prepared a memorandum summarizing the loan files associated with four of Krezja’s loan numbers and directing the WFBS Board of Directors to deem $4,018,928 of those loans uncollectible.

After WFBS’s failure, the Federal Deposit Insurance Cor- poration (FDIC) was appointed receiver and ultimately suf- fered a loss calculated at approximately $140 million. During a February 2018 interview, Krezja submitted an Affidavit of Financial Condition to the FDIC indicating that he had not re- ceived funds from the bank after 2011 and misrepresenting the extent of his travel during the conspiracy.

B. Pretrial Proceedings In 2021, a grand jury charged Krezja and several other in- dividuals with committing offenses related to the alleged lending scheme from 2004 until 2018. The indictment charged Krezja specifically with conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, and aiding and abetting embezzlement under 18 U.S.C. §§ 656 and 2. The conspiracy count alleged two objects: em- bezzlement in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 656; and false entries and related recordkeeping offenses in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1005. In essence, the indictment alleged that Krezja know- ingly participated in a scheme through which bank insiders diverted funds from WFBS while concealing the true condi- tion of the loans from regulators and auditors.

Krezja moved to admit evidence that, between 1999 and 2006, he had obtained and fully repaid four earlier WFBS con- struction loans on other properties. He argued that those re- payments were probative of his lack of fraudulent intent as to the later loans. The government opposed the motion, arguing the earlier loans differed materially from the loans at issue. The government noted the earlier loans were fully repaid, the properties were completed and sold, the disbursements did not exceed the amounts secured by the corresponding mort- gages, and the surviving payment records for the earlier loans were incomplete. The district court agreed and excluded the evidence.

C. Trial During a ten-day trial in 2023, the parties litigated several evidentiary disputes and offered very different accounts of Krezja’s relationship with WFBS and the status of his loans. The government sought to introduce evidence concerning OCC examinations, the broader condition of WFBS, other fa- vored borrowers, and WFBS’s eventual collapse. The district court admitted the evidence over Krezja’s objection that much of the proposed evidence was irrelevant and unduly prejudi- cial.

The government presented documentary evidence from WFBS’s loan files and testimony from former bank employ- ees, regulators, and cooperating witnesses to prove that the loans WFBS provided to Krezja were vehicles for embezzle- ment rather than genuine commercial transactions. The gov- ernment also introduced evidence showing that construction activity slowed on Krezja’s projects before ceasing altogether. Government witnesses described partially completed homes, deteriorating properties, prolonged delays, a lack of meaning- ful progress on the projects, and Krezja’s refusal to sell the properties—all during the same period Krezja received ad- vances from the bank. The government additionally high- lighted that Krezja’s balances increased (due to disburse- ments) during the same period that his repayment activity re- mained minimal. Meanwhile, the evidence showed, Krezja used some of the disbursement money for international travel, car payments, and other personal expenses, instead of construction costs. According to the government, ordinary commercial lenders would have stopped funding Krezja’s projects, declared defaults, or initiated collection efforts. Instead, it argued, WFBS insiders repeatedly intervened to continue funding Krezja’s projects and shield them from scru- tiny.

The defense offered a different view—that the evidence showed, at most, WFBS’s imprudent lending decisions and Krezja’s failure to repay loans during a severe real estate downturn. According to the defense, Krezja’s projects were casualties of the economic collapse that affected real estate de- velopers nationwide. The defense argued that construction delays, declining property values, and loan extensions were common features of the post-2008 market and did not estab- lish criminal conduct. The defense also maintained that Krezja’s projects were delayed due to the poor quality of his construction materials (another common issue in the real es- tate industry), which became the subject of separate litigation.

After hearing from both sides, the jury convicted Krezja on both counts.

D. Post-trial Motions Following the jury’s verdict, Krezja moved for a judgment of acquittal pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29. He argued that the evidence was insufficient to establish either the charged conspiracy or the substantive embezzle- ment offense. In particular, he contended that the government failed to prove embezzlement as opposed to imprudent or preferential lending, failed to establish that he knowingly joined any conspiracy, and failed to prove the intent required for aiding and abetting liability.

Krezja also moved for a new trial pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33 on two grounds. First, he argued that the jury’s verdict was contrary to the weight of the evidence. Second, he challenged several of the district court’s evidentiary decisions. Namely, the court’s admission of evi- dence and testimony related to the OCC’s examination of WFBS; admission of evidence related to the bank’s failure; and its exclusion of evidence that he repaid his prior loans with WFBS. Krezja argued that these decisions were errors that deprived him of a fair trial.

The district court denied both motions. As to Krezja’s Rule 29 motion, the court concluded that the evidence, viewed in the light most favorable to the government, permitted a ra- tional jury to find the essential elements of the charged of- fenses beyond a reasonable doubt. In rendering its decision, the court recounted evidence showing WFBS continuously advanced loans on Krezja’s failing projects, and that insiders concealed Krezja’s delinquent loans and manipulated docu- ments. In addition, the court highlighted testimony that a promissory note associated with one of Krezja’s projects had been created after the fact. As to Krezja’s aiding and abetting charge, the court concluded that the verdict was proper be- cause the offense did not require Gembara to have personally benefitted from the funds and instead “requires only the fraudulent conversion or appropriation of property by a per- son in lawful possession of the property with an intent to de- fraud or injure.” With respect to Krezja’s Rule 33 motion, the court concluded that the challenged evidentiary rulings fell within its broad discretion and reaffirmed its prior relevance determinations. The court further determined that any poten- tial errors did not prejudice Krezja or otherwise result in a miscarriage of justice warranting a new trial. Krezja now ap- peals.

II

Krezja presents multiple issues on appeal. First, he argues that the government’s trial evidence departed from the indict- ment such that he lacked notice of the charges against him. Second, he contends that the government’s evidence was in- sufficient to sustain his convictions. Third, Krezja raises sev- eral evidentiary challenges. He challenges the district court’s exclusion of his prior loan repayment evidence, as well as its admission of OCC examination testimony and exhibits, and evidence relating to WFBS’s collapse and the FDIC’s corre- sponding losses. We address each argument in turn.

A. Variance or Constructive Amendment Krezja argues that the government proved a materially different scheme at trial than the one the grand jury charged him with. As Krezja sees it, the government charged a con- spiracy involving embezzlement and false entries but trans- formed his trial into a sweeping examination of corruption, irresponsible lending practices, and institutional dysfunction at WFBS. This shift invited the jury to convict him, he says, based on broader conduct and not the charged offenses. Be- cause Krezja did not develop this argument below, we review his claim for plain error. United States v. Scheuneman, 712 F.3d 372, 378–79 (7th Cir. 2013).

At times Krezja labels the problem—the divergence be- tween the government’s indictment and its proof at trial—a “fatal variance.” But elsewhere in his briefs he argues that the government “effectively amended the Indictment.” The dif- ference between a constructive amendment of an indictment and a variance can be significant. United States v. Heon Seok Lee, 937 F.3d 797, 806 (7th Cir. 2019). In a constructive amendment, the government has presented evidence to sup- port an offense not alleged in the indictment, or the court has instructed the jury to find an offense not alleged in the indict- ment. Id. A constructive amendment of the indictment is a per se reversible error because the Fifth Amendment “limits the available bases for conviction to those contained in the indict- ment.” United States v. Willoughby, 27 F.3d 263, 266 (7th Cir. 1994). A variance, on the other hand, refers to a situation where the government has proved the same crime alleged in the indictment, but using facts materially different from those set forth in the indictment. United States v. Ratliff-White, 493 F.3d 812, 820 (7th Cir. 2007). A variance is only fatal if the de- fendant can demonstrate prejudice “because he cannot antic- ipate from the indictment what evidence will be presented against him or [he] is exposed to the risk of double jeopardy.” Id. (citation omitted).

Krezja’s contention, whether it alleges a fatal variance or a constructive amendment of the indictment, overstates the rec- ord. The indictment alleged a scheme through which Krezja and other favored borrowers received disbursements from nonviable loans that bank insiders concealed by manipulating records, recreating documents, and misleading regulators. The indictment alleged that insiders at WFBS embezzled bank funds by advancing purported real estate loans to Krezja and others without expectation of repayment.

The government’s proof tracked that theory throughout trial. The government presented evidence that Krezja contin- ued to receive disbursements long after his loans were no longer in good standing. It also showed that he signed post- dated documentation related to his loans and possessed documents reflecting payments on his loans that he had never made.

The record additionally revealed that Krezja’s loans were not isolated lending irregularities but rather part of a broader scheme through which WFBS insiders artificially maintained favored borrowers’ failing loans. The government’s theory— that favored borrowers benefitted from noncompliant loans that they helped bank insiders conceal from regulators—was therefore materially consistent from indictment through clos- ing argument. In keeping with this theory, the evidence con- cerning other favored borrowers, the scheme writ large, and WFBS’s institutional practices was introduced to explain the conspiracy to the jury and show how the scheme functioned. Whereas other evidence—a document bearing Krezja’s signa- ture, data showing the true condition of his loans, and testi- mony about his personal expenditures from disbursements— was offered to prove his guilt. We see no fatal variance or con- structive amendment of the indictment.

Moreover, Krezja cannot show prejudice, which is neces- sary to succeed on a fatal variance claim. This was not a case where Krezja was unfairly surprised or unable to prepare a defense. Krezja was aware before trial that the government intended to rely on evidence concerning his and others’ favor- able treatment, bank insiders’ concealment practices, regula- tory examinations, and broader misconduct within WFBS. The defense vigorously contested this approach throughout the proceedings and repeatedly argued that the government had criminalized Krezja’s inability to repay his loans rather than proving the charged offenses. Thus, even if the govern- ment varied in its theory of the case, the absence of prejudice dooms any fatal variance claim. With that, we proceed to Krezja’s challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence against him.

B. Sufficiency of the Evidence We review a challenge to the sufficiency of the evidence de novo. United States v. Johnson, 874 F.3d 990, 998 (7th Cir. 2017). In doing so, we view all evidence in the light most fa- vorable to the government and ask whether the jury could have found the defendant guilty of the charged offenses be- yond a reasonable doubt. Id. We do not reweigh evidence or reassess witness credibility. United States v. Medina, 969 F.3d 819, 821 (7th Cir. 2020). Our task is simply to determine whether the jury was entitled to adopt the government’s the- ory based on the evidence presented at trial. Johnson, 874 F.3d at 998.

Krezja challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain his convictions on two grounds. First, he argues that the gov- ernment failed to prove that he knew of or participated in any conspiracy to falsify bank records. Second, he maintains that the government failed to show that Gembara embezzled any funds from his loans, which he says is a prerequisite to prov- ing that he aided and abetted Gembara’s embezzlement. We address each argument separately.

1. Conspiracy in Violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 To establish a conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371, the gov- ernment must prove: (1) the existence of an agreement to com- mit an unlawful act; (2) the defendant’s knowing and inten- tional participation in that agreement; and (3) the commission of an overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy. See United States v. Soy, 454 F.3d 766, 768 (7th Cir. 2006). The overt act committed need not be the substantive offense or even an element thereof; the act is sufficient so long as it is committed in furtherance of the underlying substantive offense. Id.

Because conspiracies are inherently covert enterprises, the government need not produce direct evidence of an express agreement. United States v. Ford, 21 F.3d 759, 762 (7th Cir. 1994); United States v. Useni, 516 F.3d 634, 646 (7th Cir. 2008). A conspiracy may be proved entirely through circumstantial evidence, including coordinated conduct, repeated interac- tions among participants, and actions that would be difficult to explain absent a shared unlawful objective. United States v. Morales, 145 F.4th 792, 796–97 (7th Cir. 2025). The key question is whether the conspirators are performing different functions in pursuit of common criminal objectives. Id.

The indictment in this case alleges two objects of the con- spiracy: (1) to knowingly make false entries in WFBS’s books, reports, or statements with “intent to injure and defraud” WFBS in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1005; and (2) to “embezzle, abstract, purloin, and willfully misapply” WFBS funds and funds entrusted to WFBS “with intent to injure and defraud the bank” in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 656.

To convict Krezja, the government had to prove that he acted with “at least the degree of criminal intent necessary for the substantive offense itself.” Soy, 454 F.3d at 768. The requi- site criminal intent for both offenses is intent to defraud or injure. 1 “Intent to defraud requires a willful act by the defend- ant with the specific intent to deceive or cheat, usually for the purpose of getting financial gain for one’s self or causing fi- nancial loss to another.” United States v. Howard, 619 F.3d 723, 727 (7th Cir. 2010) (citation modified). Importantly, “intent to defraud may be established by circumstantial evidence and by inferences drawn from examining the scheme itself.” United States v. Paneras, 222 F.3d 406, 410 (7th Cir. 2000) (cita- tion modified). Moreover, under both § 656 and § 1005, “[a] reckless disregard . . . of [the] bank’s interest is sufficient to establish the requisite intent to defraud.” United States v. Lar- son, 581 F.2d 664, 667 (7th Cir. 1978) (discussing § 656); accord United States v. McAnally, 666 F.2d 1116, 1118–20 (7th Cir. 1981) (discussing § 1005).

In sum, the question before us is whether the government proffered sufficient evidence that Krezja “specifically in- tended that some conspirator commit each element of [either] substantive offense,” that he acted with at least a reckless dis- regard of the bank’s interest, and that a conspirator commit- ted an overt act in furtherance of either substantive offense. Ocasio v. United States, 578 U.S. 282, 287–88, 292 (2016) (cita- tion modified); accord United States v. Bucey, 876 F.2d 1297, 1312 (7th Cir. 1989) (“When an indictment alleges a conspir- acy with multifarious objectives, a conviction will be sus- tained so long as the evidence is sufficient to show that the defendants agreed to accomplish at least one of the alleged objectives.”).

a. Sufficiency of the Evidence as to the § 656 Object:

Embezzlement According to Krezja, the government’s evidence estab- lished only a borrower-lender relationship between him and WFBS and did not show that he agreed to participate in any misconduct with bank employees. He highlights that he exercised no authority over accounting systems, regulatory submissions, document creation, loan classifications, or bank examinations. Instead, he says, those functions remained en- tirely within the control of WFBS employees.

Krezja’s arguments have some force. Neither preferential treatment nor repeat borrowing necessarily prove conspiracy. Indeed, a customer may receive favorable terms, an improper accommodation, or even unethical assistance from a lender without agreeing to join a criminal enterprise. Accordingly, to prove conspiracy here, the government was required to offer evidence showing Krezja knowingly participated in the scheme, not that he passively received improper benefits. Soy, 454 F.3d at 768.

The government’s trial evidence satisfied that burden. The evidence showed that the challenged loans were not isolated transactions but instead involved multiple projects and exten- sions, repeated disbursements, and continuing interactions over an extended period. Government witnesses testified that the disbursements continued despite obvious warning signs that ordinarily would have resulted in default, foreclosure, or cessation of disbursements. The government’s evidence also showed that several insiders hid loan delinquency, manipu- lated records, recreated documents, and misrepresented the condition of Krezja’s loans to regulators.

The recreated promissory note with Krezja’s signature provides an additional basis for the jury’s verdict. The gov- ernment introduced the note as evidence of the conspirators’ efforts to create support for transactions that otherwise lacked legitimacy. Although the defense offered innocent explana- tions for the document, the jury was not required to accept them. Instead, the jury could infer that Krezja was not merely an uninformed bystander but rather a knowing participant in- terested in preventing discovery of the underlying scheme. The basis for such an inference is even stronger considering that the note bore Krezja’s signature and was recovered in his possession.

From this evidence, a reasonable juror could infer that Krezja and WFBS maintained a nontraditional lending rela- tionship. From there, a juror could further infer that Krezja, along with his coconspirators, attempted to conceal the scheme and preserve the appearance of legitimate lending re- lationships that otherwise would withstand regulatory scru- tiny; in other words, to disguise the conspiracy. Considering this permissible inference and viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, a reasonable juror could conclude that Krezja knowingly participated in a con- spiracy to embezzle funds. The district court therefore properly denied the Rule 29 motion as to the § 656 object of the conspiracy.

b. Sufficiency of the Evidence as to the § 1005 Object:

Conspiracy to Falsify Bank Records Krezja next argues that even if the evidence was sufficient to establish that his lending relationship with WFBS was un- orthodox, the government failed to prove he conspired with bank insiders to falsify documentation. Here again, Krezja is mistaken.

Section 1005 prohibits bank employees from knowingly making false entries in bank records with intent to deceive regulators or examiners. White v. Keely, 814 F.3d 883, 888 (7th Cir. 2016); 18 U.S.C. § 1005. According to Krezja, he cannot be guilty of this offense because bank insiders—not Krezja— controlled loan files and accounting systems and communi- cated with regulators. He maintains that because he neither created nor maintained bank records, the government failed to establish his knowing participation in a false-entry scheme.

But those arguments ignore both the standard for a con- spiracy conviction and the government’s theory of the case. Because Krezja was not a bank employee, the government did not contend that he personally entered information into WFBS’s accounting systems or drafted regulatory submis- sions. Rather, the government argued that Krezja knowingly participated in a broader scheme where success depended on the creation and maintenance of false or misleading records and that he signed documents in furtherance of that scheme.

Sufficient evidence supports that theory. The government presented evidence of corruption at WFBS generally but also evidence and documentation associated with Krezja’s devel- opment projects. Witnesses testified about recreated promis- sory notes, altered documents, and records allegedly de- signed to conceal the deteriorating condition of Krezja’s loans. According to the government, those materials were deliberate efforts to create the appearance that Krezja’s loans were legit- imate and performing when in reality, as the evidence showed, Krezja had not made the requisite payments on his loans, his projects were stalled, and the collateral properties were deteriorating. From this evidence, a juror could reason- ably infer that Krezja, who continued receiving benefits and disbursements over an extended period, understood that the transactions depended on documentation that did not accu- rately reflect reality, and he did his part to further the scheme.

The defense’s contrary interpretation—that Krezja merely signed documents prepared by others and was unaware of any broader deception—was certainly one the jury could have accepted. But because it was not the only reasonable in- terpretation of the evidence, the district court properly denied Krezja’s Rule 29 motion as to the record falsification object of the conspiracy. 2 United States v. Robinson, 165 F.4th 1043, 1051 (7th Cir. 2026) (“We will overturn a district court’s Rule 29 denial only if no rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty, a burden for defendants that we have de- scribed as nearly insurmountable.”) (citation modified).

2. Aiding and Abetting Embezzlement A person can be punished as a principal under

18 U.S.C. § 2 if he “commits an offense against the United States or aids, abets, counsels, commands, induces or pro- cures its commission.” The indictment charges Krezja with aiding and abetting Gembara’s embezzlement, abstraction, purloining, and willful misapplication of over $2.8 million from WFBS. The government focused solely on an embezzle- ment theory before the district court; we similarly limit our discussion on appeal. To convict Krezja of this offense, the government needed to show that Gembara embezzled funds by proving: (1) Gembara was a bank employee; (2) WFBS was a federally insured bank; and (3) Gembara used his “position to embezzle the bank’s funds . . . with the intent to injure or defraud the bank.” United States v. Parker, 716 F.3d 999, 1008 (7th Cir. 2013); see also 18 U.S.C. § 656. Only the third require- ment is in dispute.

2 Because we conclude that sufficient evidence supports Krezja’s conspir- acy conviction based on the § 1005 object, we need not assess whether the evidence was sufficient to support the conspiracy conviction based on the § 656 object.

“Embezzlement is the fraudulent appropriation of prop- erty by a person to whom such property has been entrusted, or into whose hands it has lawfully come.” United States v. Bailey, 734 F.2d 296, 303 (7th Cir. 1984) (citation modified). “The elements of embezzlement are: (1) a trust or fiduciary relationship, (2) that the property claimed embezzled is em- braced within the meaning of the statute, (3) that it came into the possession or care of accused by virtue of his employment, (4) it is property of another, (5) that his dealing therewith con- stituted a fraudulent conversion or appropriation of same to his own use, and (6) such was with the intent to deprive the owner thereof.” Id.

According to Krezja, embezzlement requires that the em- bezzler (here, Gembara) profit or benefit from the allegedly embezzled funds (Krezja’s loans). In Krezja’s view, because the government did not present evidence of any benefit Gem- bara received from his loans, it failed to prove that Gembara embezzled those funds.

In response, the government contends that the law does not require it to prove that Gembara benefitted from the al- legedly embezzled funds. According to the government, the law’s requirement that entrusted property be converted to the embezzler’s “own use” means only “a use different than that for which they were entrusted with the property,” not the em- bezzler’s own consumption or benefit. In other words, the government says, “conversion to one’s ‘own use’ describes not a benefit to the embezzler, but rather [a] change in char- acter of the property that lawfully came into the embezzler’s possession and care in the first instance.” The government ar- gues that it proved embezzlement under this definition because the evidence showed that Gembara used the funds entrusted to him for purposes other than those intended.

Although both sides present persuasive arguments, we need not define the bounds of the law to decide this case. This is because our only task is to determine whether the evidence was sufficient to support Krezja’s conviction. We believe it was under Krezja’s own standard.

At trial, the government presented testimony from an agent from the FDIC’s Office of the Inspector General who an- alyzed Krezja’s bank accounts. The agent testified that, be- tween 2013 and 2017, WFBS disbursed $480,000 to Krezja, and that Krezja used at least some of the money for personal ex- penses such as trips and his car payments. The jury also heard from the government’s former forensic investigator who tes- tified that Krezja remitted payment to Gembara’s insurance agency in 2014 and 2015.

Given the timing of the payments, a reasonable juror could have inferred that Krezja used his loan disbursement to make payments to Gembara’s insurance company for Gembara’s benefit. From this, a juror could conclude that Krezja aided and abetted Gembara’s embezzlement. That is enough to sus- tain Krezja’s conviction.

C. Evidentiary Challenges 3 We evaluate challenges to the admissibility of evidence in light of all the evidence before the jury and review a district 3 Krezja does not explicitly state whether he appeals from the district court’s initial pre-trial evidentiary decisions or its denial of his Rule 33 motion which affirmed its initial decisions. The distinction is immaterial because we would review either challenge for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Sabaini, 161 F.4th 1036, 1043 (7th Cir. 2025). To the extent court’s decision to admit or exclude evidence for abuse of dis- cretion. Ajayi, 808 F.3d at 1125. Because district courts enjoy “broad discretion to control the admission of evidence” we will deem a court’s evidentiary decision erroneous “only if no reasonable person could take the view adopted by the trial court.” Id. at 1121 (citation modified). Furthermore, even if we find that the district court committed an evidentiary error, we will reverse and order a new trial only if the error was not harmless. United States v. Simon, 727 F.3d 682, 696 (7th Cir. 2013).

1. Prior Loans Krezja challenges the district court’s exclusion of evidence that he successfully repaid prior loans to WFBS. According to Krezja, this evidence was central to his good-faith theory be- cause it demonstrated that his historical relationship with WFBS involved legitimate lending transactions rather than criminal diversion of funds. He maintains that, by excluding this evidence, the district court prevented the jury from re- ceiving the full story of his longstanding relationship with WFBS.

The district court excluded the proposed evidence based on its belief that the prior loans were insufficiently connected to the charged conduct and the evidence risked creating that Krezja sought to appeal the court’s denial of his Rule 33 motion, we note that any request for a new trial based on the sufficiency of the evi- dence would fail for the same reasons articulated with respect to his Rule 29 motion. See id. (“We review the denial of a Rule 33 motion for abuse of discretion; these motions should only be granted in the most extreme cases in which consideration of the evidence leaves a strong doubt as to the de- fendant’s guilt of the charged offense.”) (citation modified). collateral mini-trials concerning unrelated transactions. The court did not abuse its discretion in reaching that conclusion.

In challenging the evidence, the government identified several material differences between the repaid loans and the charged loans. Namely, Krezja made zero payments on the charged loans but made at least some payments on the earlier set. The earlier projects were completed and sold whereas the charged properties sat unfinished for years. The charged loans vastly exceeded their approved amounts; the earlier loans did not. And finally, the charged loans ran through the entire conspiracy period while the earlier loans had only slight overlap with it. These dissimilarities diminish the re- paid loans’ relevance to this case and undercut the premise that the earlier repayments could show Krezja’s intent as to the charged loans.

What’s more, evidence that Krezja repaid earlier loans could have led the jury to acquit him based on the notion that one who honored past debts would not defraud a bank on new ones—an improper propensity inference, as the court acknowledged. The district court did not err by trying to guard against such propensity reasoning based on marginally relevant conduct. See United States v. Rogers, 587 F.3d 816, 822 (7th Cir. 2009) (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 403 advisory commit- tee’s note) (“Evidence poses a danger of ‘unfair prejudice’ if it has ‘an undue tendency to suggest [a] decision on an im- proper basis, commonly, though not necessarily, an emo- tional one.’”).

The incompleteness of the bank’s records independently supported the exclusion. Krezja planned to present a pattern of prior payments to show that his conduct during the con- spiracy mirrored his behavior in the past. However, without complete payment records—which WFBS’s retention policy had rendered unavailable—he may not have been able to pre- sent that narrative accurately. Given that reality, it was rea- sonable for the district court to conclude that evidence of Krezja’s prior repayments could have confused the jury and caused them to speculate in order to fill the gaps.

Krezja responds that this reasoning conflates general-in- tent and specific-intent crimes, and that courts have upheld the admission of other-act evidence offered to negate a de- fendant’s specific intent. It is true that other-act evidence is admissible to rebut a defendant’s claimed lack of specific in- tent if it proves “motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of acci- dent.” Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(2). But the district court’s ruling did not rest on a categorical rejection of other-act evidence’s potential use in disputing specific intent. It instead rested on the substantial dissimilarity between the two sets of loans and the unreliability of the surviving repayment records—both permissible grounds. The court also declined to admit the ev- idence on the grounds that, in the form available, it could gen- erate confusion disproportionate to the evidence’s probative value. See Fed. R. Evid. 403. This too was not an abuse of dis- cretion.

What’s more, even had the prior-loan evidence been ad- mitted, it would not have proven Krezja lacked intent to de- fraud WFBS. An intent to eventually repay a loan does not negate the intent to defraud required under § 656; the relevant inquiry is whether the defendant intended to injure or de- fraud the bank in the interim, not whether he ultimately meant to make the bank whole. United States v. Radziszewski, 474 F.3d 480, 485 (7th Cir. 2007), as amended on denial of reh’g (May 14, 2007) (“It is well settled that a defendant’s ul- timate intention to pay off a debt obtained fraudulently is ir- relevant to the intent to obtain the money through deceptive means.”).

2. Admission of OCC-Related Evidence Krezja next challenges the admission of testimony and ev- idence about examinations the OCC conducted. Krezja does so on two grounds. The first has to do with a document that Billy Lyons’s OCC team prepared, which we will call the OCC Memo. Krezja argues that the admission of the OCC Memo violated the Sixth Amendment’s Confrontation Clause be- cause he did not have an opportunity to cross-examine its au- thors. He cross-examined only Lyons. As for the second ground, Krezja argues that the OCC Memo and Lyons’s testi- mony amounted to investigative hearsay, institutional con- clusions, and quasi-expert opinions about wrongdoing at WFBS, not evidence of any crime by Krezja. Further to this point, he contends that Lyons’s testimony carried undue prej- udicial force because jurors were likely to assign excessive weight to it because of Lyons’s position with the OCC. We address each argument in turn, beginning with Krezja’s con- stitutional challenge.

a. Confrontation Clause Challenge We must determine the appropriate standard of review before addressing the merits of Krezja’s Confrontation Clause challenge. Krezja contends that we should review his chal- lenge de novo because he appropriately raised the issue be- fore the district court. The government contends that we must review the challenge only for plain error because defense counsel did not clearly object to the evidence on constitutional grounds below. Krezja has the better argument.

At sidebar before the government questioned Lyons about the OCC Memo, defense counsel told the court: “I can’t cross- examine the people that wrote this or contributed to it.” That statement put the district court and the government on notice that counsel objected to the evidence, at least in part, based on an inability to confront the document’s authors. Contrary to the government’s suggestion on appeal, the defense was not required to cite the Sixth Amendment or explicitly invoke Confrontation Clause caselaw to preserve a confrontation challenge; the substance of the objection controls. See United States v. Cunningham, 462 F.3d 708, 712 (7th Cir. 2006) (recog- nizing that preservation of an objection is determined based on the wording and timing rather than whether counsel in- vokes a specific constitutional provision). We therefore re- view Krezja’s Confrontation Clause challenge de novo.

Based on our independent review, however, Krezja’s chal- lenge fails on the merits. Krezja is correct that the Confronta- tion Clause is usually satisfied when a document’s author is made available for cross-examination. However, that require- ment does not demand that the testifying witness have per- sonally drafted the document or performed every underlying observation. A supervisor who oversaw the preparation of the document, vouches for its contents as the product of his team’s work, and is subject to meaningful cross-examination may stand in as the author for Confrontation Clause pur- poses. Accord United States v. Sokolow, 91 F.3d 396, 404–05 (3d Cir. 1996) (Confrontation Clause satisfied where a supervisor who personally audited many of the underlying claims and testified that an exhibit represented the results of his team’s processing was cross-examined at trial, even though he had not prepared the exhibit himself).

That standard is met here. The OCC Memo was a single, coordinated work product compiling the OCC examination team’s findings about Krezja’s loans. The Memo was pre- pared under Lyons’s direct supervision. He led the OCC ex- amination team and personally reviewed and approved the OCC Memo’s contents before it was sent to WFBS’s Board of Directors. And he testified at trial that the OCC Memo re- flected his team’s findings concerning Krezja’s loans. As the district court noted, given Lyons’s involvement in the exami- nation, review, and approval process, it was “reasonable to consider him an author of the Memorandum, such that the testimonial statements in the Memorandum are his own.” That Lyons was available for and subject to cross-examina- tion, then, is enough to satisfy the Confrontation Clause.

Krezja raises an additional concern that his cross-exami- nation of Lyons was incomplete because his counsel did not ask Lyons about the document’s preparation. This concern goes to the scope of the cross-examination Krezja’s team chose to conduct, not to the adequacy of the confrontation oppor- tunity. Lyons was present, sworn, and answerable to ques- tions about the OCC Memo’s authorship, its content, and his role in producing it. Because Lyons was an appropriate wit- ness to present the OCC Memo, its admission did not violate the Confrontation Clause.

b. Relevance and Hearsay Krezja also challenges the district court’s admission of the OCC Memo on relevance and hearsay grounds. Although his arguments are not altogether clear on this point, he seems to suggest that the jury may have attributed undue weight to the evidence and improperly viewed Lyons and his team as ex- perts on industry practices and financial irregularities.

Although we acknowledge that the OCC evidence carried institutional authority and presented a danger that jurors would equate regulatory oversight with proof of criminality, we cannot conclude that the evidence in this case crossed the line or was inadmissible. The government’s case relied, in part, on showing that bank insiders concealed delinquent, nonperforming loans from regulators. Through this lens, Ly- ons’s testimony and other evidence about the OCC examina- tions were not merely background matters. They showed how the scheme went undetected because insiders preserved the appearance of a viable loan portfolio, and how the fraud was eventually discovered through an OCC examination. Without some explanation of the regulatory process, the jury may have struggled to understand how the recreated documents, miss- ing delinquency information, and manipulated accounting entries were relevant to the case. The district court’s decision to admit the evidence was reasonable on these facts. 4 4 Krezja separately argues that Rule 803(8)’s public records exception does not extend to “evaluative reports” used against a defendant in a criminal case, and that the exception in any event is confined to records of routine, non-adversarial, ministerial observations. The government responds that the OCC’s examination function is regulatory rather than law-enforce- ment related, and that bank examiner reports of this kind have been ad- mitted as public or business records on that basis. We leave resolution of this issue for another day because, here, the district court’s limiting in- struction made clear that the jury, not the OCC, had to determine guilt beyond a reasonable doubt; and, as we discuss below, any error in admit- ting the OCC Memo was harmless.

3. Improper Bolstering Krezja’s final challenge concerns the district court’s admis- sion of evidence pertaining to WFBS’s collapse and the FDIC’s consequent losses. Specifically, he maintains that the court should have prohibited the government from presenting tes- timony by the FDIC’s chief of accounting operations and doc- uments quantifying the FDIC’s total loss of approximately $140 million from WFBS’s closure. Krezja maintains that this testimony about accounting procedures, WFBS’s failure, and the bank’s closure process was unnecessary given the charges in this case. And, he says, the documentary evidence unfairly aggregated losses for all the bank’s improprieties and risked misleading the jury about his personal culpability. According to Krezja, this evidence improperly bolstered the govern- ment’s case and encouraged the jury to punish him for the bank’s failure and the FDIC’s corresponding losses rather than determine whether the government proved the charged offenses beyond a reasonable doubt.

Here again, Krezja’s argument is reasonable. Evidence concerning institutional collapse and great loss to the govern- ment (and therefore taxpayers) carries emotional force ex- tending beyond the narrow elements of the charged crimes. Jurors may be tempted to assign blame broadly once they learn that a bank failed and regulators intervened.

But the challenged evidence also possessed substantial probative value. The government’s theory depended on proof that the loans were not functioning as legitimate commercial transactions and that bank insiders concealed that reality from regulators as the financial condition of the bank’s portfolio deteriorated. Evidence concerning mounting losses and regulatory intervention helped explain why bank em- ployees manipulated records and continued disguising delin- quent loans. Under these circumstances, we cannot say the court abused its discretion in concluding that the probative value of the evidence was not substantially outweighed by unfair prejudice.

4. Harmlessness We must end our review of the district court’s evidentiary decisions by assessing whether any error was harmless. We conclude that it was.

“The test for harmless error is whether, in the mind of the average juror, the prosecution’s case would have been signif- icantly less persuasive had the improper evidence been ex- cluded.” United States v. Gomez, 763 F.3d 845, 863 (7th Cir. 2014) (en banc) (citation modified). The government intro- duced extensive evidence supporting Krezja’s intent to de- fraud. The evidence showed that between 2013 and 2017, Krezja received $480,000 in disbursements that he used partly for personal expenses, including international travel and car payments, rather than construction costs; possessed a back- dated promissory note bearing his signature; possessed a 2011 mortgage interest statement falsely reporting over $87,000 in interest payments he never made; and submitted a false affi- davit to federal investigators. Against that record, we cannot say the admission of evidence that Krezja repaid earlier loans or the exclusion of the OCC and FDIC-related evidence would have created a reasonable probability of a different verdict. Simon, 727 F.3d at 696.

III

The line separating an improper lending relationship from criminality was not obvious in this case. But the jury heard extensive evidence that Krezja’s projects ceased functioning as viable developments while bank insiders continued au- thorizing advances, concealing delinquency, manipulating records, and creating documents to preserve the appearance of legitimacy. Viewed in the light most favorable to the gov- ernment, that evidence permitted a rational jury to conclude that Krezja knowingly participated in a scheme to defraud WFBS and aided and abetted embezzlement. Further, on this record, we cannot say that no reasonable person could agree with the district court’s evidentiary decisions. The district court’s judgment is therefore AFFIRMED.