Question:
Robert Michels met Allison Formal through an online dating Web site in 2002. Michels represented himself as the retired chief executive officer of a large company that he had sold for millions of dollars. In January 2003, Michels proposed that he and Formal create a limited liability company (a special form of business organization discussed in Chapter 37)—Formal Properties Trust, LLC—to “channel their investments in real estate.” Formal agreed to contribute $100,000 to the company and wrote two $50,000 checks to “Michels and Associates, LLC.” Six months later, Michels told Formal that their LLC had been formed in Delaware. Later, Formal asked Michels about her investments. He responded evasively, and she demanded that an independent accountant review the firm’s records. Michels refused. Formal contacted the police. Michels was charged in a Virginia state court with obtaining money by false pretenses. The Delaware secretary of state verified, in two certified documents, that “Formal Properties Trust, L.L.C.” and “Michels and Associates, L.L.C.” did not exist in Delaware. Did the admission of the Delaware secretary of state’s certified documents at Michels’s trial violate his rights under the Sixth Amendment? Why or why not?