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Syllabus
and willfully misapply[ing]" federally insured student loan funds, in violation of 20 U. S. C. § 1097(a) (1988 ed.) and 18 U. S. C. § 2. Agreeing with Bates that conviction under § 1097(a) for willful misapplication required an allegation of the defendant's "intent to injure or defraud the United States," the District Court dismissed the indictment because it lacked such an allegation. The Seventh Circuit vacated the judgment and reinstated the prosecution, concluding that § 1097(a) required the Government to prove only that Bates knowingly and willfully misap-plied Title IV funds.
Held: Specific intent to injure or defraud someone, whether the United
States or another, is not an element of the misapplication of funds proscribed by § 1097(a). The text of § 1097(a) does not include an "in-tent to defraud" requirement, and this Court ordinarily resists reading words into a statute that do not appear on its face. In contrast, 20 U. S. C. § 1097(d), enacted at the same time as § 1097(a), has an "intent to defraud" requirement. It is generally presumed that Congress acts intentionally and purposely where it includes particular language in one section of a statute but omits it in another. See Russello v. United States, 464 U. S. 16, 23. Despite the contrasting language of §§ 1097(a) and (d), Bates relies on decisions interpreting 18 U. S. C. § 656, which proscribes willful misapplication of bank funds. An "intent to defraud" element, originally included in the text of § 656, was dropped from the text during a technical revision of the criminal code. In view of that history, courts have continued to hold that an "intent to defraud" is an element of the offense described in § 656. Assuming, without deciding, that § 656 is correctly read to retain an "intent to defraud" element, § 1097(a) never contained such a requirement, one present from the start and still contained in § 1097(d). Neither text nor history warrants adoption of Bates's construction of § 1097(a). Nor does § 1097(a) set a trap for the unwary. As construed by the Seventh Circuit, § 1097(a) catches only the transgressor who intentionally exercises unauthorized dominion over federally insured student loan funds for his own benefit or for the benefit of a third party. So read, the measure does not render felonious innocent maladministration of a business enterprise or a merely unwise use of funds. Furthermore, a 1992 amendment adding "fails to refund" to § 1097(a)'s text does not demonstrate that the deliberate failure to return GSL funds, without an intent to defraud, became an offense within § 1097(a)'s compass only under the statute's current text. The added words simply foreclose any argument that § 1097(a) does not reach the failure to make refunds. Cf. Commissioner v. Estate of Sternberger, 348 U. S. 187, 194. Finally, as nothing in the text, structure, or history of § 1097(a) warrants importation of an "intent to de-
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