commands, induces or procures its commission, is punishable as a principal. (b) Whoever willfully causes an act to be done which if directly performed by him or another would be an offense against the United States, is punishable as a principal. This statute does not create an independent or separate crime, but rather simply “abolishes the common-law distinction between principal and accessory.” United States v. Cook, 745 F.2d 1311, 1315 (10th Cir.1984). Consistent with this principle, “[w]e have held that [a] defendant can be convicted as an aider and abettor even though he was indicted as a principal for commission of the underlying offense and not as an aider and abettor.” United States v. Scroger, 98 F.3d 1256, 1262 (10th Cir.1996) (quotation omitted); see Cook, 745 F.2d at 1315 (<HOLDING>). Consequently, the government need not
holding that the defendant could be convicted of sexual battery a lesser crime not included in the offense for which he was indicted where the defendant requested that sexual battery be submitted to the jury holding punishment must be proportional to the crime convicted holding that before the accessory to a crime can be convicted as such it must be shown that the crime has been committed by the principal holding that the defendant who was indicted for first degree rape and convicted of sexual battery had no remedy on appeal when he requested that the erroneous lesser nonincluded charge be submitted to the jury holding that an individual may be indicted as a principal for commission of a substantive crime and he she may be convicted by proof showing himher to be an aider and abettor