Author Archive | Edward S. Zas

United States v. Raymonda, No. 13-4899-cr (2d Cir. Mar. 2, 2013) (Walker, Lynch, and Chin), available here

Someone using defendant’s IP address accessed thumbnail images of child pornography on the Internet. More than nine months later, government agents obtained a search warrant for defendant’s  home and discovered over 1,000 files of child pornography. The district court granted the defendant’s motion to suppress, holding that the government’s evidence that defendant had accessed child pornography on a single occasion nine months earlier was too stale to establish probable cause that he would still possess illicit images at the time of the search.

The Circuit reversed, over a dissent by Judge Chin. The majority agreed with the district court that a single incident of access to thumbnail images of child pornography, absent any other circumstances suggesting that the suspect accessed those images deliberately or has a continuing interest in child pornography, fails …

United States v. Van Mead, No. 12-4054-cr (2d Cir. Dec. 8, 2014) (Livingston, Lohier, and Stein), available here

Section 130.40-2 of New York’s Penal Law provides that “[a] person is guilty of criminal sexual act in the third degree when . . . [b]eing twenty-one years old or more, he or she engages in oral sexual conduct or anal sexual conduct with a person less than seventeen years old.”

The question presented by this appeal was whether the conduct prohibited by this statute qualified categorically as a “crime of violence” under Sections 2K2.1 and 4B1.2 of the Sentencing Guidelines. The Circuit said no.

The Court distinguished this case from its earlier ruling in United States v. Daye, 571 F.3d 225 (2d Cir. 2009), in which the Circuit held that violation of a Vermont law barring sexual contact with a minor aged fifteen or younger constituted a “violent felony” under …

United States v. Wiltshire, No. 13-3590-cr (2d Cir. Dec. 1, 2014) (Kearse, Straub, and Wesley), available here

The district court found that defendant violated her supervised release by making false statements to her probation officer and by leaving the district of her supervision without permission. She was sentenced to 90 days in custody, to be served on weekends, to be followed by five years of supervised release.

During the pendency of her appeal, defendant completed her custodial sentence, but her term of supervision had not yet run.

Did the expiration of defendant’s custodial sentence render her appeal moot? The Court said no, because the district court’s judgment directly exposed defendant to two additional years of supervised release. The appeal was thus not moot because a favorable appellate ruling might prompt the district court to reduce defendant’s term of supervised release.

Unfortunately for defendant, however, the Circuit ruled on the merits that the …

United States v. Bastian, No. 13-1156-cr (2d Cir. Oct. 29, 2014) (Katzmann, Sack, and Lynch), available here

Defendant pled guilty to conspiracy to distribute crack cocaine and to possessing a firearm in connection with that drug-trafficking offense (18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1)). But the plea to the gun charge was based on the possession of a different weapon from the one identified in the indictment. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court’s acceptance of the plea constructively amended the indictment and that the court’s failure to inform him of his rights under the Grand Jury Clause prevented him from entering a knowing and voluntary plea.

Because these claims were not raised in the district court, the Circuit reviewed them for plain error only. And defendant could not satisfy that rigorous standard. The Court noted that, while two circuits have held that variations from the specific weapon named in an indictment can constructively amend an indictment, several cases …

United States v. Fazio, Nos. 12-3786-cr, 12-3799-cr, 12-3874-cr (2d Cir. Oct. 22, 2014) (Walker, Leval, and Wesley), available here

Anthony Fazio, Sr., Anthony Fazio, Jr., and John Fazio, Jr., were officers in Local 348 of the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. They allegedly demanded that business owners employing Local 348 members make payments to the Fazios “to ensure a good working relationship with the union.” The government claimed that the Fazios’ demands for money were accompanied by threats of economic and physical harm.

Following a jury trial in the Southern District of New York (Forrest, J.), defendants were convicted of all counts, which included racketeering conspiracy and extortion conspiracy.  On appeal, they challenged: (1) a ruling admitting evidence that certain witnesses believed that defendants were connected to organized crime, (2) the denial of a requested jury charge that the “fear” element of extortion cannot be satisfied by a threat of loss of economic advantage …

United States v. Komasa, No. 13-1534-cr(L) (2d Cir. Aug. 28, 2014) (Pooler, Hall, and Lohier), available here

United States v. Mergen, No. 12-2873-cr (2d Cir. Aug. 21, 2014) (Katzmann, Jacobs, and Duffy), available here

United States v. Ledee, No. 13-2363-cr (2d Cir. Aug. 8, 2014) (Walker, Pooler, and Wesley), available here

The defendant was convicted of crimes stemming from participating via webcam in the sexual abuse of an eight-year-old girl by her mother. At trial, the district court granted the government’s motion to close the courtroom during the victim’s testimony to all persons who were not directly involved in the trial, including the defendant’s parents.

On appeal, the defendant argued that the courtroom closure violated his Sixth Amendment right to a public trial. The Circuit, over a dissent by Judge Pooler, disagreed and affirmed. [Disclosure: Federal Defenders of New York, Inc., represents the defendant in this case.]

For a courtroom to be closed to the public in compliance with the Sixth Amendment, four requirements must be met: (1) the closure must “advance an overriding interest that is likely to be prejudiced;” (2) …

United States v. Park, No. 13-4142-cr (2d Cir. July 9, 2014) (Cabranes, Carney, and Droney) (per curiam), available here

United States v. Reed, No. 13-0359(L) (2d Cir. June 25, 2014) (Jacobs, Calabresi, and Pooler), available here

Herrera-Gomez v. United States, No. 14-1166 (2d Cir. June 17, 2014) (Winter, Walker, and Cabranes) (per curiam), available here