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Saturday, August 27th, 2011

PC World

United States v. Echeverry, No. 10-2828-cr (2d Cir. August 19, 2011) (Winter, Parker, Chin, CJJ) (per curiam)

The facts of this latest per curiam could have been pulled straight from a law school exam. During an ongoing narcotics conspiracy, Echeverry and his accomplice attempted to recover stolen narcotics from a third person; they possessed and brandished a gun but, during the incident, the intended victim grabbed it and discharged it, wounding the accomplice.

The issue was whether Echeverry should get the seven-year brandishing § 924(c) sentence or the ten-year discharge § 924(c) sentence. The district court gave him the longer sentence, holding that if a defendant possesses a firearm during a drug-trafficking offense he is responsible for a subsequent discharge of that firearm, no matter who fires it.

The circuit affirmed. The statute provides that the enhanced sentence applies “if the firearm is discharged,” and “does not require that the …

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Categories: 924(c), Uncategorized

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Crew Bayou

United States v. Marino, 09-1965-cr (2d Cir. August 18, 2011) (Jacobs, Winter, McLaughlin, CJJ)

Matthew Marino was at the margin of the Bayou Hedge Fund Group disaster – a Ponzi scheme that defrauded its investors of more than $300 million. The fund was opened in 1996 by two principals, who hired Marino’s CPA brother, Daniel Marino, to keep its books. This defendant, Matthew Marino, was hired by Bayou in 2002 and over the next three years took steps to help perpetuate and conceal the fraud. The scheme came crashing down in 2005, and the principals, including Marino’s brother, all pled guilty to fraud charges.

Appellant Marino, on his part, pled to one count of misprision of felony, covering his actions between January and August of 2005, a period during which investors lost $60 million in the Bayou scheme. He received a twenty-one month prison sentence. This appeal concerns only his …

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Tamper Proof

United States v. Simels, No. 09-5117-cr (2d Cir. August 12, 2011) (Newman, Calabresi, Hall, CJJ)

Former defense attorney Robert Simels appealed his conviction, after a jury trial, of various counts relating to a witness-tampering scheme, and his fourteen-year sentence. The circuit dismissed two minor counts as insufficient but otherwise affirmed.

The case arose from Simels’ representation of one Shaheed Khan, a Guyanese narcotics trafficker, who was detained at the MCC. The case against Simels had three main components. First, he lied to prison officials in an effort to speak to another prisoner, David Clarke, whom he believed to be a witness against Khan, by saying he was Clarke’s attorney. Second, an associate of Khan’s, Selwyn Vaughn, had several conversations with Simels, in which Simels discussed bribing and threatening potential witnesses against Khan. Vaughn had approached the DEA when he learned that Simels was reaching out to him, and wore a …

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Categories: Sixth Amendment, Uncategorized, wiretaps

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Categories: Sixth Amendment, Uncategorized, wiretaps

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Ex-Facto Knife

United States v. Riggi, No. 09-4391-cr (2d Cir. August 10, 2011) (Jacobs, Wesley, Chin, CJJ)

Philip Abramo’s case has been running for several years. He was originally convicted after trial of murder and racketeering charges, and received a life sentence. But the circuit reversed, finding that the admission of eight of his co-conspirators’ plea allocutions violated Crawford. See The Three Racketeers, posted September 6, 2008. On remand, Abramo pled guilty to reduced charges, carrying an eighteen-year statutory maximum. His plea agreement used the 2008 guideline manual, under which his range exceeded eighteen years, making eighteen years his guideline sentence. It also contained an appeal waiver, under which Abramo agreed not to challenge any sentence of eighteen years or less.

At sentencing, Abramo pointed out a potential ex post facto violation. The Commission increased significantly the guidelines for murder conspiracy in 1990, but the conspiracy to which he pled guilty ended …

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Categories: appeal waiver, Uncategorized

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Sunday, August 21st, 2011

Custody Battle

United Stateds v. FNU LNU, No. 10-419-cr (2d Cir. August 9, 2011)

(Jacobs, Calabresi, Lohier, CJJ)

Defendant, traveling under the name Sandra Calzada, arrived at JFK on a flight from the DR. A border patrol agent noticed that Calzada had an open arrest warrant, and flagged her for secondary inspection. An “armed guard” escorted her to the secondary inspection room, from which she was not free to leave, and the agent questioned her for 90 minutes without first reading the Miranda warnings.

The interrogation included questions about her pedigree, passport and the like. Eventually, the agent found some discrepancies: she did not look like the photograph on the original passport application, gave inconsistent biographic information, and could not recall any of her addresses in Puerto Rico, where she said she was born.

The district court refused to suppress the statements, holding that Miranda warnings were not required during a “routine …

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Reversal of Fortune

United States v. Plugh, No. 10-2815-cr (2d Cir. August 8, 2011) (Jacobs, Livingston, CJJ, Rakoff, DJ)

This about-face arises from a supervening Supreme Court decision.

In its original opinion in this case, a divided panel held that the defendant had successfully invoked his Miranda rights by declining to sign a waiver-of-rights form. See “Car, Men, Miranda,” posted July 31, 2009. The circuit affirmed, on a government appeal, suppression of the defendant’s statements, viewing the case as an application of Davis v. United States, 512 U.S. 452 (1994), which held that a suspect must “unambiguously” invoke his Miranda rights to cut off questioning.

But a 2010 case, Berghuis v. Thompkins, 130 S. Ct. 2250 (2010), held that the Davis “unambiguous” standard should control not just the “cut-off,” but also the initial invocation of the rights. There, Court found that the suspect’s refusal to sign was not an “unambiguous” invocation of his …

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Sunday, August 14th, 2011

Rowe, Rowe, Rowe, You’re Toast

United States v Jackson, No. 07-0263-cr (2d Cir. August 4, 2011)

Leval, Lynch, CJJ, Korman, DJ)

Appellant Derrick Rowe, charged with a drug-related murder, had three trials. At the first, he was convicted of only drug trafficking and possession of ammunition, but the jury hung on three other counts – murder, § 924(c) and § 924(j). The court sentenced him to 32 years. At the second, the jury hung on all of the remaining counts. At the third, Rowe was convicted of the three open counts and received a 45-year concurrent sentence.

On appeal, his primary claim was that, at the third trial, the district court erred in allowing the government to play portions of his some of his prison phone calls without allowing him to play other portions under the Fed. R. Evid. 106 “rule of completeness.” The circuit found no abuse of discretion. In he first conversation, Rowe …

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What’s In A “Same”?

United States v. Feldman, No. 10-2275-CR (2d Cir. August 1, 2011) (McLaughlin, Pooler, Sack, CJJ)

Defendant Feldman sought appellate review of four sentencing enhancements. The government argued that the court should not review them because the district court had indicated that it would impose “the same sentence” even without some of the errors. The circuit rejected this argument, reviewed the claims, found no error, and affirmed.

Background

The facts of the case are particularly unpleasant. Feldman was a psychiatrist who, in the 1990’s, operated mental health facilities in Florida. These facilities proved to be Medicare/Medicaid fraud mills and, just as Feldman was negotiating a plea agreement, he fled to the Philippines.

There, he set up an even more egregious scheme. Through a website called www.liver4you.org, he fraudulently offered kidney and liver transplants in the Philippines. Desperate patients and their families wired him tens of thousands of dollars and traveled to …

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Categories: harmless error, Uncategorized

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Saturday, August 13th, 2011

Insurance [Snow] Job

United States v. Ferguson, No. 08-6211-cr (2d Cir. August 1, 2011) (Jacobs, Kearse, Straub, CJJ)

For 3Q of 2000, the insurer AIG’s stock price dropped significantly, even though its earnings were satisfactory. The company concluded that the cause was a $59 million decline in its loss reserves – a measure of the company’s risk exposure.

In the true spirit of 21st Century American business ingenuity – the same, it seems, that caused the company to all but collapse entirely, and require a $90 billion government bailout, in 2008 – AIG, or at least some of its principals, decided that the best course would be – rather than actually increasing its loss reserves and satisfying its stockholders – to engage in an accounting fraud. The company accordingly entered into a sham reinsurance contract with General Re. The deal was structured to look – to AIG’s investors and auditors – like it …

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Categories: stipulations, Uncategorized, willful causation

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Point of Controversy

United States v. Lee, No. 10-493-cr (2d Cir. July 26, 2011) (Parker, Chin, CJJ, Korman, DJ)

For the many years, the third acceptance of responsibility point – although to be completely faithful to guideline lingo, it is a “level,” not a “point,” since “points” are for criminal history – was something of a given. As long as the defendant either confessed early on or pled guilty timely, the reduction was granted. Effective November 1, 2003, however, the Commission amended the language of this adjustment, guideline section 3E1.1(b), to require a government motion for the third point. The amended section indicates that such a motion should state “that the defendant has assisted authorities in the investigation or prosecution of his own misconduct by timely notifying authorities of his intention to enter a plea of guilty, thereby permitting the government to avoid preparing for trial and permitting the government and the court …

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Sunday, August 7th, 2011

Trace Amounts

United States v. Gonzalez, 10-2202-cr (2d Cir. July 22, 2011) (Kearse, Miner, Chin, CJJ)

Former state senator Efrain Gonzalez, Jr., pled guilty to various fraud-related charges in connection with two sham charities that he set up while in office. This opinion contains an interesting discussion of the concept of “tracing” criminal proceeds. In it, the court concludes that tracing is not required to determine the number of victims under § 2B1.1, but is required, to some degree at least, to calculate the actual loss for restitution purposes.

The case arose from the actions of two supposed charities, West Bronx Neighborhood Association (WBNA) and United Latin American Foundation (ULAF). Each received both public money and private donations, and each – although supposed to be engaged in charitable activities – instead spent most of its money enriching Gonzalez by paying his personal bills – and those of some of his cronies – …

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Categories: restitution, Uncategorized, victim enhancement

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