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 … Read more
United States v. Vilar, No. 10-521-cr (2d Cir. July 19, 2011) (Jacobs, CJ, Rakoff, DJ) Defendant Vilar and his co-defendant Tanaka were convicted of fraud-related charges after a jury trial. Both filed timely notices of appeal and the appeals were consolidated. Vilar, represented by new counsel, decided to develop a claim that his trial counsel … Read more
At last – more summary orders of interest. In United States v. White, No. 10-2631-cr (2d Cir. July 18, 2011) (summary order), the circuit vacated the district court’s decision denying resentencing under 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)(2). The case has a long procedural history. White originally rejected a plea offer that included one § 924(c) count … Read more
United States v. Jennings, No. 10-1642-cr (2d Cir. July 22, 2011) (Kearse, Miner, Chin, CJJ) For defendant Russell Jennings, looking at child pornography was a hard habit to break. He served a twenty-one-month possession sentence in a 2006 case then, in 2009, while on supervised release, did it again. For the 2009 case, he received … Read more
United States v. Bailey, No. 07-3819-cr (2d Cir. July 6, 2011) (Cabranes, Pooler, Raggi, CJJ) In Michigan v Summers, 452 U.S. 602 (1981), the Supreme Court held that the Fourth Amendment permitted police officers to detain the occupant of a premises during the execution of a search warrant, without need for individualized suspicion of the … Read more
It has been a while, but here are three more summary orders of interest. In United States v. Mancuso, No. 10-2420-cr (2d Cir. June 30, 2011), the court identified several sentencing errors in connection with a prosecution for environmental crimes. First, the district court erred in applying the multi-object conspiracy guideline, U.S.S.G. § 1B1.2(d). When … Read more
United Sates v. Gravel, No. 10-1045-cr (2d Cir. June 20, 2011) (Pooler, Wesley, Chin, CJJ) (per curiam) The court’s latest per curiam looks at the firearm guideline’s six-level enhancement for “machineguns.” See U.S.S.G. § 2K2.1(a)(5). The defendant’s gun was a Colt machinegun, initially designed to fire automatically, but had been retrofitted to fire only semi-automatically. … Read more
United States v. Gupta, No. 09-4738-cr (2d Cir. June 17, 2011) (Walker, Parker, Hall, CJJ) Anyone who has ever selected a jury in the Southern District knows that the typical voir dire there is a perfunctory affair indeed: a few questions about potential bias, a few about household composition, then you exercise your challenges and … Read more
United States v. O’Connor, No. 08-5968-cr (2d Cir. June 16, 2011) (Kearse, Pooler, Hall, CJJ) Linda O’Connor began sexually abusing her daughter, S.O., when S.O. was ten years old. O’Connor also allowed her friend – he was also her occasional financial benefactor and sex partner – George Lang, to do so; O’Connor even sometimes joined … Read more
United States v. Tzolov, No. 10-562-cr (2d Cir. June 15, 2011) (Feinberg, Parker, Wesley, CJJ) Eric Butler, the appellant here, was one of the conspirators in a securities fraud scheme arising from the failure of the auction rate securities market. The scheme operated largely out of an office in Manhattan, but Butler was prosecuted in … Read more