Justia U.S. 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals Opinion Summaries

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for being a felon in possession of a firearm following a bench trial on stipulated facts. Defendant was sentenced to a mandatory minimum term of fifteen years under the Armed Career Criminal Act (ACCA), 18 U.S.C. 924(e). The court concluded that the district court did not clearly err by denying the defense of entrapment by estoppel where a defendant charged with violating a federal crime must show reliance on the advice or authority of federal officials or agents to invoke the defense. In this instance, defendant argued that his federal prosecution was precluded by representations made to him in connection with state and local government programs offering "cash for guns." The court concluded that the district court correctly held that on the facts averred by defendant he would be unable to assert an "innocent possession" defense; there was probable cause to arrest and frisk defendant; defendant's state conviction for robbery in the third degree qualified as a violent felony under the ACCA; and defendant's remaining arguments were without merit. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Miles" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction for illegal reentry into the United States after he was deported because of an aggravated felony conviction. Defendant challenged the sufficiency of the evidence, arguing that the government failed to prove his physical departure from the United States on March 7, 1992 airline flight from JFK Airport to Kingston, Jamaica. The court held that a properly executed warrant of deportation, coupled with testimony regarding the deportation procedures followed at that time, was sufficient proof that a defendant was, in fact physically deported from the United States. In this instance, the warrant of deportation specifically indicated that the immigration officer "witnessed" defendant's departure, and set forth the date, flight number, and time it was affected. Further, defendant stipulated that he signed the warrant and that it contained his fingerprints. Accordingly, the court concluded that there was sufficient evidence to establish defendant's guilt beyond a reasonable doubt and the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Harvey" on Justia Law

Defendant, a member of the board of directors of Goldman Sachs, appealed his conviction for three counts of securities fraud, in violation of 15 U.S.C. 78j(b) and 78ff, and one count of conspiracy to commit securities fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. 371. The prosecution arose out of a multiyear government investigation of insider trading at Galleon which included court-authorized wiretaps of Galleon's founder's cell phone. The court concluded that the trial court did not err by admitting statements of a coconspirator, recorded in wiretapped telephone conversations to which defendant was not a party where the statements were admissible both as nonhearsay statements in furtherance of the conspiracy and under the exception for statements against penal interest. The court also concluded that the trial court did not abuse its discretion by excluding relevant evidence offered by defendant. Accordingly, the court found defendant's arguments on appeal were without merit and affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Gupta" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed a forfeiture order in connection with a conviction for, inter alia, three counts of mortgage fraud (Counts Seven, Eight, and Nine). At issue was whether the district court erred by ordering forfeiture on Count Seven under a statute which, while applicable to Count Seven, was onlly charged in the indictment in connection with Counts Eight and Nine - an oversight that was not corrected by the Government or the district court before or during sentencing. The court concluded that forfeiture was limited to that authorized by the statute listed in the indictment, even if greater forfeiture would have been authorized by a different statute, where the government fails to invoke the harsher forfeiture provision prior to or during sentencing; 28 U.S.C. 982(a) authorizes forfeiture of the full amount of the loans fraudulently obtained in Counts Eight and Nine, without an offset for any portion of the loan that has been repaid; and 28 U.S.C. 981(a)(1)(c), the only forfeiture provision charged in Count Seven, permitted an offset for that portion of the loan that was repaid with no loss to the victim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the forfeiture order on Counts Eight and Nine, and remanded with instructions to vacate the forfeiture order on Count Seven. View "United States v. Annabi" on Justia Law

Liquidators challenged the district court's grant of summary judgment in favor of Brazil, concluding that a forfeiture judgment entered by a Brazilian court pursuant to Brazil's successful criminal prosecution of Kesten's former principals and owners took precedence over the Liquidators' Cayman Islands civil default judgment against Kesten. The court concluded that the penal law rule awarding summary judgment in favor of Brazil based on a forfeiture judgment of that sovereign grounded in a violation of Brazil's penal laws; however, the court recognized that 28 U.S.C. 2467 is a statutory exception to the penal rule; while no section 2467 request from Brazil is presently before the Attorney General, that nation's counsel advised the court at oral argument that if the challenged summary judgment decision were vacated based on the penal law rule, Brazil would promptly file a section 2467 petition pursuant to the nations' mutual legal assistance treaty; and therefore, the court remanded with instructions to the district court that it afford Brazil and the Attorney General a reasonable period of time to satisfy the section 2467's exception to that rule before reaching a final decision in this interpleader action. View "Federative Republic of Brazil v. Fu" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed from a conviction for violating a condition of supervised release imposed in connection with his earlier conviction for possession of a firearm by a convicted felon. The district court sentenced defendant to an additional two-term of supervision for the violation. On appeal, defendant argued that the district court lacked jurisdiction because his original three-year term of federal supervision expired before the challenged judgment was entered and while he was incarcerated for a violation of state parole. In this instance, defendant's parole obligation derived directly from his state criminal conviction, and his violation required him to continue serving the sentence imposed for that conviction from which he had earlier been released. Therefore, the court held that defendant's New York incarceration was "in connection" with his underlying conviction for unlawful weapon possession, and that, as such, the district court still had jurisdiction to revoke his federal supervision. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Bussey" on Justia Law

Defendants pled guilty to conspiring to distribute a controlled substance in violation of 21 U.S.C. 841(a), 841(b), and 846, and to using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to that conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. 924(c). On appeal, defendants challenged their sentences. The court affirmed the sentence, holding that neither U.S.S.G. 5G1.3 nor 18 U.S.C. 3584 authorizes a district court to run a term of imprisonment concurrently with a discharged term of imprisonment on related charges, and (2) that those provisions' distinctions between discharged and undischarged terms were not irrational. Defendants' remaining arguments were without merit. View "United States v. Lucas" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed the denial of his motion under 28 U.S.C. 2255 to vacate, set aside, or correct his sentence. Defendant challenged, among other things, the imposition of the career offender enhancement under the Sentencing Guidelines for two drug convictions under Connecticut law, which the court later determined in United States v. Savage, did not qualify as controlled substance offenses for enhancement purposes. The court held that when entering his guilty plea, defendant knowingly waived his rights to attack collaterally his sentence; the process by which the district court advised defendant of his rights to appeal and to attack collaterally his conviction did not constitute plain error; and the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied defendant's motion to amend his petition to plead an ineffective assistance of counsel claim. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "Tellado v. United States" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed an order revoking his supervised release. The district court concluded that defendant committed "another federal, state or local offense" in violation of the conditions of his supervised release, based solely on his pleas of guilty to a state drug offense entered under the Alford doctrine. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding, by a preponderance of the evidence, that defendant committed another offense in violation of the conditions of his supervised release because an Alford plea, under Connecticut law, constituted an acknowledgement of the strength of the state's evidence. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment of the district court. View "United States v. Glenn" on Justia Law

Defendant appealed his conviction and sentence for nine counts of various fraud crimes, including three counts of aggravated identity theft, 18 U.S.C. 1028A. The district court ordered that defendant's terms of imprisonment for all three of his section 1028A crimes run consecutively with each other even though two of those crimes may fall within U.S.S.G. 5G1.2 Application Note 2(B)(ii), which describes when the sentences for section 1028A crimes should generally run concurrently with each other. Here, the facts sufficiently suggested that at most two of the offenses underlying defendant's section 1028A offenses - counts three and eight - were groupable and therefore it was plain error for the district court not to discuss groupability. Count five, however, was clearly not groupable with counts three and eight. Therefore, the court found no error in the district court's failure to discuss groupability with respect to the sentence for this crime. The court remanded to the district court for further proceedings in connection with the sentences on counts four and nine; the court found no plain error with respect to the district court's decision to run the sentence for count six consecutively to all other sentences; and the court rejected defendant's other sentencing challenges. View "United States v. Chibuko" on Justia Law