Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-09-03070/USCOURTS-caDC-09-03070-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Ikela Marcea Dean
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued September 17, 2010 Decided January 7, 2011

No. 09-3070

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

IKELA MARCEA DEAN,

APPELLANT

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 1:08-cr-00005)

Tony Axam Jr., Assistant Federal Public Defender, argued

the cause for appellant. With him on the briefs was A. J.

Kramer, Federal Public Defender. Neil H. Jaffee, Assistant

Federal Public Defender, entered an appearance.

Peter S. Smith, Assistant U.S. Attorney, argued the cause

for appellee. With him on the brief were Ronald C. Machen Jr.,

U.S. Attorney, and Roy W. McLeese III and John P. Mannarino,

Assistant U.S. Attorneys.

Before: SENTELLE, Chief Judge, TATEL and BROWN, Circuit

Judges.

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Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge SENTELLE.

SENTELLE, Chief Judge: Ikela Dean appeals her convictions

for one count of bribery and one count of extortion. She argues

that there was insufficient evidence presented at trial to support

the convictions. We agree and reverse.

Background

Appellant Ikela Dean was indicted in 2008 on fourteen

counts of bribery and extortion, and tried before a jury. At trial

the government put forth evidence of the following events:

During 2007 Dean was employed by the District of Columbia

Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs (hereinafter

D.C. or DCRA) as a contact representative. Her responsibilities

included reviewing and processing various license applications,

for example, licenses needed by establishments for their

elevators. During the summer of 2007 Dean carried out a

scheme whereby she informed establishments seeking past due

renewal of their elevator licenses that the fee for the elevator

license itself could be paid by check, but that any additional late

fees had to be paid in cash. Dean submitted the checks for the

licenses to the District of Columbia but kept for herself the cash

submitted as payment for the late fees. After seven successful

iterations of the scheme, Dean attempted an eighth with respect

to licenses of the Omni Shoreham Hotel. An employee of the

Omni became suspicious of the cash request and contacted the

Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). 

The FBI set up a sting operation wherein a representative

from the Omni (hereinafter “undercover agent”), acting on

instructions from the FBI, contacted Dean and informed her that

in addition to the licenses for its elevators the Omni also was in

need of a license for a cigar bar/billiards hall within the hotel. 

This cigar bar/billiards hall was in fact non-existent and

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fabricated only to test Dean. Dean informed the undercover

agent that the pool tables in the billiards hall would need their

own license, and after the agent informed Dean that there were

five pool tables, Dean told him that the total licensing fee for the

pool tables amounted to $1275. Dean also told him that the

license for the cigar bar/billiards hall itself could be paid by

check but that the license for the pool tables had to be paid in

cash since those fees were late. After being given the $1275 in

cash Dean was arrested.

After the government rested its case Dean’s attorney moved

for judgment of acquittal on each count of the indictment,

arguing that the government’s evidence did not prove that Dean

had committed either bribery or extortion. The trial judge

granted the motion on twelve of the fourteen counts, noting that

both bribery and extortion presuppose a quid pro quo, i.e.,

Dean’s taking of the money had to be in return for the

performance of an official act. The judge stated that the late

fees at issue in those twelve counts, collected by Dean in cash

and kept by her, were in fact owed to the city by the license

applicants. Therefore, while the evidence might have supported

charges of embezzling or stealing from the city, she had not

committed bribery or extortion. The trial judge denied the

motion with respect to the remaining one count of bribery and

one count of extortion concerning the pool tables at the Omni,

stating that those two counts were distinct from the other counts

because the pool tables were non-existent and therefore the

$1275 given to Dean for their licenses was not in fact owed to

the city.

Dean was subsequently found guilty on the two remaining

counts of bribery and extortion and sentenced to prison. She

appeals, arguing, inter alia, that her convictions on those two

counts should be reversed because the evidence was insufficient

to establish that she committed either bribery or extortion.

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Analysis

Dean was convicted of bribery pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §

201(b)(2)(A), which provides that a public official commits

bribery when that official “directly or indirectly, corruptly

demands, seeks, receives, accepts, or agrees to receive or accept

anything of value personally or for any other person or entity, in

return for . . . being influenced in the performance of any official

act.” In United States v. Sun-Diamond Growers of California,

526 U.S. 398, 404-05 (1999), the Supreme Court noted that

under this statutory provision, “for bribery there must be a quid

pro quo—a specific intent to give or receive something of value

in exchange for an official act.” Dean argues that her plan to

keep the $1275 was not part of a quid pro quo for issuing the

cigar bar/billiards hall license. In support of this argument,

Dean claims that there was no evidence that she received the

money in exchange for being influenced in the official act of

issuing the license, i.e., she offered no pretense and made no

suggestion that the payment was to be made personally to her in

exchange for favorably processing the license. In short, Dean

asserts that she did not commit bribery because the transaction

did not involve an illicit benefit in exchange for favorable

treatment for the Omni. The government, on the other hand,

argues that Dean’s keeping of the $1275 cash payment in

exchange for processing and issuing the license indeed

constituted a quid pro quo, and therefore Dean is guilty of

bribery. In support of this argument, the government quotes

United States v. Orenuga, that “a bribe is consummated when

the defendant accepts money with the specific intent of

performing an official act in return.” 430 F.3d 1158, 1166

(D.C. Cir. 2005) (quotation omitted). The government contends

that the evidence here showed that Dean accepted the $1275

with the intent to perform the official acts of processing and

issuing a license for the Omni’s fictitious pool tables. 

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Dean was also convicted of extortion pursuant to 18 U.S.C.

§ 1951, which prohibits “in any way or degree obstruct[ing],

delay[ing], or affect[ing] commerce . . . by robbery or

extortion,” and which states that “[t]he term ‘extortion’ means

the obtaining of property from another, with his consent,

induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence,

or fear, or under color of official right.” Although the crime of

extortion can be committed in a variety of ways, see James

Lindgren, The Elusive Distinction Between Bribery and

Extortion: From the Common Law to the Hobbs Act, 35

U.C.L.A. L. Rev. 815 (1988), the government’s extortion theory

here is essentially the same as its bribery theory—i.e., that Dean

entered into an illicit quid pro quo under which she would issue

pool-table licenses to the Omni in return for a $1275 cash

payment. As the government notes, the Supreme Court has

stated that a public official is guilty of extortion when he

“obtain[s] a payment to which he [is] not entitled, knowing that

the payment [is] made in return for official acts.” Evans v.

United States, 504 U.S. 255, 268 (1992). The problem with the

government’s argument, however, is that the Supreme Court has

also indicated that a quid pro quo necessitates an agreement

between the public official and the other party that the official

will perform an official act in return for a personal benefit to the

official. See id. If, for example, Dean had said to the

undercover agent “you owe $1275 for the pool table license to

the city and $300 to me for making it happen without delay,”

that would be evidence of the crimes charged. However, the

only agreement supported by the evidence was one between

Dean and the undercover agent that he would pay a fee to D.C.

for a license for pool tables. There was no agreement between

the parties that the $1275 was for Dean personally. She

accepted the money ostensibly on behalf of the DCRA with

every indication that the fee was required for the pool tables. 

Furthermore, we see nothing in the record to suggest that the

Omni expected favorable processing of the license or that Dean

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agreed to provide favorable processing.

The government contends that the evidence showed that

Dean accepted the $1275 with the intent to perform the official

acts of processing and issuing a license for the Omni’s fictitious

pool tables. But this situation described by the government is

repeated every day in government offices when a public official

receives payment for a licensing fee and issues a license in the

normal course of business, e.g., when a person goes to the state

agency which processes drivers’ licenses and pays a fee to get

a license. The official is receiving the fee on behalf of the

government office, just as Dean did in accepting the $1275 on

behalf of the DCRA. But, argues the government, the evidence

established that Dean intended to keep the $1275. While this is

true, the fact remains that the agreement was for Dean to accept

the $1275 on behalf of the DCRA. There is no evidence of an

agreement between her and the undercover agent that the money

was to go to her personally.

The government’s reliance on this court’s statement in

Orenuga, that “a bribe is consummated when the defendant

accepts money with the specific intent of performing an official

act in return” is misplaced. 430 F.3d at 1166 (quotation and

emphasis omitted). In that case we responded to a challenge of

a jury instruction by noting the gravamen of bribery is “taking

or agreeing to take money for a promise to act in a certain way.” 

Id. (quotations omitted). In other words, the quid pro quo need

not be “fully executed for the act to be considered a bribe.” Id.

In any event, Orenuga is a very different case than this one in

that in Orenuga there was an agreement between the parties that

the defendant would be given money personally for an official

act. Id. at 1160-61. Here, in contrast, there was no such

agreement between the Omni and Dean.

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Also misplaced is the government’s reliance on the

Supreme Court’s statement in Evans that the quid pro quo

requirement is satisfied where it is established that “a public

official has obtained a payment to which he was not entitled,

knowing that the payment was made in return for official acts.” 

504 U.S. at 268. The question in Evans was “whether an

affirmative act of inducement by a public official, such as a

demand, is an element of the offense of extortion” prohibited by

18 U.S.C. § 1951. Id. at 256. The statement relied upon by the

government was nothing more than an answer by the Court to

that question. Id. at 268. In any event, the paragraph containing

that statement begins with the Court noting that the quid pro quo

requirement is satisfied “at the time when the public official

receives a payment in return for his agreement to perform

specific official acts . . . .” Id. (emphasis added). The point, as

we have already noted, is that there must be an agreement

between the public official and the other party that the official

will perform an official act in return for a personal benefit to the

official. Here there was no such agreement between Dean and

the undercover agent. Dean represented that she was accepting

the $1275 on behalf of the DCRA.

The government argues that even though there may not

have been an overt agreement between Dean and the Omni

concerning the $1275, the jury could have inferred that she was

issuing the license in exchange for a personal benefit. But a

review of the transcript of the recorded conversation between

Dean and the undercover agent shows that Dean stated to the

agent that there were five pool tables so the license would cost

$1275, and furthermore because it was late, it had to be in cash. 

Dean represented that the money was going to D.C., not to her. 

We see nothing in the record wherein Dean suggested to the

agent that the money was going into her pocket. We therefore

agree with Dean that there were no words or actions by her from

which a rational juror could infer that she was requiring a cash

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payment in exchange for being influenced to issue the license.

Finally, the government argues that since this was a sting

operation it was clear that neither Dean nor the DCRA were due

any late fees in connection with the Omni’s request to license

the five pool tables. But the sting operation was what the

government was doing, not what Dean was doing. Dean was

still representing that she was accepting money on behalf of

D.C. and the fact that D.C. received money to license fictitious

pool tables doesn’t change anything—the money was still

purportedly coming in for D.C.

We are not holding that the evidence against Dean did not

support a conclusion that she committed criminal activity. 

However, that is not the question in this or any other case under

the American justice system. The question is whether the

evidence is sufficient to support the crime charged. The

evidence was that Dean received money from licensees under

false pretenses and took money that belonged to her employer. 

We do not know why the United States Attorneys’ Office did

not choose to seek an indictment for fraud or embezzlement

under Title 22, Chapter 32 of the District of Columbia Code. It

would appear that the evidence might easily have supported

such charges. However, for whatever reason, the prosecutor

sought and obtained an indictment for an offense not supported

by the evidence. This was true with respect to all of the charges

rightly dismissed by the trial court, as well as the two that made

it through to us.

Conclusion

We conclude that there was insufficient evidence to convict

Dean of either bribery or extortion as charged in the indictment

because the evidence showed no quid pro quo necessary to

convict on either charge. We echo the sentiments of the trial

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judge who opined that the government mis-charged in this case;

Dean may well be guilty of embezzlement or fraud, but not

extortion or bribery as charged. The judgment of conviction is

reversed.

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