FILED

U.S. COURT OF APPEALS

ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

OCT 25, 2007

THOMAS K. KAHN

CLERK

[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

____________

No. 05-11137

_____________

D.C. Docket No. 01-06258-CR-JEM

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee, 

versus

WALTER J. BROWNE, 

a.k.a. Buster, 

PATRICIA A. DEVANEY, 

a.k.a. Patricia Browne, 

a.k.a. Patricia Cardone, 

a.k.a. Patricia Browne Cardone,

Defendants-Appellants.

______________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

_____________

(October 25, 2007)
 Honorable Jane A. Restani, Chief Judge, United States Court of International Trade,

*

sitting by designation.

2

Before TJOFLAT and HULL, Circuit Judges, and RESTANI, Judge. *

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge:

The crimes in this case arose from the activities of Walter J. Browne and his

sister, Patricia A. Devaney, as a high-ranking official and administrative assistant,

respectively, in two labor unions. Accused of lining their pockets by abusing their

positions in the unions, the defendants in this brother-and-sister operation were

prosecuted under the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act

(“RICO”), the Taft-Hartley Act, and other federal statutes proscribing

embezzlement and fraud. After a two-month joint trial, Browne was convicted of

eight counts and acquitted of seven counts, and Devaney was convicted of nine

counts and acquitted of six counts. The Government obtained an order of

forfeiture for which the defendants were held jointly and severally liable. In

addition, the defendants received prison sentences, and Devaney was ordered to

pay restitution. Both now appeal, contesting the legal and factual support for their

RICO and Taft-Hartley Act convictions, the district court’s denial of severance,

and the order of forfeiture.

We affirm the defendants’ convictions and sentences in all respects. The
 Licensed seamen include captains, mates (first, second, and third), and engineers (chief,

1

first-assistant, second-assistant, and third-assistant). Unlicensed seamen primarily take direction

from the officers, and usually outnumber licensed seamen on a vessel. However, not all licensed

seamen are deemed supervisors for collective bargaining purposes; generally, captains, first

mates, and chief and first-assistant engineers are considered supervisors. 

3

structure of the opinion is as follows: Part I provides the facts relevant for

purposes of this appeal. Part II describes the charges against the defendants and

the proceedings in the district court. Parts III through VI examine the issues raised

on appeal by the defendants.

I.

As an understanding of the membership and organizational structure of the

two labor unions is crucial to this appeal, we first describe these unions, the

defendants’ involvement therewith, and the incidents leading to prosecution.

Founded in 1875, District 1-Marine Engineers Beneficial Association (“D1-

MEBA”) is an AFL-CIO-chartered labor organization headquartered in

Washington, D.C. Throughout the relevant period, D1-MEBA represented both

licensed and unlicensed seamen in its maritime divisions. These seamen served 1

on all manner of ships, including ships in international commerce, ready reserve

force vessels, military sealift command ships, National Oceanic and Atmospheric

Administration research vessels, ships of institutions such as Scripps Research

Institute and Woods Hole Research Center, and Staten Island ferries.
4

In addition to representing seamen, D1-MEBA also represented nonmaritime workers. In its Professional Office Industrial Division (“POID”), D1-

MEBA represented land-based employees who handled the freight and offices of

shipping companies whose maritime employees were represented by D1-MEBA’s

maritime divisions. D1-MEBA also represented various public-sector employees,

ranging from school bus drivers to custodial workers, in its Federation of Public

Employees (“D1-MEBA/FOPE”) division, which was headquartered in Broward

County, Florida. Although POID and D1-MEBA/FOPE were administered as

separate divisions, their members were considered full voting members of D1-

MEBA. 

Walter J. “Buster” Browne became executive director of D1-MEBA/FOPE

in 1977. Under Browne’s leadership, the membership of D1-MEBA/FOPE grew

steadily. In 1988, D1-MEBA merged with the National Maritime Union, a union

that primarily represented unlicensed seamen, and became D1-MEBA/NMU. 

Sometime thereafter, Browne was forced out of the newly merged entity by D1-

MEBA president Gene DeFries. Browne went to Washington, D.C., and became

involved in a movement to oust DeFries. The merger did not last; DeFries and
 Browne was named in the same indictment for his role in rigging the election in favor of 2

DeFries, to which he pled guilty. 

5

others were indicted on charges including election rigging and embezzlement, and 2

in late 1991, D1-MEBA voted to secede and reconstitute itself as an autonomous

entity under its original name. It retained a number of unlicensed seamen who

worked on state-operated ferries in Alaska and Washington state. In 1992, the

new leadership of D1-MEBA restored Browne to his former position as D1-

MEBA/FOPE’s executive director.

During the fall of 1993, Browne’s sister, Patricia A. Devaney, attempted

suicide by ingesting a large quantity of pills and alcohol. The failed attempt was

precipitated by her depression, heavy drinking, and the loss of her job at the

Broward County sheriff’s office. After receiving psychiatric and rehabilitative

treatment, Devaney moved into Browne’s house. Browne hired Devaney as his

administrative assistant and gave her a car. Although Devaney initially performed

clerical work, she later began taking charge of the division’s finances, causing the

office manager who had previously handled the finances to become offended and

to quit. 

As executive director, Browne was permitted to make union-related

telephone calls on union cell phones and union calling cards. He was also
6

permitted to incur certain entertainment and travel expenses, so long as they were

related to the union’s business. Under the Labor Management Reporting and

Disclosure Act, the union was required to file a Labor Organization Annual

Report, or LM-2, detailing financial receipts and disbursements, including unionrelated expenditures, and to retain sufficient records documenting and explaining

such transactions for at least five years. See 29 U.S.C. §§ 431(b), 436; 29 C.F.R.

§ 403.3. Accordingly, D1-MEBA regulations required that each employee

personally complete expense vouchers and attach substantiating documents

justifying the expenses, such as receipts. Contrary to these regulations, Devaney

often completed Browne’s expense vouchers. Furthermore, D1-MEBA

accountants noticed that supporting documentation for expenses charged to

Browne’s union credit card was frequently late or missing.

In October 1993, Browne began working as a lobbyist and consultant for

Hvide Marine, Inc. (“Hvide”), a marine company operating out of Port Everglades

in Broward County. Browne accepted monthly payments from Hvide from

October 1993 to July 1998. In total, these payments amounted to $254,000.

By late 1993, the swelling ranks of D1-MEBA/FOPE and POID members

began to generate friction. Because of previous attempts by leaders of the former

merged entity to marshal the increasing number of votes held by members of D1-
7

MEBA/FOPE and POID, members of the maritime divisions feared that those nonmaritime divisions would eventually dilute the traditional maritime focus of the

union. For their part, members of D1-MEBA/FOPE and POID believed they

would be better served by a separate union. D1-MEBA therefore decided to create

an autonomous affiliate union, the National Federation of Public and Private

Employees (“NFOPAPE”), to represent directly the bargaining units of D1-

MEBA/FOPE and POID. 

With the help of a $250,000 loan from D1-MEBA, NFOPAPE headquarters

were established in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The new union was organized into

two divisions: the Federation of Private Employees and the Federation of Public

Employees. Browne was named president of NFOPAPE and divisional president

of the Federation of Public Employees. Devaney also began working for

NFOPAPE, answering to both Browne and Gilbert Carrillo, who was hired as inhouse counsel of the Federation of Public Employees.

Browne was keen to establish NFOPAPE’s autonomy from D1-MEBA and

its Washington, D.C. headquarters. He directed the drafting of NFOPAPE’s own

constitution to ensure that, despite its affiliation with D1-MEBA, NFOPAPE

would have its own structure and identity. Under the affiliation agreement,

bargaining units from D1-MEBA would be transferred by election to NFOPAPE. 
8

Upon NFOPAPE’s creation, POID’s bargaining units were transferred to the

Federation of Private Employees. In addition, approximately half of D1-

MEBA/FOPE’s bargaining units were transferred to the Federation of Public

Employees; the remaining units were retained by D1-MEBA until they were

likewise transferred by late 1996 or early 1997. Thus, Browne continued to serve

as D1-MEBA/FOPE’s executive director for a couple years, remaining on D1-

MEBA’s payroll. 

As with his position at D1-MEBA, Browne’s positions at NFOPAPE also

permitted him to incur travel and entertainment expenses related to union

business, for which he could be reimbursed by personally submitting expense

vouchers and substantiating documentation. In addition, NFOPAPE policy

required the secretary/treasurer to approve such expenses. Under the division

bylaws of the Federation of Public Employees, it was also the responsibility of the

secretary-treasurer, together with the divisional president, to maintain custody of

the books and records, to supervise the financial accounts, to give financial reports

at membership meetings, and to sign checks for disbursement from the division’s

accounts.

Shortly after NFOPAPE’s formation, Browne hired George Zakaib as the

secretary-treasurer of the Federation of Public Employees. Zakaib was a former
9

custodian and repairman who served as shop steward of the custodial unit. He had

never attended college, had no financial training, and had never been involved in

union finances. As secretary-treasurer, Zakaib primarily worked as a recruiter of

new members. At membership meetings, his sole responsibilities were to lead the

pledge of allegiance and to handle the raffle tickets. Zakaib did not have access to

the union’s books and records, never signed payroll checks, and never reviewed

union credit card bills, bank statements, entertainment expenses, or travel

expenses. Rather, it was Devaney who handled the union’s books and records,

received and paid bills, processed expense vouchers, and managed payroll. On

several occasions, Zakaib complained to Devaney and requested the opportunity to

review the union’s books and records, but Devaney told him to “go fishing.” 

Devaney complained to Browne that Zakaib was “starting a ruckus” about the

records, to which Browne responded that he would “take care of it.” Zakaib also

complained to Carrillo and Browne, even threatening to resign. Although Browne

assured Zakaib that he would “take care of it,” Zakaib’s duties did not change.

Despite having shown initial improvement after her treatment, Devaney had

eventually relapsed into heavy drinking and depression. Carrillo became seriously

concerned that Devaney’s drinking problems rendered her unfit to handle the

union’s finances, and feared that Devaney’s use of a union car would create
10

liability issues for the union. Carrillo spoke with Browne on more than one

occasion, requesting that Browne take the union car away from Devaney and place

Devaney in a rehabilitation program. Browne did not do so.

In 1995 and 1996, an accountant retained by the union, George Maribella,

indicated to NFOPAPE officials that additional internal controls over the union’s

accounting functions were necessary. In August or September 1996, a dispute

arose over NFOPAPE’s repayment of the $250,000 loan from D1-MEBA. D1-

MEBA President Alexander Shandrowsky wrote a letter to Browne requesting

permission to audit the books and records of NFOPAPE, which Browne refused. 

Flanked by D1-MEBA officials and an independent auditor, Shandrowsky then

paid a visit to NFOPAPE headquarters. Browne again refused to allow access to

the financial records. In October 1996, Shandrowsky terminated Browne as

executive director of D1-MEBA/FOPE, primarily because of Browne’s refusal to

permit D1-MEBA to audit NFOPAPE’s books and records, but also because he

believed that Browne was attempting to “raid” units in the Broward County area

that were represented by other labor organizations. Following his termination

from D1-MEBA, NFOPAPE took over responsibility for Browne’s salary.

In late 1996, NFOPAPE retained an outside accounting firm to audit the

union’s financial statements going forward. One of that firm’s partners, Nadine
11

Bellows, had several occasions to report on the audited financial statements at the

union’s membership meetings. In her letters to union management, Bellows noted

that the union’s internal controls were “weak or non-existent,” because Devaney

was handling the bulk of the bookkeeping and financial duties. She recommended

that such duties be divided among several persons, to provide for segregation of

duties pursuant to standard accounting procedures. As of her year-end audit for

1999, Bellows noted that none of the previous years’ recommendations had been

implemented by the union. 

Beginning in 1997, Devaney began authorizing increased payments to

herself through payroll. She also issued checks to her husband, who had

previously been employed as consultant to the union, and cashed the checks

herself. In 1999, the union hired Tina Kaiser as a bookkeeper. Kaiser noticed

suspicious bonus checks issued to Devaney and her husband. Not wanting to

approach Browne, Kaiser mentioned her observations to several other union

officials, including Pat Lambert, a union representative at the Broward County

sheriff’s office. At the Labor Day picnic in September 1999, Lambert informed

Browne that Devaney was stealing from the union. In November 1999, Devaney

altered her payroll scheme. Rather than issuing checks to herself or her husband,

she began issuing unwarranted payroll checks to her daughter, who edited the
 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d) makes it unlawful for any person to conspire with any other person 3

to violate §§ 1962(a), 1962(b), or 1962(c).

 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c) makes it unlawful “for any person employed by or associated with 4

any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to

conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise’s affairs through a

pattern of racketeering activity or collection of unlawful debt.”

12

union newsletter. Devaney then cashed the checks herself.

In March 2000, Devaney went from a full-time to a part-time employee of

the union in order to work for the Broward County sheriff’s office. When she

requested her vacation pay in advance, Kaiser informed a union official that

Devaney had already received her vacation pay. The ensuing investigation

revealed that Devaney had embezzled $116,207.66 from payroll, and she was

terminated. On May 16 of that year, Devaney sent the union a letter of apology

and a check for $1,500 as voluntary restitution. After the sale of her condo for

$56,000, Devaney bought herself a new car for $21,000 and sent the union a

$25,000 check on October 21.

II.

On May 8, 2003, a Southern District of Florida grand jury returned a

twenty-count, second superseding indictment charging Browne and Devaney with

various offenses. Count 1 charged both defendants with conspiring to violate

RICO. Count 2 charged both defendants with a substantive violation of RICO

3 4
 29 U.S.C. § 186 prohibits any person from requesting, demanding, receiving, accepting, 5

or agreeing to receive or accept, any thing of value from certain employers. 

 The federal mail fraud statute makes it unlawful to use the United States mails in 6

furtherance of “any scheme or artifice to defraud, or [to] obtain[] money or property by means of

false or fraudulent pretenses, representations, or promises.” 18 U.S.C. § 1341. In 1988,

Congress broadened the mail fraud statute so that in addition to protecting against schemes to

obtain money and property, the term “scheme or artifice to defraud” includes schemes to deprive

individuals of “the intangible right of honest services.” 18 U.S.C. § 1346. 

 29 U.S.C. § 501(c) prohibits any person from embezzling the assets of a labor 7

organization of which he is an officer or employee.

 The federal bank fraud statute prohibits any person from executing or attempting to 8

execute a scheme or artifice (1) to defraud a financial institution, or (2) to obtain any of the assets

owned by a financial institution by fraudulent means. 18 U.S.C. § 1344.

13

and listed fifteen predicate acts committed by Browne, Devaney, or both.

Counts 3 through 6 charged Browne with accepting payments from certain

employers in violation of §§ 302(b)(1) and (d)(2) of the Taft-Hartley Act. See 29

U.S.C. §§ 186(b)(1), (d)(2).5

Count 7 charged Browne with committing “honest services” mail fraud in

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341.6

Counts 8 and 9 charged both defendants and Devaney alone, respectively,

with embezzlement from a labor union in violation of 29 U.S.C. § 501(c).7

Count 10 charged Devaney under 18 U.S.C. § 1344 for bank fraud.8

Counts 11 through 18 charged both defendants with committing mail fraud

in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341 by submitting expense vouchers for the
 29 U.S.C. § 439(a) requires every labor union to submit to the Secretary of Labor an

9

annual financial report (known as forms LM-2 or LM-3) of salaries, allowances, reimbursed

expenses, and other disbursements to all officers and to employees receiving more than $10,000,

and to maintain supporting documentation thereof.

 29 U.S.C. § 439(c) prohibits the willful making of false entries or concealing, 10

withholding, or destroying any records required to be kept in connection with 29 U.S.C. §§ 431

and 433.

 In pertinent part, 18 U.S.C. § 1963 mandates forfeiture of any interest acquired or 11

maintained in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962, and any property constituting, or derived from, any

proceeds which the person obtained, directly or indirectly, from racketeering activity or unlawful

debt collection in violation of § 1962. 18 U.S.C. § 1963(a)(1), (3). 

14

reimbursement of personal expenses.

Count 19 charged Browne and Devaney with failing to maintain labor

organization records in violation of 29 U.S.C. § 439(a). Count 20 charged 9

Devaney under 29 U.S.C. § 439(c) for destroying and falsifying records related to

the union’s payroll.10

Finally, the indictment included a forfeiture count against both defendants,

seeking forfeiture pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1963 in the event of conviction under

Counts 1 or 2.11

Browne filed two pretrial motions for severance which were denied. The

defendants were tried in a joint trial beginning on April 5, 2004. At the close of

the Government’s case, the defendants moved for judgment of acquittal pursuant

to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29 on certain counts. The district court

subsequently granted Browne acquittals on the mail fraud charges in Counts 17
 NFOPAPE’s insurer, Ulico Casualty Company, paid NFOPAPE $87,100 for the losses 12

related to Devaney’s payroll embezzlement.

15

and 18, which also eliminated Predicate Act 15 of Count 2, but reserved ruling on

the remainder of the counts. The defendants renewed their Rule 29 motions at the

close of all the evidence, on which the district court reserved decision. 

On June 2, 2004, the jury found Browne guilty of Counts 1-3, 7, 12-14, and

19. With respect to the substantive RICO violation, Count 2, he was found to

have committed Predicate Acts 1, 2, 4, 13, and 14. Devaney was found guilty of

Counts 1, 2, 9, 10, 13, and 17-20. The jury found that she had committed

Predicate Acts 10-14 of Count 2.

Following sentencing hearings, Browne received concurrent prison

sentences of 70 months for Counts 1, 2, and 7, 60 months on Counts 3, 12-14, and

12 months on Count 19. He also received three years’ supervised release for

Counts 1-3, 12-14, and one year for Count 19. Devaney received concurrent

sentences of 27 months’ imprisonment for Counts 1, 2, 9, 10, 13, 17, and 18, and

12 months on Counts 19-20. She also received five years’ supervised release and

was ordered to pay $87,100 in restitution. Finally, the defendants were held 12

jointly and severally liable under an order of forfeiture in the amount of

$592,271.32.
16

The district court denied the defendants’ motions for judgment of acquittal

and for new trial. Each defendant timely appealed.

III.

Browne first argues that the district court erred in interpreting the criminal

section of the Taft-Hartley Act on which several of the counts against him were

based. See Labor Management Relations (Taft-Hartley) Act § 302 (as amended),

29 U.S.C. § 186. The indictment contained four counts alleging separate

violations by Browne of that section of the Act. Section 186 also served as the

basis for eight of the predicate acts alleged against Browne in support of the

substantive RICO count. The jury ultimately found Browne guilty of one TaftHartley count and that he had committed three of the Taft-Hartley predicate acts

alleged in Count 2. These counts and predicate acts will be described in greater

detail, infra.

Browne argues that, under the proper interpretation of the statute, the

evidence adduced by the Government at trial is insufficient to support his

conviction on the Taft-Hartley count and the jury’s findings of culpability on the

three Taft-Hartley predicate acts. As such, he suggests that he is entitled to entry

of a judgment of acquittal on these counts. Alternatively, he argues that the

district court erred in denying his request for a jury instruction defining the term
 Although Browne speaks broadly of his entitlement to a new trial on all counts on 13

which he was convicted, his brief specifically identifies the RICO conspiracy count, Count 1, the

substantive RICO count, Count 2, and the theft-of-honest-services mail fraud count, Count 7, as

those which were directly implicated by the purported failure of proof of the Taft-Hartley Act

count and predicate acts. We discuss the viability of Browne’s convictions on these three related

counts in part II.B., infra.

Although Browne’s initial brief proposes that he receive a new trial on these three counts,

his arguments generally reiterate the sufficiency of evidence challenge that he made in his

unsuccessful Rule 29 motion at the close of evidence at the trial. The remedy for a successful

sufficiency challenge under Rule 29 would be entry of judgment of acquittal, not a new trial, but

it matters not. We treat his argument as a sufficiency challenge, and we ultimately determine that

it must fail. To the extent Browne intended to argue separately that he is entitled to a new trial in

the interest of justice on Counts 1, 2, and 7 because of the insufficiency of the challenged

predicate acts, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 33(a), we deem such an argument waived. See Fed. R.

Appellate P. 28(a)(9). Browne did not provide any reasoning or citations in his brief on appeal to

support such an argument, nor do we find any evidence in our independent review of the record

that Browne moved the district court for a new trial on the ground of the insufficiency of the

predicate acts. After the verdict, Browne did move the district court for a new trial on severance

grounds, see part III, infra, but he specifically requested only judgment of acquittal on Counts 1,

2, and 7.

17

“employee” to exclude supervisors, thus requiring a new trial on the Taft-Hartley

count and two of the three predicate acts that the jury found Browne had

committed. Ultimately, he argues, the infirmities of the Taft-Hartley count and

predicate acts fatally undermine the remaining counts on which he was convicted

– including the most serious RICO counts.13

Our review of this issue proceeds as follows. We begin in part III.A by

determining the proper interpretation of § 186, then examining the sufficiency of

the evidence to support Browne’s conviction on the Taft-Hartley violation alleged

in Count 3, which was also alleged as Predicate Act 1. We then consider in part

III.B the remaining two Taft-Hartley predicate acts that the jury found Browne had
18

committed, as well as Browne’s convictions for the substantive RICO violation,

RICO conspiracy, and “honest services” mail fraud. In part III.C, we address

Browne’s argument challenging the jury instructions on certain of the Taft-Hartley

charges. 

A.

The Taft-Hartley Act, as amended, regulates various aspects of labor

organizations and practices, but in part, the Act serves as “a conflict-of-interest

statute designed to eliminate practices that have the potential for corrupting the

labor movement.” United States v. Phillips, 19 F.3d 1565, 1574 (11th Cir. 1994),

amended on other grounds by 59 F.3d 1095 (11th Cir. 1995). To this end, § 186

generally prohibits employers in industries affecting commerce from paying

anything of value to labor organizations or their officials, and conversely prohibits

labor representatives from receiving anything of value from employers. See id.

Browne was charged in Counts 3-6 of the second superseding indictment,

and in Predicate Acts 1-8 under the substantive RICO count (Count 2), with

violations of § 186(b)(1). That subsection provides, in pertinent part: “It shall be

unlawful for any person to request, demand, receive, or accept, or agree to receive

or accept, any payment, loan, or delivery of any money or other thing of value

prohibited by subsection (a) of this section.” 29 U.S.C. § 186(b)(1). Subsection
19

(a), in turn, establishes four sets of circumstances under which the employer who

makes or agrees to the prohibited payment may be criminally liable; thus, the

liability of the recipient of the prohibited payment is coextensive with that of the

employer. The Government framed each Taft-Hartley count and predicate act in

the indictment with reference to payments prohibited by § 186(a)(2) specifically,

which provides in pertinent part:

It shall be unlawful for any employer . . . to pay, lend, or deliver, or agree to

pay, lend, or deliver, any money or other thing of value . . . to any labor

organization, or any officer or employee thereof, which represents, seeks to

represent, or would admit to membership, any of the employees of such

employer who are employed in an industry affecting commerce[.]

29 U.S.C. § 186(a), (a)(2) (emphases added).

The jury found Browne guilty of Count 3 and found that he had committed

Predicate Acts 1, 2, and 4 of Count 2. Each count and each predicate act alleged

that Browne unlawfully received monetary payments from a different employer

whose employees D1-MEBA and/or NFOPAPE would have admitted to

membership. Count 3 and Predicate Act 1 alleged the same conduct – namely, that

between October 1993 and July 1998, Browne accepted approximately $250,000

from Hvide. Predicate Act 2 alleged that Browne accepted approximately $12,500

from April to October 1995 from an agent of Coastal Gaming Group, Inc.

(“Coastal Gaming”), which was doing business as International Cruises, Inc. In
20

Predicate Act 4, the Government alleged that Browne accepted approximately

$4,000 between September 1994 and July 1996 from the owner of Coleary

Transport, Inc. (“Coleary Transport”).

Browne contests the district court’s interpretations of two provisions of

§ 186 as they relate to the Government’s case on each of these counts. First, he

argues that the district court erred in ruling that the term “employee,” as used in

§ 186(a)(2), includes supervisors. Under Browne’s interpretation, supervisors are

excluded from the definition of “employee” by the terms of the applicable

definition sections in Title 29. Thus, he asserts, the proper interpretation of the

term “employee” renders insupportable the jury’s findings on Count 3 and

Predicate Acts 1 and 2 of Count 2, all of which involve what Browne characterizes

as negotiations for his unions to provide only supervisory employees to potential

employers.

Second, Browne argues that the district court erred in interpreting the term

“would admit to membership” as used in § 186(a)(2). In short, Browne suggests

that the district court interpreted this provision too broadly, allowing the jury to

convict him of Count 3 and find him responsible for each of the three predicate

acts on the basis of evidence that, in his estimation, was insufficient to prove what

is required under the statute – namely, an existing employment relationship
21

between the employer in question and members of the union.

For reasons that will be explained infra, this appeal does not require us to

interpret definitively the term “employee.” As such, we leave that issue for

another day, and for the limited purpose of discussion here, we assume that

Browne is correct in his assertion that the term “employee” in § 186 does not

include supervisors. Instead, we focus our attention on the “would admit to

membership” provision. Ultimately, we must determine what elements of proof

are required of the Government to obtain a conviction under the Act, and against

those we measure the sufficiency of the evidence on each of the contested counts

and predicate acts.

1.

With regard to the “would admit to membership” provision of § 186(a)(2),

Browne argues that the district court applied an “unduly broad interpretation” in

deciding his motions for judgment of acquittal. Browne suggests that the district

court erred in its consideration of his sufficiency of evidence challenge to the

Taft-Hartley counts because the court focused its analysis on whether the

employers at issue “had the present intent . . . to employ” members of D1-MEBA

or NFOPAPE by hiring them for positions that had yet to be created but would be
 In essence, Browne suggests that the district court’s application of a “present intent to

14

employ” standard caused the court to deny entry of a judgment of acquittal on the basis of

evidence pertaining to certain pre-hire agreements that Browne had negotiated with the

employers on behalf of the unions. These pre-hire agreements provided for the possible future

employment of union members, not the possible future unionization of the employer’s thencurrent employees as Browne now contends is required by the statute.

Because we review de novo both the interpretation of statutes and challenges to the

sufficiency of evidence, we need not dwell on how the district court analyzed this issue. We

would be remiss not to note, however, that the “present intent to employ” standard applied by the

district court derived directly from Browne’s own proposed instruction to the jury on the “would

admit to membership” clause. In his proposed instructions submitted before the district court

held its charge conference, Browne suggested the following instruction, which the court

ultimately delivered to the jury:

With respect to establishing whether NFOPAPE or District Number 1 - MEBA was a

labor organization which “would admit to membership” any of the employees of the

employer, the term “would admit to membership” means that at the time the acts were

performed and done, there was either a present intention for the employees of the

employer to apply for membership or that there was a present intention for the employer

to obtain work in the area and to employ employees that would or could be admitted into

membership in NFOPAPE or District Number 1 - MEBA.

(Emphasis added). This language appears to have been drawn from United States v. Sink, 355 F.

Supp. 1067, 1070–71 (E.D. Pa. 1973), which used such a standard in instructing the jury. 

Moreover, in its order denying Browne’s post-trial motions for judgment of acquittal and new

trial, the district court explicitly noted that the “present intention” standard was included in the

jury instructions “[a]t the Defendants’ request.”

Although we cannot know for sure, Browne’s recognition of his role in creating this issue

likely informed his decision on appeal not to challenge the “would admit to membership” jury

instruction. Instead, he limits his argument on that clause to the sufficiency of the evidence in

light of what he undoubtedly hopes will be a more favorable interpretation of the statute by this

court. In any event, we interpret the statute and consider the sufficiency of the evidence on the

Taft-Hartley counts independently of the district court’s rulings on these issues.

22

filled in the future. In his view, in order for the Government to sustain its burden 14

of proof under the “would admit to membership” clause, it must prove “an existing

employment relationship between the employer and union members.”

When construing a criminal statute, we begin with the plain language;
23

where “the language Congress chose to express its intent is clear and

unambiguous, that is as far as we go to ascertain its intent because we must

presume that Congress said what it meant and meant what it said.” United States

v. Steele, 147 F.3d 1316, 1318 (11th Cir. 1998) (en banc) (citing Connecticut

Nat’l Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 253–54, 112 S. Ct. 1146, 1149, 117 L. Ed.

2d 391 (1992)). By its terms, § 186(a)(2) prohibits payments by an employer to an

officer of a labor organization when the labor organization “represents, seeks to

represent, or would admit to membership, any of the employees of such employer

who are employed in an industry affecting commerce.” 29 U.S.C. § 186(a)(2)

(emphasis added). In order to be understood properly, the “would admit to

membership” clause must be read in light of the subsection as a whole –

specifically, the “who are employed” clause. The plain language indicates that

there can be no criminal liability under § 186(a)(2) – or, by extension, for the

intended recipient of a payment under § 186(b)(1) – unless, at the time the

payment was made or agreed upon, the employer currently had employees who

would be admitted to membership in the union. The use of the present tense (“are

employed”) imposes a temporal limitation on the employment status of those

employees whom § 186 would protect from corrupt double-dealing between union

officials and employers. Cf. Allied Chem. & Alkali Workers of America, Local
24

Union No. 1 v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U.S. 157, 166, 92 S. Ct. 383, 391,

30 L. Ed. 2d 341 (1971) (interpreting the statutory definition of “employee” under

the Taft-Hartley Act “not to be stretched beyond its plain meaning embracing only

those who work for another for hire”), accord. Folsom v. Prospect Hill Resources,

Inc. (In re Prospect Hill Resources, Inc.), 837 F.2d 453, 455 (11th Cir. 1988) (per

curiam); Blassie v. Kroger Co., 345 F.2d 58, 68 (8th Cir. 1965) (Blackmun, J.)

(“An employee ordinarily is a person presently engaged in employment.”).

The few reported cases to have considered the meaning of the “would admit

to membership” clause do not compel an alternative interpretation. Browne relies

heavily on United States v. Cody, in which the Second Circuit reversed the

conviction of a union official, holding that the “connection” between the union

official and the employer was “too nebulous” to support a charge under § 186. 

United States v. Cody, 722 F.2d 1052, 1059 (2d Cir. 1983). The employer in

Cody employed no union members at the time the union official received the thing

of value (in that case, a rent-free apartment), and the court was unpersuaded by the

Government’s argument that the employer would have employed union members

on a future building contract for which there were then no “actual plans.” Id. at

1057–59.

Here, Browne draws on the language of Cody in suggesting that the “would
 It is hardly debatable that a payment to a union official who currently represents 15

employees of the employer would fall within the scope of § 186(a)(2), for that subsection

prohibits payments to any labor organization or officer thereof “which represents, seeks to

represent, or would admit to membership any of the employees of such employer who are

employed in an industry affecting commerce.” 29 U.S.C. § 186(a)(2) (emphasis added). The

statutory language is quite clear in its application when current employees of the employer are

already represented by the labor organization.

 In general, we believe that the Cody decision improperly emphasizes whether the 16

“motive” behind the payments falls within the category of evils that Congress meant to address

by enacting § 186. See Cody, 722 F.2d at 1058 (noting that one of the Government’s theories of

25

admit to membership” clause requires “an existing employment relationship,

between the employer and members of the union.” Id. at 1058 (second emphasis

added). We find the reasoning of Cody less than persuasive on this score,

however. As we have noted above, the plain language of § 186(a)(2) certainly

requires an existing employment relationship, but that association need not be with

current union members – instead, it need only be the case that the employer has an

existing employment relationship with employees who would be admitted to the

union. The court in Cody, responding directly to the Government’s two arguments

in that case, seemed to conceive of only two possible theories for a prosecution

under § 186: either (1) that the employer currently employs individuals who are

already union members, in which case a payment by the employer to a union

official would constitute a violation, or (2) that the employer would allegedly 15

hire union members in the future, in which case there would ordinarily be no

violation. Id. Yet by its own examination of the statutory language and history, 16
liability was “too indirect to support the claim that [the union official] had sufficient leverage to

extort from [the employer] or that [the employer] had any incentive to bribe [the union

official]”); id. at 1059 (observing, in discussing another case, that “it could be inferred that a

motive for the gift was to discourage efforts to organize the employer’s workers”). As Cody

itself later observes, “the employer’s purpose for making a payment is irrelevant since all

payments, aside from those statutorily excluded, are unlawful.” Id.; see also United States v.

Ryan, 350 U.S. 299, 305, 76 S. Ct. 400, 404, 100 L. Ed. 335 (1956) (dictum) (interpreting an

earlier version of the § 186 as “a criminal provision, malum prohibitum, which outlaws all

payments, with stated exceptions, between employer and representative”); Phillips, 19 F.3d at

1580–81 (“Congress must have intended sections 186(a)(1)–(2) to prohibit payments to

representatives even if they were made without any intent to influence.”) (dictum).

 The case cited by the Cody court in support of that proposition, Allied Chemical & 17

Alkali Workers of America, Local Union No. 1 v. Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co., 404 U.S. at 169, 92

S. Ct. at 392, does not, in our reading, bear on the question.

26

the Cody court described a third possibility that encompasses the interpretation

relevant here: “subsection (a)(2) was added . . . to deal with employers’ attempts

through bribery of union officials to block unionization of their present

employees.” Id. This interpretation is evident from the plain language of

§ 186(a)(2); if the “conditional verbiage” of the “would admit to membership”

clause is to have any meaning, see id., Congress must have intended § 186 to

capture payments to union officials when the employer employs individuals who

were not yet union members. We see nothing in the statute or its legislative

history to support Cody’s seeming assertion that the existing employment

relationship must be between the employer and current union members. See id. 17

Thus, the relevant consideration in applying §186(a)(2)’s “would admit to

membership” clause is whether the union would admit any of the employees who
27

were currently working for the employer at the time the subject payment was

made. We note that other courts have considered some form of a “present intent”

test, under which the determination of whether a union “would admit to

membership” would turn on either (a) whether the employer had, at the time of the

payment, the present intent to hire individuals who either were union members or

would be admitted to membership after being hired, or (b) whether the union had

the present intent to admit the employer’s employees at the time the payment was

made. See United States v. Pecora, 798 F.2d 614, 622 (3d Cir. 1986) (considering,

but ultimately rejecting, a “present intent” theory); United States v. Sink, 355 F.

Supp. 1067, 1071 (E.D. Pa. 1973) (denying motions for judgment of acquittal and

new trial where the jury had been instructed that “would admit to membership . . .

means at the time the acts were performed and done . . . there was a present

intention for [the employer] to obtain work in the Philadelphia area and to employ

employees that would and could be admitted to membership in [the union]”), aff’d

mem., 485 F.2d 683 (3d Cir. 1973). As the Third Circuit did in Pecora, we reject

these formulations as inconsistent with the statutory language. The first suggested

“present intent” test would improperly allow for liability under the “would admit

to membership” clause of § 186(a)(2) in situations where the employer had no

current employees who would be admitted to membership, but instead had the
 Our holding here rules out the possibility that the statute could impose criminal liability 18

on either a union official who receives a payment, or a potential employer who makes one, while

the would-be employer has no employees at that time who would be admitted. We recognize that

this decision may limit the Government’s ability to initiate prosecutions under § 186 when there

is only a possible future employment relationship (i.e., no existing relationship) between a

potential employer and individuals who would be admitted to membership in the union. 

Arguably, such a result would seem to run counter to the statute’s broadly stated purpose

to address “instances of breach of trust, corruption, disregard of the rights of individual

employees, and other failures to observe high standards of responsibility and ethical conduct”

among “labor organizations, employers, labor relations consultants, and their officers and

representatives.” Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (“LMRDA”), Pub.

L. No. 86-257, § 2(b), 73 Stat. 519, 519; see also Cody, 722 F.2d at 1059 (“[T]here may be

circumstances in which the possible future hiring of unionized workers might lead to abuses that

§ 186 was designed to prevent.”); S. Rep. 86-187, at 13 (1959) (noting that amendments to the

earlier version of § 186 under the Taft-Hartley Act would “strengthen[]” the statute “by making it

applicable to all forms of extortion and bribery in labor-management relations some of which

may slip through the present law”). For example, it may hypothetically be possible (yet probably

rare) that a prospective employer, having no employees at present, could anticipate needing

unionized labor in the future and – seeking to obtain a “sweetheart deal” with the union in

advance – commence payoffs to a given union official. Such a scenario would seem to

encompass the evils in labor-management relations that Congress meant § 186 to prevent.

Notwithstanding Congress’s sweeping statements of principle, we cannot read the plain

language of § 186(a)(2), with its reference to “employees . . . who are employed,” to allow the

imposition of criminal liability in circumstances involving nothing more than a prospective

employer’s possible future hiring of union members. Of course Congress may, in its judgment,

seek to amend § 186 to expand its reach. Subsection (a)(2) was added in just this way as part of

the LMRDA amendments in response to a decision by a court of appeals recognizing a similar

constraint on the statutory language. See Ventimiglia v. United States, 242 F.2d 620, 623 (4th

Cir. 1957) (“A criminal statute is not to be stretched to cases not covered, merely because it may

seem to a court that Congress would have done well to cover them.”), superseded by statute,

Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959, Pub. L. No. 86-257, sec. 505,

§ 302(a)(2), 73 Stat. 519, 537 (codified as amended at 29 U.S.C. § 186(a)(2)); S. Rep. 86-187, at

13 (noting the addition of subsection (a)(2)’s language in response to Ventimiglia).

28

present intent to hire individuals in the future who would be admitted to

membership. As we have explained supra, this interpretation would be

inconsistent with the statutory provisions requiring an existing employment

relationship between the employer and the employees who would be admitted.

18
 At trial, the parties stipulated that D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE were “labor 19

organizations,” and that Browne was an “officer or employer thereof” at the relevant times,

within the meaning of § 186. Furthermore, Browne did not contest his receipt of the payments

alleged by the Government. Instead, he focused his defense – just as he focuses his arguments on

appeal – on the circumstances of the employees whom the Government alleged would have been

admitted to membership in the union at the time the payments were made. Accordingly, we

narrow our discussion to that issue and assume, as Browne did, that the evidence was sufficient

to satisfy the remaining elements of the Taft-Hartley crimes alleged.

29

Furthermore, the second formulation – which would require that the union have

the present intent to admit the employees – “would seem to render the ‘would

admit to membership’ language superfluous, since section [186(a)(2)] also

prohibits payments to officers of a labor organization which ‘seeks to represent’ a

group of employees, language more suited to the ‘present intention’ situation than

the phrase at issue here.” Pecora, 798 F.2d at 622.

Having established the proper interpretation of the “would admit to

membership” clause, we now have all the pieces to assemble a complete statement

of the minimum proof required to sustain a conviction under § 186(a)(2). 

Combining all the elements, the Government was required to prove, for each TaftHartley count and predicate act based on § 186(a)(2), that Browne received or

accepted the alleged monetary amount from the employer, and that, at the time of

the alleged criminal act, the employer had employees in an industry affecting

commerce whom D1-MEBA or NFOPAPE would have admitted to membership.

19

Again, for the sake of discussion here, we assume Browne’s suggested definition
 The descriptions of the evidence that follow in this opinion reflect the requirement that 20

we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government.

30

for the term “employee” in § 186(a)(2) – that the term does not include

supervisors. With that in mind, we now proceed to examine the sufficiency of the

evidence for the contested Taft-Hartley count and each of the contested predicate

acts.

We review de novo a district court’s denial of judgment of acquittal on

sufficiency of evidence grounds. United States v. Yates, 438 F.3d 1307, 1311–12

(11th Cir. 2006) (en banc). In reviewing a sufficiency of the evidence challenge,

we consider the evidence in the light most favorable to the Government, drawing

all reasonable inferences and credibility choices in the Government’s favor.20

United States v. Puche, 350 F.3d 1137, 1142 (11th Cir. 2003). If a reasonable jury

could conclude that the evidence establishes guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, we

will affirm the verdict. Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S. Ct. 2781,

2789, 61 L. Ed. 2d 560 (1979); United States v. Drury, 396 F.3d 1303, 1312 (11th

Cir. 2005). This inquiry does not require that the evidence be inconsistent with

“every reasonable hypothesis except guilt.” United States v. Starrett, 55 F.3d

1525, 1541 (11th Cir. 1995) (citation omitted). Because we recognize that “the

jury is free to choose between or among the reasonable conclusions to be drawn
31

from the evidence presented at trial,” our sufficiency review requires only that a

guilty verdict be reasonable, not inevitable, based on the evidence presented at

trial. See id. (“In reviewing conspiracy convictions, the question is whether there

is substantial evidence to support the verdicts.” (quoting United States v. Russo,

796 F.2d 1443, 1455 (11th Cir. 1986))).

2.

We begin with a review of the evidence in support of the allegation that

between October 1993 and July 1998, Browne accepted approximately $250,000

from Hvide. This same conduct underlies substantive Count 3 and Predicate Act

1. We find that, when construed in the light most favorable to the Government, a

reasonable jury could have concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that during the

relevant time period, Hvide had non-supervisory employees who would have been

admitted to D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE.

Hvide was founded in 1958 by a good friend of Browne’s named Hans

Hvide, and had three divisions: a towing division that provided tug services for

several ports in the southeastern United States, an offshore energy support division

that provided support services for offshore oil drilling, and a tanker division that

transported petroleum and chemicals up the east and west coasts of the United

States. By the time Hvide went public in 1996, it had expanded its operations to a
32

worldwide marine services company employing over 3,000 workers. Hvide

employees comprised the crew of the towing and tanker divisions.

Even assuming that a portion of the licensed seamen would qualify as

supervisors for collective bargaining purposes, and thus be excluded from

Browne’s definition of “employees,” a reasonable jury could conclude that D1-

MEBA and NFOPAPE would have admitted to membership the remaining

licensed seamen, unlicensed seamen, and land-based support staff in Hvide’s

employ. The Government adduced testimony that the life blood of the unions was

recruitment; active unionization of new members replaced retiring workers,

increased the available job base, and ensured the survival of unions. Indeed, at

NFOPAPE’s inception, Browne “wanted to be able to organize anybody and

everybody in the private sector,” both in state and out of state. Accordingly, the

division bylaws of the Federation of Private Employees were broadly drafted

without any restrictions on the types of workers who could be admitted to

NFOPAPE: Article I, section 4(f) named as its object “[t]o bring within its

membership ranks any and all employees of employers within the scope of this

organization’s jurisdiction.” 

There is no question that Hvide’s shipboard crew members were precisely

the type of workers that were already organized in D1-MEBA’s maritime
 A pledge card is a document signed by an employee indicating that he wishes a given 21

union to represent him for collective bargaining purposes, and it represents the first step in

unionizing employees of a given employer.

 Following the Exxon-Valdez oil spill, Congress enacted the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 22

to prevent the accidental discharge of oil by phasing out single hulls in favor of double hulls for

oil tankers. See 46 U.S.C. § 3703a. 

33

divisions, and Hvide’s land-based support employees were of the type that were

already organized in POID. As for whether NFOPAPE would have organized

maritime workers, the Government introduced “pledge cards” for two proposed 21

divisions of NFOPAPE that would have organized seamen, the United Seafarers of

America and the Nautical Workers of America.

Negotiations concerning Hvide’s double-hull tanker project provide further

support that D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE would have sought to organize Hvide’s

employees. In 1995, Hvide entered into a venture to build state-of-the-art doublehull oil tankers. Based on certain financing restrictions, Hvide and its partners 22

were required to obtain an agreement with a labor organization to crew the new

tankers. In 1995, Hvide approached Browne to request his assistance in securing

such a labor agreement. Browne in turn spoke with D1-MEBA officials, and in

early December 1995, union officials invited Hvide to the Washington, D.C.

headquarters to discuss having union members crew the new tankers from top to

bottom. On December 4, Alexander Shandrowsky was elected as the new
34

president of D1-MEBA. Despite Browne’s encouragement, Shandrowsky refused

to agree to a contract with Hvide, believing that the terms of the contract would

have made it “by far and away, the worst contract” that D1-MEBA had.

Although the deal ultimately fell through, the negotiations support the

finding that the employees already employed by Hvide were the very types of

employees that D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE would have admitted to membership. 

Indeed, Hvide wanted to be able to transfer some of its employees who were

crewing other Hvide ships onto the new oil tankers. Furthermore, during the

negotiations, Browne discussed the possibility of organizing the unlicensed

seamen aboard the oil tankers into a new, unlicensed division of NFOPAPE, to be

called the United Seafarers of America. Browne went so far as to have pledge

cards and division bylaws for this new division drawn up and reviewed by a

NFOPAPE organizer, Ernest Rumsby, whom Browne informed would become a

vice-president of that division. 

Browne’s principal argument with respect to the Hvide payments is that the

“admit to membership” clause does not apply because Hvide’s existing maritime

employees were already represented by the Seabulk Officer’s Association and the

Seabulk Seamen’s Association. Although these associations were not affiliated
 Article 20 of the AFL-CIO constitution prohibits the raiding of one affiliated union by 23

another.

35

with the AFL-CIO, Browne argues that the “contract-bar doctrine” would have 23

prevented D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE from representing Hvide’s existing

employees. The contract-bar rule precludes the filing of a petition for an election

involving employees covered by a contract of no more than three-years’ duration,

unless the petition is filed within a certain time period prior to termination of the

existing contract. See Local Union 3074, District 15, United Steel Workers v.

Shore, 386 F. Supp. 600, 602 (W.D. Pa. 1974). Its purpose is “to stabilize for a

reasonable term an existing contractual relationship between an employer and its

employees’ bargaining representative.” See N.L.R.B. v. Arthur Sarnow Candy

Co., 40 F.3d 552, 557 (2d Cir. 1994) (quoting Corallo v. Merrick Cent.

Carburetor, Inc., 733 F.2d 248, 252 (2d Cir. 1984)). In other words, Browne

asserts that the unions would not have sought to represent Hvide’s employees

because they could not. The Government responds that the Seabulk Officer’s

Association and the Seabulk Seamen’s Association were merely in-house

associations of Hvide (Hvide was later renamed Seabulk International Inc.), and

that such informal agreements would have presented no true impediment to

organization. 
36

Construing the facts in the light most favorable to the Government, it was

reasonable for the jury to find that the existence of these agreements would not

have prevented D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE from seeking to organize Hvide’s

employees. As the Pecora court observed, “the existence of possible roadblocks”

in the form of “practical or legal impediments to the actual organization of a group

of workers” does not conclusively render § 186(a)(2) inapplicable. See Pecora,

798 F.2d at 623. Even if the contract bar were otherwise applicable, the contractbar doctrine would not have prevented the operation of § 186(a)(2) in this case. In

the first place, the contract bar is a creation of the National Labor Relations Board;

it has no source in any express language of the National Labor Relations Act. 

Pecora, 798 F.2d at 621 n.3; Local 1545, United Brotherhood of Carpenters and

Joiners of America, AFL-CIO v. Vincent, 286 F.2d 127, 130 (2d Cir. 1960). 

Accordingly, the three-year period is not an inflexible bar; it remains a policy

“[w]hich the Board in its discretion may apply or waive as the facts of a given case

may demand in the interest of stability and fairness in collective bargaining

agreements.” Vincent, 286 F.2d at 131 (quoting N.L.R.B. v. Grace Co., 184 F.2d

126, 129 (8th Cir. 1950)).

Second, and more importantly, an “agreement constitutes a bar to the

holding of a representation election for the life of the agreement, up to a maximum
37

of three years.” Arthur Sarnow Candy Co., 40 F.3d at 557 (emphasis added). 

After three years have elapsed, “insurgent unions can challenge incumbents for

jurisdiction.” Pecora, 798 F.2d at 621 n.3. Thus, Hvide’s agreements could not

have raised an insurmountable bar to the organization of Hvide’s employees by

D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE for the entire period that Browne was accepting

payments from Hvide, namely, October 1993 to July 1998. See id. (“It is

implausible that the contract bar could have prevented Local 863 from asserting its

jurisdiction during the entire decade that the scheme was in operation.”). 

A reasonable jury could have concluded that D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE

would have sought to organize Hvide’s existing employees despite the presence of

practical or legal roadblocks to actual organization. Having so decided, a

reasonable jury could also conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Browne

violated the Taft-Hartley Act when he accepted payments from Hvide. Thus, we

affirm the district court’s denial of the motion for judgment of acquittal on Count

3/Predicate Act 1.

B.

Having determined that Browne’s conviction on the Taft-Hartley violation

embodied in Count 3 and Predicate Act 1 must stand, we now turn our attention to

his sufficiency of evidence challenge on the remaining Taft-Hartley predicate acts
38

and other substantive counts of the indictment. As with the Hvide-related charges,

Browne moved for entry of judgment of acquittal on the Taft-Hartley violations

alleged in Predicate Acts 2 and 4 of Count 2, claiming that the Government had

adduced insufficient evidence. Similar to the Hvide charges, Predicate Acts 2 and

4 each alleged that Browne received money from a different employer whose

employees either D1-MEBA or NFOPAPE would admit to membership. The jury

ultimately found that Browne committed both these acts, and the district court

denied the motion for judgment of acquittal.

Browne asserts that the district court erred in submitting Predicate Acts 2

and 4 to the jury, and that ultimately this error taints his convictions for RICO

conspiracy, Count 1, the substantive RICO violation, Count 2, and honest services

mail fraud, Count 7.

1.

Browne’s argument is layered, so we must disassemble it before we can

engage in any analysis. For ease of discussion here, we take the substantive RICO

violation as our starting point. As relevant here, RICO generally prohibits a

person who is affiliated with a broadly defined “enterprise” from conducting that

enterprise’s affairs through a “pattern of racketeering activity.” 18 U.S.C.

§ 1962(c). In support of this count, the Government was required to prove: (1)
39

that an enterprise existed; (2) that the enterprise affected interstate commerce; (3)

that the defendants were employed by or associated with the enterprise; (4) that

the defendants participated, either directly or indirectly, in the conduct of the

enterprise; and (5) that the defendants participated through a pattern of

racketeering activity. United States v. Starrett, 55 F.3d 1525, 1541 (11th Cir.

1995). We are concerned here with the fifth element – the “pattern of

racketeering activity” – which, at the threshold, requires proof that Browne

committed at least two predicate racketeering acts. 18 U.S.C. §§ 1961(1), 1962(c);

see also Starrett, 55 F.3d at 1541.

The Government alleged a total of fifteen predicate acts in the second

superseding indictment, twelve of which were charged against Browne. The jury

indicated its findings of “Committed” or “Not Committed” for each defendant on

each alleged predicate act by responding to a special verdict form. In total, the

jury found that Browne committed five of the twelve predicate acts charged

against him in Count 2. Two of these – Predicate Acts 13 and 14 – alleged mail

fraud violations, and Browne does not contest the jury’s findings on these acts. 

The remaining three predicate acts found by the jury were those alleging violations

of the Taft-Hartley Act: Predicate Acts 1 (pertaining to Hvide), 2 (pertaining to

Coastal Gaming), and 4 (pertaining to Coleary Transport). We have already
 Browne does not challenge his sentences in this appeal, so we have no occasion to 24

consider whether or to what extent a reversal of the jury’s findings on Predicate Acts 2 and 4

would affect his sentencing.

40

rejected Browne’s challenge to Predicate Act 1, so only acts 2 and 4 remain in

dispute. We conclude that an examination of the sufficiency of evidence on these

two predicate acts is unnecessary to the disposition of this appeal. As we will

explain, even if Browne were correct and he were entitled to reversal of the jury’s

findings on Predicate Acts 2 and 4, such an outcome would not affect any of the

substantive counts of the indictment on which he was found guilty.24

With regard to the substantive RICO charge, Count 2, Browne does not

challenge the jury’s findings on the mail fraud predicate acts (13 and 14), so his

argument does not rest on any suggestion that the Government failed to prove at

least two predicate acts as required by § 1961(5), even if we assume that Acts 2

and 4 are invalid as he contends. Instead, Browne focuses on the sufficiency of

the evidence to establish part of the fifth element of § 1962(c). 

To establish the fifth element under § 1962, the Government must prove two

components: the predicate acts must relate to the enterprise charged, which we

have referred to as the “relationship component,” see Starrett, 53 F.3d at 1546; and

“the predicate acts must actually form a pattern, i.e., relate to each other and have

continuity,” United States v. To, 144 F.3d 737, 747 (11th Cir. 1998); see H.J., Inc.
41

v. Northwestern Bell Tel. Co., 492 U.S. 229, 239, 109 S. Ct. 2893, 2900, 106 L.

Ed. 2d 195 (1989) (holding that the Government must prove not only that at least

two predicate acts were committed, but also “that the racketeering predicates are

related, and that they amount to or pose a threat of continued criminal activity”),

which we have called the “pattern component.” Starrett, 53 F.3d at 1546–47. As

we have elaborated the former part of the pattern component, the predicate acts

must relate to each other (as distinguished from the relationship component),

meaning that the predicate acts must “have the same or similar purposes, results,

participants, victims, or methods of commission, or otherwise [be] interrelated by

distinguishing characteristics and . . . not [be] isolated events.” See Sedima,

S.P.R.L. v. Imrex Co., 473 U.S. 479, 496 n.14, 105 S. Ct. 3275, 3285 n.14, 87 L.

Ed. 2d 346 (1985) (quoting Title X of the Organized Crime Control Act of 1970,

18 U.S.C. § 3575(e)). It is the latter part of the pattern component – continuity –

that Browne contests in this appeal, so we confine our discussion accordingly.

We will say more about continuity below, but first we summarize the

parties’ arguments. Browne suggests that, because of “the centrality of the TaftHartley charges to the government’s case,” this court “should not ‘hazard a

guess’” as to whether the jury would have found the required continuity to satisfy

the pattern component solely on the basis of the mail fraud acts alleged in
42

Predicate Acts 13 and 14. In support of his argument, Browne relies heavily on

the decision of the Second Circuit in United States v. Delano, 55 F.3d 720 (2d Cir.

1995). In that case, the jury issued a special verdict, finding that the defendant

had committed five RICO predicate acts and convicting him on one substantive

RICO count and one count of RICO conspiracy. Delano, 55 F.3d at 725. The

defendant moved for judgment of acquittal, which was denied. Id. On appeal, the

court vacated the jury’s findings on three of the five predicate acts, holding that

the evidence was insufficient. Id. at 727. The other two predicate acts remained

undisturbed, and, in considering what effect its holding would have on the RICO

counts, the court acknowledged that, “for the purposes of our review, [the

defendant] engaged in . . . a pattern of racketeering that included at least two

predicate acts.” Id. at 728. Nevertheless, the court reversed the RICO counts and

remanded for a new trial. Id. at 729. The court reasoned that “it would be too

speculative to assume” that the jury would have found relatedness and continuity

on the basis of the two remaining predicate acts alone, noting that “the proof

concerning [the invalid predicate acts] represented the bulk of this RICO

prosecution, eclipsing all else.” Id. at 728–29. Here, Browne urges this court to

adopt Delano’s reasoning. He suggests that because we cannot know what

evidence the jury relied on to find that he had undertaken a continuous pattern of
 In Bonner v. City of Prichard, 661 F.2d 1206, 1209 (11th Cir. 1981) (en banc), this

25

court adopted as binding precedent all decisions of the former Fifth Circuit handed down prior to

October 1, 1981.

43

racketeering acts, we must reverse the substantive RICO conviction.

Our resolution of this issue is not as simple as the Government at first

suggests in its response. For its primary argument in support of the substantive

RICO conviction, the Government cites precedent of this circuit as determinative

for the proposition that a RICO conviction will survive appeal whenever at least

two valid predicate acts remain, regardless of whether other predicate acts are

invalidated. See United States v. Peacock, 654 F.2d 339, 348 (5th Cir. Aug. 1981)

(“[C]onviction under § 1962(c) requires only that the defendant be convicted of

two acts of racketeering and that the [acts] must be related to the affairs of the

enterprise . . . .” (internal quotation marks and citation omitted)), vacated in part

on other grounds on reh’g, 686 F.2d 356 (5th Cir. Unit B 1982); see also United 25

States v. Pepe, 747 F.2d 632, 668 (11th Cir. 1984) (“[T]he government proved at

least two predicate acts of racketeering beyond a reasonable doubt. This is all the

government had to prove to establish a RICO pattern of racketeering and

substantive RICO liability.”). However, these cases simply do not address the

continuity requirement of the pattern component.

That the two decisions omitted any discussion of continuity is unsurprising,
44

as both were decided before the Supreme Court pronounced definitively that

continuity and relatedness are necessary components of a pattern under § 1962. 

See H.J., Inc., 492 U.S. at 239, 109 S. Ct. at 2900. Peacock and Pepe were

decided during a simpler time for the Government in RICO prosecutions, before

the statute was complicated by such abstractions as “continuity.” Thus, Peacock

and Pepe do not address, much less decide, the continuity issue here.

Moreover, the Government is fully aware of the requirements under H.J.,

Inc. that predicate acts must be related to one other and must be continuous – it

even discussed them extensively in its alternative argument supporting the RICO

conviction. See 492 U.S. at 239, 109 S. Ct. at 2900 (“[T]o prove a pattern of

racketeering activity a plaintiff or prosecutor must show that the racketeering

predicates are related . . . .”); id. at 238, 109 S. Ct. at 2900 (“Section 1961(5)

concerns only the minimum number of predicates necessary to establish a pattern;

and it assumes that there is something to a RICO pattern beyond simply the

number of predicate acts involved.”); cf. United States v. Alexander, 888 F.2d

777, 778 (11th Cir. 1989) (considering anew, on remand from the Supreme Court

for consideration in light of H.J., Inc., whether two predicate acts were sufficiently

continuous and related to establish a pattern where other predicate acts had been

invalidated on appeal), on remand from 492 U.S. 915, 109 S. Ct. 3236, 106 L. Ed.
45

2d 584 (1989). Furthermore, “[it] is by now well established that in order to prove

a ‘pattern of racketeering activity’ it is not sufficient to simply establish two

isolated predicate acts.” Jackson v. BellSouth Telecomms., 372 F.3d 1250, 1264

(11th Cir. 2004). Thus, Peacock and Pepe are irrelevant to our discussion here.

Continuity of racketeering activity may be proven “in a variety of ways,”

“depend[ing] on the specific facts of each case.” H.J., Inc., 492 U.S. at 241–42,

109 S. Ct. at 2902. In spite of the case-specific nature of the continuity inquiry,

certain general principles guide the analysis. Continuity “is both a closed- and

open-ended concept, referring either to a closed period of repeated conduct, or to

past conduct that by its nature projects into the future with a threat of repetition.” 

Id. at 241, 109 S. Ct. at 2902. “A party alleging a RICO violation may

demonstrate continuity over a closed period by proving a series of related

predicates extending over a substantial period of time.” Id. at 242, 109 S. Ct. at

2902. Predicate acts “extending over a few weeks or months and threatening no

future criminal conduct” do not suffice. See id. at 242, 109 S. Ct. at 2902; Jackson

v. BellSouth Telecomms., 372 F.3d at 1265–66. 

By contrast, the “open-ended” theory of continuity relies not on a closed set

of repeated prior acts committed over a substantial period of time, but instead on

the “threat of continuity” extending into the future. See Jackson v. BellSouth
46

Telecomms., 372 F.3d at 1265. The burden under this theory can be met by proof

that (1) the “racketeering acts themselves include a specific threat of repetition

extending indefinitely into the future,” or (2) the predicate offenses are “part of an

ongoing entity’s regular way of doing business,” including where “the predicates

can be attributed to a defendant operating as part of a long-term association that

exists for criminal purposes.” See H.J., Inc., 492 U.S. at 242–43, 109 S. Ct. at

2902; Jackson v. BellSouth Telecomms., 372 F.3d at 1265. Unlike under the

“closed period” theory, continuity may be established under the “open-ended”

theory “[t]hough the number of related predicates involved may be small and they

may occur close together in time.” H.J., Inc., 492 U.S. at 242, 109 S. Ct. at 2902;

see also To, 144 F.3d at 747 (affirming RICO substantive and conspiracy

convictions where the evidence was sufficient to show that the defendant

committed three predicate acts, all within a span of several hours).

Given that the jury returned a guilty verdict on the substantive RICO count,

we know it must have found continuity in the pattern of racketeering activity. The

instruction given to the jury on that count mirrored the Eleventh Circuit pattern

instruction, which we have previously held to be sufficient on the issue of

continuity, United States v. Kotvas, 941 F.2d 1141, 1144 (11th Cir. 1991), and

Browne does not contest the instruction here. Because the special verdict form did
47

not require any specific findings on continuity, however, Browne argues that we

would be blindly guessing what the jury relied upon in making its finding. But

neither our inquiry on appellate review, nor the district court’s task in considering

a motion for judgment of acquittal, requires us to determine the specific

underlying basis of the jury’s finding on continuity.

Browne’s continuity argument goes astray in its focus on the jury outcomes

regarding individual predicate acts. Any two predicate acts can be sufficient for

the jury to find continuity. See Starrett, 55 F.3d at 1545 (“[I]f any two of Nolan’s

thirty-four predicate acts establish the required RICO elements, then Nolan’s

RICO conviction is due to be affirmed.”); United States v. Church, 955 F.2d 688,

694 (11th Cir. 1992) (rejecting a sufficiency of evidence challenge where exactly

two predicate acts were available to support the continuity requirement);

Alexander, 888 F.2d at 778 (same); cf. 18 U.S.C. § 1961(5) (“‘[P]attern of

racketeering activity’ requires at least two acts . . . .”). Of course the jury may

find, in a given case, that the Government has proven more than two predicate

acts, and the jury in such a case may rely on all the proven predicate acts to find

continuity sufficient to establish a pattern. The same jury theoretically might also,

consistent with the minimum requirements of the statute and H.J., Inc., find that

multiple predicate acts were proven beyond a reasonable doubt, go on to find
48

unanimously that the evidence proving just two of the acts also fulfills the

continuity requirement, and stop its inquiry there. In this latter scenario, the jury

has not considered whether every proven predicate act supports a finding of

continuity, but nothing further is required so long as at least two acts fulfill the

requirement. In most, if not all, cases, the jury will have no occasion to explain

the specific basis for its finding of continuity. Even in the instant case, in which

the jury made specific findings on each predicate act via a special verdict form, the

finding of continuity can only be inferred from the eventual guilty verdict on

Count 2 issued by a properly instructed jury. The jury’s decisions on individual

predicate acts indicate nothing about its finding of continuity. In this regard, the

jury’s finding of continuity is, with regard to that limited issue, much like a

general verdict. The jury may have relied on any two of the proven predicate acts,

or more, in finding continuity, but it will not have indicated which specific acts

formed the basis for its decision.

In such situations, our analysis is guided by Griffin v. United States, 502

U.S. 46, 112 S. Ct. 466, 116 L. Ed. 2d 371 (1991). Griffin involved a conspiracy

charge alleging two factually distinct objects of the conspiracy in the same count

of the indictment. Id. at 47, 112 S. Ct. at 468. At trial, the evidence against

Griffin only connected her to one of the two alleged objects, but the jury convicted
49

her of the conspiracy count by general verdict after being instructed that it could

find guilt upon proof of either object. Id. at 47–48, 112 S. Ct. at 468. The

Supreme Court affirmed the conviction, noting the rule at common law that “a

general jury verdict was valid so long as it was legally supportable on one of the

submitted grounds – even though that gave no assurance that a valid ground,

rather than an invalid one, was actually the basis for the jury’s action.” Id. at 49,

112 S. Ct. at 469. The Court distinguished prior decisions reversing general

verdicts on counts based on alternate grounds when one of the possible grounds

was later revealed to be either constitutionally or legally flawed, as opposed to

being “merely unsupported by sufficient evidence.” Id. at 56, 112 S. Ct. at 472. In

the latter type of case, “the verdict stands if the evidence is sufficient with respect

to any one of the acts charged.” Id. at 56–57, 112 S. Ct. at 473 (citation omitted). 

Although a jury, in its limited role as factfinder, cannot be trusted to identify and

discount “a legally insufficient theory” as a basis for a verdict, “[q]uite the

opposite is true . . . when [jurors] have been left the option of relying upon a

factually inadequate theory, since jurors are well equipped to analyze the

evidence” and are presumed not to rely upon theories that are not adequately

proven. Id. at 59–60, 112 S. Ct. at 474.

We have never applied Griffin in this particular RICO context, but we see
50

no reason why its rationale does not apply here. See United States v. Vastola, 989

F.2d 1318, 1330 (3d Cir. 1993) (holding, in a similar RICO case, that “[t]he

rationale of Griffin directly applies”). Browne challenges the jury’s ultimate

finding of continuity under the substantive RICO count on the basis of the

presumptive evidentiary insufficiency of certain predicate acts and the court’s

inability to determine whether the jury relied on any of those factually insufficient

predicate acts. But because any combination of two factually sufficient predicate

acts can support a finding of continuity, that finding – and thus the substantive

RICO conviction – may stand “if the evidence is sufficient with respect to any

[two] of the acts charged.” See Griffin, 502 U.S. at 56–57, 112 S. Ct. at 473. 

Reversal of either a jury’s finding of continuity or a conviction on a substantive

RICO count is not required simply because some predicate acts are factually

insufficient, as long as there remain at least two adequately proven acts.

This rule takes further support from the notion that courts must be cognizant

not to impinge upon the jury’s factfinding role when reviewing the sufficiency of

evidence. The nature of the review recognizes “the responsibility of the trier of

fact fairly to resolve conflicts in the testimony, to weigh the evidence, and to draw

reasonable inferences from basic facts to ultimate facts,” preserving that role

“through a legal conclusion that upon judicial review all of the evidence is to be
51

considered in the light most favorable to the prosecution.” Jackson v. Virginia,

443 U.S. 307, 319, 99 S. Ct. 2781, 2789, 61 L. Ed. 2d 560 (1979). Ultimately,

then, our review for sufficiency of the evidence “is of course wholly unrelated to

the question of how rationally the verdict was actually reached. . . . [I]t does not

require scrutiny of the reasoning process actually used by the factfinder – if

known.” Id. at 319 n.13, 99 S. Ct. at 2789 n.13; cf. Schlup v. Delo, 513 U.S. 298,

330, 115 S. Ct. 851, 868–69, 113 L. Ed. 2d 808 (1995) (observing that, under

Jackson v. Virginia, review for sufficiency of the evidence requires not “what

reasonable triers of fact are likely to do,” but “whether the trier of fact has power

to make a finding of guilt . . . as a matter of law . . . . [T]he mere existence of

sufficient evidence to convict would be determinative . . . .”). Sufficiency review

operates as a backstop to protect the defendant’s due process rights, not as a

license for the court to second-guess the jury. See Jackson v. Va., 443 U.S. at 319,

99 S. Ct. at 2789. Upon a sufficiency challenge, the court must determine only

whether, on the basis of the proof adduced by the Government, a jury could

rationally have reached a verdict of guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Whether

the jury actually chose an available, rational result over an irrational alternative is

ultimately beyond the court’s power to police, but we presume that juries do not

make irrational choices when presented with options supported by evidence. See
52

id. at 319 n.13, 99 S. Ct. at 2789 n.13.

In light of these principles, we cannot accept Browne’s suggestion that we

adopt the reasoning of the Second Circuit in Delano. That case is unpersuasive

because it would require unwarranted speculation into the jury’s decisionmaking. 

The court states that it must decide whether, without the invalidated predicate acts,

“the jury nonetheless would have found that Delano committed . . . a pattern of

racketeering activity.” Delano, 55 F.3d at 728 (emphasis added). We disagree

with that premise; as Jackson makes clear, the question should be whether a

rational jury could have found that the pattern requirements were met. See 443

U.S. at 319 n.13, 99 S. Ct. at 2789 n.13. Neither Delano, nor the sole case on

which it relies, United States v. Biaggi, 909 F.2d 662, 692–93 (2d Cir. 1990),

provides any authority for the proposition that a court must reverse a RICO

conviction whenever the jury might (or might not) have based its pattern finding

on predicate acts later determined to be insufficient. See United States v.

Edwards, 303 F.3d 606, 642 (5th Cir. 2002). In any event, Delano’s holding

applies, at most, to cases in which the invalidated predicate acts dominate the

RICO prosecution. See United States v. Dhinsa, 243 F.3d 635, 670 (2d Cir. 2001). 

Instead, we favor the approach of the Third Circuit in United States v. Vastola,

where the court rejected “speculations about the jury’s rational deliberation
53

process” and independently determined that there was sufficient evidence of at

least two predicate acts to support a substantive RICO conviction, even though it

was impossible to determine from the verdict whether the jury actually found more

than one predicate act. 989 F.2d at 1331.

Upon our independent review, we have no trouble concluding that the

Government adduced sufficient evidence for a rational jury to find continuity

among at least two predicate acts. Predicate Act 1 was based upon evidence that

from 1993 through 1998, Browne accepted $254,000 from Hvide while also

employed by D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE. Pursuant to a written “consultation”

agreement that was charged to the Port Everglades Towing division of Hvide,

Browne was compensated for his consulting work at the rate of $1,500 per month

from October 1993 through January 1994, and $2,000 per month thereafter. 

Browne’s retainer was raised to $3,500 per month in March 1994 and to $5,000

per month in May 1994. He continued to receive $5,000 per month until January

1997, when his retainer was lowered to $4,000 per month. His contract was

terminated in October 1998 as a result of the Government’s criminal investigation.

Predicate Act 13 charged Browne with mail fraud. In 1995, a Florida state

legislator, Ron Greenstein, sought Browne’s advice in assisting a vision insurance

company in its proposal to cover local government employees. The proposed
54

vision plan had nothing to do with union business. The Government introduced

vouchers that Browne, or others at his direction, submitted expense vouchers for

the reimbursement of expensive meals and airplane tickets purchased in November

1995, January 1996, and February 1996. These expenses related to Greenstein’s

proposed vision plan, not to union business. 

Predicate Act 14 also concerned mail fraud. The Government adduced

evidence that Browne frequently submitted vouchers prepared by himself or

Devaney for the reimbursement of meals with family or friends that were unrelated

to union business, or that he submitted vouchers for reimbursement of meals that

had been paid for by union employees at his direction. The dates of the vouchers

for which Browne was found guilty of mail fraud spanned six years: July 8, 1993;

October 27, 1993; March 25, 1994; May 2, 1994; August 13, 1994; January 7,

1996; June 17, 1996; June 18, 1996; October 19, 1996; December 31, 1996; July

7, 1997; November 28, 1997; and December 3, 1997.

Predicate Acts 1, 13, and 14 satisfy the continuity requirement of the pattern

component. We have previously affirmed a district court’s dismissal of a

plaintiff’s substantive racketeering claims where the alleged racketeering activities

pertained to the settlement of a single lawsuit, not a series of lawsuits, over a ninemonth period of time. Jackson v. BellSouth Telecomms., 372 F.3d at 1267
55

(affirming dismissal “[i]n view of the narrow scope of the alleged racketeering

activity and the limited time frame in which it is said to have taken place”). 

Unlike that case, Predicate Acts 1, 13, and 14 constitute a “series of related

predicates extending over a substantial period of time” – namely, from 1993 to

1998 – and thus satisfy closed-ended continuity. See H.J. Inc., 492 U.S. at 242,

109 S. Ct. at 2902. The acts also establish a sufficient threat of repetition to

support open-ended continuity. That is, rather than pointing to a “unique, firsttime occurrence,” the acts were part of the defendants’ “regular way of doing

business.” See id. at 1268. We therefore find that the Government’s evidence was

sufficient to establish continuity for purposes of the pattern component.

2.

Browne similarly argues that his conviction for the RICO conspiracy count,

Count 1, must be reversed because the jury’s conspiracy verdict did not identify

the acts upon which was the conviction was based. Accordingly, he contends, the

jury may have relied upon the Taft-Hartley charges in convicting him. As we have

declined to adopt the reasoning of Delano, and we find sufficient evidence in the

trial record that supports the Count 1 conviction, even assuming that Predicate

Acts 2 and 4 of Count 2 fail, we affirm Browne’s conviction.

Because there are fewer proof requirements under § 1962(d) than under the
56

substantive RICO offenses – most notably, through the absence of the requirement

of an overt act – the conspiracy offense reaches a wider range of conduct. See

United States v. Harriston, 329 F.3d 779, 785 (11th Cir. 2003). A defendant may

be guilty of conspiracy even if he did not commit the substantive acts that could

constitute violations of §§ 1962(a), (b), or (c). United States v. Alonso, 740 F.2d

862, 871–72 (11th Cir. 1984). The touchstone of liability is an agreement to

participate in a RICO conspiracy, which may be shown in two ways: (1) showing

an agreement on the overall objective of the conspiracy, or (2) showing that a

defendant agreed to commit personally two predicate acts, thereby agreeing to

participate in a “single objective.” United States v. Abbell, 271 F.3d 1286, 1299

(11th Cir. 2001). “If the government can prove an agreement on an overall

objective, it need not prove a defendant personally agreed to commit two predicate

acts.” Id. In the absence of direct evidence of an agreement on an overall

objective, the Government may prove such an agreement through “inferences from

the conduct of the alleged participants or from circumstantial evidence of a

scheme,” United States v. Silvestri, 409 F.3d 1311, 1328 (11th Cir. 2005) (internal

quotation marks and citation omitted), amounting to evidence that each defendant

necessarily must have known that the others were also conspiring to participate in

the same enterprise through a pattern of racketeering. United States v. Castro, 89
57

F.3d 1443, 1451 (11th Cir. 1996). 

Browne asserts that the Government’s case was not based on an agreement

on an “overall objective,” but instead focused on proving an agreement to commit

personally two predicate acts, as to which the evidence is insufficient. The

Government responds that the evidence is sufficient to sustain Browne’s

conviction under either theory. Because we find that the Government presented

sufficient circumstantial evidence that Browne agreed to the overall objective of

the enterprise – i.e., to control the financial affairs of the union and misuse its

assets and influence for personal gain – we do not reach the question whether the

evidence was sufficient to convict Browne based on a “single objective” theory.

Browne was executive director of D1-MEBA, president of NFOPAPE, and

divisional director of the Federation of Public Employees. While serving in those

positions, Browne placed his sister, Devaney, in charge of handling division

finances at D1-MEBA/FOPE and made her the de facto secretary/treasurer of

NFOPAPE and the Federation of Public Employees. Devaney processed the

expense vouchers submitted by Browne and others at Browne’s direction, which

claimed reimbursement for non-union expenses and contained other false

information. Many of these expenditures were without supporting documentation,

as required under the LMRDA. Devaney also purchased airplane tickets for
 See 29 U.S.C. § 432; 29 C.F.R. § 404.3. 26

 Section 1-262 of the Broward County Code then in effect required any person 27

communicating directly with any county commissioner for the purpose of influencing legislation

to file registration forms with the county administrator, as well as an annual statement listing all

lobbying expenditures and the sources that funded such expenditures. 

58

personal trips to New York City that she charged to Browne’s union credit card.

In 1995, NFOPAPE organizer Rumsby twice asked Browne for permission

to organize the employees of Paramount Vending Company. Browne instructed

him not to “mess with this company,” because they were a “friend or a friend of a

friend.” In addition, from 1993 to 1998, Browne accepted $254,000 from Hvide,

an employer whose employees D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE would have admitted to

membership. For his receipt of that money, Browne was required to submit to the

Office of Labor Management Standards a Labor Organization Officer and

Employee Report, or LM-30, a public document reporting the receipt of anything

of value from an employer. In addition, local ordinance required Browne to file 26

lobbying registration forms and annual expenditure statements. Browne failed to 27

file either the LM-30 forms or the required lobbying forms with respect to the

money he received from Hvide.

Testimony also demonstrated how Browne concealed the affairs of the

enterprise from discovery. In 1996, Browne refused to permit D1-MEBA officials

to audit the books and records of NFOPAPE, even when he knew it would lead to
59

the loss of his position at D1-MEBA/FOPE. In addition, Browne did nothing in

response to Carrillo’s suspicions that Devaney was improperly handling the

union’s finances. Browne and Devaney together deflected Zakaib’s requests for

access to the union’s books and records, and disregarded the financial advice of

NFOPAPE’s accountants to establish internal controls over the accounting

functions of the union. In 1999, Browne failed to take prompt measures upon

learning of Devaney’s payroll theft from Lambert, and the embezzlement

continued for an additional six months. A jury could infer from these facts that

there was an agreement on the overall objective charged in the indictment. 

Accordingly, we affirm Browne’s conviction on Count 1.

3.

Browne’s final sufficiency challenge contends that there was insufficient

evidence to support his conviction for honest services mail fraud, Count 7. 

Browne raises no specific challenges to his conviction. Instead, he argues more

broadly that, because the evidence does not support the three Taft-Hartley

predicate acts of which he was convicted, the evidence is insufficient to support

Count 7. To the extent that we have already rejected Browne’s challenge to Count

3/Predicate Act 1, Browne’s argument fails on its own terms. More

fundamentally, however, Browne’s efforts to portray Count 7 as merely a
60

“kitchen-sink” approach to capturing the conduct underlying the Taft-Hartley

counts is misguided. Honest services mail fraud constitutes a crime that is distinct

from a violation of the Taft-Hartley Act, and reaches conduct that is not

necessarily a violation of the Taft-Hartley Act. Here, we have little difficulty

concluding that the evidence adduced at trial was sufficient for a reasonable jury

to convict Browne of honest services mail fraud.

Count 7 alleged use of the mails in furtherance of a scheme to defraud D1-

MEBA and NFOPAPE of Browne’s honest services. To prove “honest services”

mail fraud, the Government must show that the accused intentionally participated

in a scheme or artifice to deprive the persons or entity to which the defendant

owed a fiduciary duty of the intangible right of honest services, and used the

United States mails to carry out that scheme or artifice. See 18 U.S.C. § 1346

(predicating a mail fraud prosecution on a “scheme or artifice to deprive another of

the intangible right of honest services”); United States v. Hooshmand, 931 F.2d

725, 731 (11th Cir.1991) (defining elements of mail fraud). We have also held

that a defendant’s non-action or non-disclosure of material facts intended to create

a false and fraudulent representation may constitute a violation of the mail fraud

statute where the defendant had a duty, explicit or implicit, to disclose material

information. United States v. Waymer, 55 F.3d 564, 571 (11th Cir. 1995). 
 In pertinent part, 29 U.S.C. § 501(a) provides that: 28

The officers, agents, shop stewards, and other representatives of a labor organization

occupy positions of trust in relation to such organization and its members as a group. It

is, therefore, the duty of each such person, taking into account the special problems and

functions of a labor organization, to hold its money and property solely for the benefit of

the organization and its members and to manage, invest, and expend the same in

accordance with its constitution and bylaws and any resolutions of the governing bodies

adopted thereunder, to refrain from dealing with such organization as an adverse party or

in behalf of an adverse party in any matter connected with his duties and from holding or

acquiring any pecuniary or personal interest which conflicts with the interests of such

organization, and to account to the organization for any profit received by him in

whatever capacity in connection with transactions conducted by him or under his

direction on behalf of the organization. . . .

61

Federal law imposes fiduciary responsibility upon labor union officials. 

United States v. Rodrigues, No. 03-10549, 2007 U.S. App. LEXIS 13940, at *6

(9th Cir. June 11, 2007) (mem.); United States v. Boffa, 688 F.2d 919, 930–31 (3d

Cir. 1982) (“[T]he LMDRA [sic] established, as a matter of federal law, union

members’ right to the honest and faithful services of union officials.”). Contrary

to the Taft Hartley Act’s focus upon a union official’s receipt of money or a thing

of value from an employer, § 501(a) of the Labor Management Reporting and

Disclosure Act “imposes fiduciary responsibility in its broadest sense, and is not

confined to financial dealings by union official”; union members are owed “the

loyal, faithful, and honest services of their union official.” See Boffa, 688 F.2d at

930–31. Specifically, § 501(a) includes, inter alia, the requirements that a union

official must refrain from dealing with the labor organization as an adverse party,

and must account to the labor organization for certain profits received by him.28
62

There was sufficient evidence at trial to establish the elements of the crime.

Contrary to Browne’s claim that there was insufficient evidence of conduct on

which honest services mail fraud could be based, a reasonable jury could have

concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that Browne violated his fiduciary duties to

the union and its members based on evidence that Browne received monetary

payments through the United States mails from Hvide, whose employees D1-

MEBA and NFOPAPE would have admitted to membership; failed to disclose

such payments to the union and on LM-30 forms; and failed to file lobbying

registration statements in Broward County. We have already rejected Browne’s

argument that Delano requires reversal based on the theoretical possibility that the

jury may have relied on Predicate Acts 2 (pertaining to Coastal Gaming) and 4

(pertaining to Coleary Transport) of Count 2 in convicting Browne of Count 7. 

Because Browne raises no further challenges, we affirm Browne’s conviction of

honest services mail fraud.

C.

Having determined that Browne’s sufficiency challenges fail, we turn to his

challenge to the jury instruction. He claims that the district court should have

charged the jury on the exclusion of supervisors from the term “employees” under

the statute. In his proposed instructions, Browne proposed a one-sentence
 The parties’ briefs state that Browne’s challenge to the district court’s jury instruction is 29

subject to abuse-of-discretion review. We disagree. Browne did not propose a proper theory-ofdefense instruction, but instead proposed an addition to the court’s instruction on the elements

that would have excluded supervisors from the definition of “employees.” The court otherwise

gave no instruction defining the term. This is more akin to a failure by the district court to

instruct on one element of an offense than a failure to explain a specific defense theory, and is

therefore subject to de novo review. 

Even if we were to apply the abuse-of-discretion standard, however, it would not alter the

outcome. Our circuit uniformly finds an abuse of discretion where a district court “applies an

incorrect legal standard [or] follows improper procedures in making the determination.” Burr &

Forman v. Blair, 470 F.3d 1019, 1030 n.31 (11th Cir. 2006); Klay v. Humana, Inc., 382 F.3d

63

addition to the court’s proposed instruction on the elements of the Taft-Hartley

counts. The sentence would have simply stated that “employees” do not include

supervisors. At the charge conference, Browne against requested this instruction

and was denied. Browne argues that the refusal infected Count 3/Predicate Act 1

(pertaining to Hvide) and Predicate Act 2 (pertaining to Coastal Gaming). As we

have already explained supra, reversal of the jury’s findings on Predicate Act 2

would not affect any of the substantive counts of the indictment on which Browne

was convicted; thus, we are concerned only with Count 3/Predicate Act 1.

We review jury instructions de novo to determine whether they misstate the

law or mislead the jury to the objecting party’s prejudice. United States v.

Hansen, 262 F.3d 1217, 1248 (11th Cir. 2001) (per curiam). If the instructions

accurately state the law, the trial judge has wide discretion to determine their style

and wording. United States v. Kenney, 185 F.3d 1217, 1222–23 (11th Cir. 1999)

(per curiam).29
1241, 1251 (11th Cir. 2004); Chicago Tribune Co. v. Bridgestone/Firestone, Inc., 263 F.3d 1304,

1309 (11th Cir. 2001) (per curiam). In other words, as articulated by the Supreme Court, “[a]

district court by definition abuses its discretion when it makes an error of law.” Koon v. United

States, 518 U.S. 81, 100, 116 S. Ct. 2035, 2047, 135 L. Ed. 2d 392 (1996), superseded by statute

on other grounds as noted in United States v. Mandhai, 375 F.3d 1243, 1249 (11th Cir. 2004); id.

(“The abuse-of-discretion standard includes review to determine that the discretion was not

guided by erroneous legal conclusions.”); see Young v. New Process Steel, LP, 419 F.3d 1201,

1203 (11th Cir. 2005) (“[The] limited standard [of abuse of discretion] does not mean much in

this case, which turns on a pure law issue . . . . We decide pure law issues de novo, which is

another way of saying that a ruling based on an error of law is an abuse of discretion.” (citations

omitted)). We therefore follow the Supreme Court’s lead in determining that “[l]ittle turns . . .

on whether we label review of this particular question abuse of discretion or de novo, for an

abuse-of-discretion standard does not mean a mistake of law is beyond appellate correction.” 

Koon, 518 U.S. at 100, 116 S. Ct. at 2047–48; see United States v. Barner, 441 F.3d 1310, 1315

n.5 (11th Cir. 2006) (“The disagreement [over which standard of review to apply in prosecutorial

vindictiveness cases] is perhaps more apparent than real, for even under an abuse of discretion

standard, errors of law receive no deference.”).

64

Again assuming that Browne correctly asserts that the supervisory exclusion

applies to § 186, it follows that the district court erred in declining to advise the

jury of that definition and that Browne’s proposed jury charge accurately recited

the law. It does not automatically follow, however, that the district court’s failure

constituted reversible error. A district court’s failure to instruct a jury on all of the

statutory elements of an offense is subject to harmless-error analysis. See Mitchell

v. Esparza, 540 U.S. 12, 16, 124 S. Ct. 7,10, 157 L. Ed. 2d 263 (2003); Neder v.

United States, 527 U.S. 1, 9, 119 S. Ct. 1827, 1833 144 L. Ed. 2d 35 (1999) (“[A]n

instruction that omits an element of the offense does not necessarily render a

criminal trial fundamentally unfair or an unreliable vehicle for determining guilt or

innocence.”). The correct focus of harmless-error analysis is whether it is clear
65

beyond a reasonable doubt that a rational jury would have found the defendant

guilty in the absence of the error. Put another way, the focus is whether “the jury

verdict would have been the same absent the error” or “whether the record

contains evidence that could rationally lead to a contrary finding with respect to

the omitted element.” See Neder, 527 U.S. at 17, 19, 119 S. Ct. at 1837, 1839.

It is clear beyond reasonable doubt that, even assuming the supervisory

exclusion applies to § 186, the failure to instruct the jury that the definition of

“employees” excludes supervisors was harmless error. With respect to the Hvide

charge, the evidence adduced at trial covered a significantly broader range of

employees than merely supervisors. At trial, the Government presented

overwhelming evidence that not all licensed seamen are considered “supervisors”

for purposes of collective bargaining; that D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE represented

non-supervisory employees; and that Hvide employed both licensed and

unlicensed seamen on its existing ships and also employed workers in its offshore

division that were of the precise type of workers that were already organized by

D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE. Additional testimony established that D1-MEBA and

NFOPAPE actively organize to increase their job base and ensure their survival. 

With or without Browne’s proposed instruction, we have no reasonable doubt that

the jury would have reached the same conclusion that D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE
66

would have sought to organize Hvide’s employees, and thus conclude that even if

the district court’s instruction on an element of § 186(a)(2) was erroneous, any

such error was harmless and does not entitle Browne to a new trial.

IV.

Browne contends that the district court erred by denying his motion, made

pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 14, to sever his trial from that of

Devaney. We disagree. It is well settled that defendants who are indicted together

are usually tried together. Zafiro v. United States, 506 U.S. 534, 537–38, 113 S.

Ct. 933, 937, 122 L. Ed. 2d 317 (1993) (“There is a preference in the federal

system for joint trials of defendants who are indicted together.”); United States v.

Magdaniel-Mora, 746 F.2d 715, 718 (11th Cir. 1984) (“To repeat the familiar,

persons indicted together ordinarily should be tried together.”). This is

particularly true in conspiracy cases. United States v. Baker, 432 F.3d 1189, 1236

(11th Cir. 2005); see also United States v. Beale, 921 F.2d 1412, 1428 (11th Cir.

1991) (“The general rule is that defendants charged with a common conspiracy

should be tried together.”). Therefore, we are generally reluctant to second-guess

the district court’s decision on severance. Baker, 432 F.3d at 1236. We review

the district court’s denial of Browne’s motion to sever for abuse of discretion; to

show such an abuse, Browne must discharge the “‘heavy burden’” of
67

demonstrating ‘compelling prejudice’ from the joinder.” United States v.

Novaton, 271 F.3d 968, 989 (11th Cir. 2001) (quoting United States v. Pepe, 747

F.2d 632, 651 (11th Cir. 1984)).

In Zafiro v. United States, 506 U.S. 534, 113 S. Ct. 933, the Supreme Court

set forth a two-step test to determine “whether a defendant is entitled to a new trial

due to a district court’s refusal to sever prior to trial or to grant a mistrial once trial

has commenced.” United States v. Blankenship, 382 F.3d 1110, 1122 (11th Cir.

2004). A defendant must first demonstrate that the joint trial resulted in prejudice

to him; and second, must show that severance is the proper remedy for that

prejudice. Id. at 1122; see also Zafiro, 506 U.S. at 538–39, 113 S. Ct. at 938

(“Rule 14 does not require severance even if prejudice is shown; rather, it leaves

the tailoring of the relief to be granted, if any, to the district court’s sound

discretion.”). Under this test, “[t]here are only two circumstances in which

severance is the only permissible remedy”: where there is a serious risk that a joint

trial (1) “would compromise a specific trial right of one of the defendants,” or (2)

would “prevent the jury from making a reliable judgment about guilt or

innocence.” Blankenship, 382 F. Supp. 3d at 1122–23 (quoting Zafiro, 506 U.S.

at 539, 113 S. Ct. at 938.

Browne claims that severance would have permitted him to call Devaney as
68

a defense witness offering exculpatory testimony, whereas Devaney refused to

testify in a joint trial. Therefore, Browne asserts that his motion for severance

falls under the second category, which includes prejudice resulting “if essential

exculpatory evidence that would be available to a defendant tried alone were

unavailable in a joint trial.” Zafiro, 506 U.S. at 539, 113 S. Ct. at 938. 

This circuit’s framework for analyzing a motion to sever based on the desire

to offer the exculpatory testimony of a co-defendant is well established. The

defendant must first demonstrate: “(1) a bona fide need for the testimony; (2) the

substance of the desired testimony; (3) the exculpatory nature and effect of the

desired testimony; and (4) that the codefendant would indeed have testified at a

separate trial.” United States v. Cobb, 185 F.3d 1193, 1197 (11th Cir. 1999). 

Once the defendant makes that threshold showing, the court must then: “(1)

examine the significance of the testimony in relation to the defendant’s theory of

the case; assess the extent of prejudice caused by the absence of the testimony; (3)

consider judicial administration and economy; and (4) give weight to the

timeliness of the motion.” Baker, 432 F.3d at 1239. 

We find no abuse of discretion in the district court’s denials of Browne’s

motions for severance based on the court’s application of this framework. In his

first pretrial motion to sever, Browne alleged that if called to testify at a separate
69

trial, Devaney would testify that Browne did not knowingly charge personal

expenses on the union credit card, never instructed or directed her to falsify

expense vouchers, and never discussed the submission of false expense vouchers;

that she voluntarily fabricated names on dinner vouchers as a matter of

convenience; and that Browne “always assumed that she was completing these

vouchers correctly.” Further, Browne would only use the union cell phone and

calling card to make personal calls “simply as a matter of convenience.” She

would also testify that she told Browne that her New York trips were related to

union business, she never told him that she took her daughter, and she charged her

tickets to the union credit card. Finally, she would testify that she “took every

possible precaution to conceal her crimes” in order to avoid detection; that her

crimes were caused by her depression, alcohol abuse, gambling addiction, and

failed marriage; that she did not conspire in any manner with Browne; and that she

has no evidence or reason to believe that Browne knew she was victimizing the

union. 

The district court adopted the magistrate judge’s report and recommendation

to deny the motion for severance. That report found that “the proffered testimony

contains few specific exonerative facts and consists of undocumented conclusory

allegations which mitigates against Browne’s severance motion”; that such
70

conclusory allegations were further “subject to substantial and damaging

impeachment”; and that Browne failed to produce an affidavit from Devaney

attesting that she would in fact testify at a separate trial.

Six months later, Browne filed a renewed motion for severance, claiming to

have cured the deficiencies by having attached an affidavit from Devaney that was

entirely consistent with the description of her proffered testimony in Browne’s

original motion. The district court denied the motion, noting that it was “troubled

by Defendant Browne’s inference that the lack of an affidavit was the sole ground

for the denial of his original motion. A cursory review of [the magistrate judge’s]

Report and Recommendation plainly reveals a number of other grounds why the

motion was denied.”

In his post-trial motion, Browne moved for a new trial based on these

previous denials. The court renewed its prior holdings and noted further that

Browne failed to show “actual, compelling prejudice” from the denial of severance

because the proffered testimony “was, in fact, elicited from other witnesses at trial,

such that the jury considered these allegations and rejected them.”

On appeal, Browne likens Devaney’s proffered testimony to that of the codefendants in Tifford v. Wainwright, 588 F.2d 954 (5th Cir. 1979), and United

States v. Cobb, 185 F.3d 1193. We disagree. Tifford was an attorney who filed a
71

petition for a writ of habeas corpus contending that the Florida state courts had

denied him due process by refusing to sever his trial from that of his codefendants, one of whom was his client. All had been charged in connection with

a scheme to cash forged checks. Tifford, 588 F.2d at 955. Tifford asserted that

his co-defendants would testify in a separate trial that he had no knowledge of the

scheme. Id. at 957. The Fifth Circuit noted that the requirements for severance

had been met, including the facts that prejudice resulting from the denial of

Tifford’s motion was “conclusively established” and that the proffered testimony

was essential to rebut the prosecution’s proof on the crucial issue of Tifford’s

knowledge of the criminal activities. Id. 

Though it is difficult to discern much of the court’s reasoning from its

mostly conclusory per curiam opinion, Tifford does not compel a finding of abuse

of discretion here. “This Court’s cases addressing severance motions have often

looked hard at the substance of the affidavits proffered by the co-defendant who

purportedly would testify in a separate trial.” Novaton, 271 F.3d at 989. 

“Credibility is for the jury, but the judge is not required to sever on patent

fabrications. If the testimony is purely cumulative, or of negligible weight or

probative value, the court is not required to sever.” Byrd v. Wainwright, 428 F.2d

1017, 1021 (5th Cir. 1970). The court in Tifford was plainly satisfied with the
 Browne also cites to United States v. DiBernardo, 880 F.2d 1216 (11th Cir. 1989), 30

which we find unavailing. In that case, the Government appealed the decision of the district

court to grant defendants a new trial based on the view that the court had erred when it severed

the trial of a co-defendant. Id. at 1222. On appeal, the court found that the motion to sever was

properly granted. Id. at 1229. One of the co-defendants, D’Apice, would have testified that the

other defendants were not involved in a conspiracy to distribute pornography with him and that

they had no knowledge of the criminal activities. Id. at 1228. Citing Tifford, the court noted the

central role occupied by D’Apice’s proffered testimony and that the “proposed testimony

strongly indicated that D’Apice was the only person involved in certain aspects.” Id. The court

found no reason to disturb the evaluation of a district judge who had evaluated the proposed

testimony twice and who was “clearly familiar with the relevant facts on this issue.” Id. at 1229. 

DiBernardo thus demonstrates that the trial court’s decision on a motion to sever is committed to

its sound discretion, and an appellate court will generally be reluctant to second-guess that

decision. DiBernardo also held only that the trial court’s decision to sever “was within the trial

court’s discretion,” id. at 1228, not that severance was the only course of action that would have

72

substance, exculpatory effect, and other features of the proffered testimony. Not

so with respect to Devaney’s affidavit, which we agree amounts to undocumented

conclusory allegations subject to substantial and damaging impeachment. 

Furthermore, we note that Devaney’s testimony was in no way contrary to her own

interests; one of her goals in this appeal is “to clear her name as to the RICO

charges,” which would be served by the proffered testimony that Devaney acted

entirely of her own volition and was not involved in a conspiracy with Browne. 

Such testimony is “more self-exonerating than exculpatory of [Browne],” is

“completely self-serving and thus lack[s] strong credibility.” Pepe, 747 F.2d at

651; see also Novaton, 271 F.3d at 990 (“[S]tatements concerning the testimony

that would become available by severing trials must be specific and exonerative,

rather than conclusory or self-serving, in order to justify severance.”).30
been proper in those circumstances. DiBernardo thus does not necessitate a finding of abuse of

discretion here.

73

Nor does Browne’s proffered testimony resemble that in Cobb. The court in

Cobb noted that it was dealing with “one of those rare cases” where the

defendant’s need for the proffered testimony was clear. 185 F.3d at 1197. The

“sole evidence” against the defendant on the charge of receiving stolen funds was

the testimony of a woman who claimed to have seen the defendant receive the

money. Id. at 1198. Cobb’s proffered testimony came from the only other

available person who was present, and would have directly contradicted the only

evidence against Cobb. Id. By contrast, the Government’s evidence against

Browne did not hinge on the testimony of a single witness, and as the district court

noted in denying Browne’s post-trial motion, “the testimony Browne alleges he

would have elicited from Devaney was, in fact, elicited from other witnesses at

trial.” 

Moreover, the interests of judicial administration and economy were

considerable in this case. Unlike the joint trial in Cobb, which “took only one day

to complete,” id. at 1199 (“Trials do not get much shorter than that, so the cost to

the system of a severance in this case is minimal.”), the trial of Browne and

Devaney lasted approximately two months. As in Novaton, we find considerations
 The Government’s argument that Devaney has waived the issue is mistaken, as 31

Devaney’s claim alleges that the indictment failed to state an offense – a claim which may be

heard at any time while the case is pending – and does not merely allege a defect in the

indictment. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 12(b)(3). See United States v. Panarella, 277 F.3d 678, 685 (3d

Cir. 2002) (holding that “a charging document fails to state an offense if the specific facts alleged

in the charging document fall beyond the scope of the relevant criminal statute, as a matter of

statutory interpretation”). We therefore do not reach the question whether Rule 12(b)(3)’s

requirement that defenses or objections based on defects in the indictment must be raised before

trial is a “claim-processing rule” susceptible to forfeiture or waiver, or whether it is a

jurisdictional bar. See Bowles v. Russell, __ U.S. __, 127 S. Ct. 2360, 2365, 168 L. Ed. 2d 96

(2007) (noting the “jurisdictional distinction” between procedural rules based on courtpromulgated rules and those based on statutes); Eberhart v. United States, 546 U.S. 12, 19, 126

S. Ct. 403, 407, 163 L. Ed. 2d 14 (2005).

74

of judicial economy to “weigh[] heavily” against severance “in light of the

substantial systemic interest in handling this complex, conspiracy case in one trial

(which lasted two months).” Novaton, 271 F.3d at 990, 991.

We therefore affirm the trial court’s denial of severance.

V.

Devaney raises three challenges to her convictions. First, she argues that

the Government failed to charge a proper RICO offense, and that therefore, 31

insufficient evidence supported her convictions on Counts 1 and 2. She

additionally claims that Count 1 should be vacated due to the insufficiency of

evidence supporting the existence of an agreement between Browne and Devaney. 

Third, she argues that the district court erred by refusing to modify the RICO

pattern offense instruction with respect to the fourth element of Count 2. We

consider these arguments in turn and conclude that they are without merit.
75

A.

Devaney argues that for purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), the Government

could not plead and prove that D1-MEBA and NFOPAPE were the “enterprise”

with which the defendants were associated and the “victim” of the predicate acts

of racketeering. Devaney points to certain statements in Reves v. Ernst & Young,

507 U.S. 170, 113 S. Ct. 1163, 122 L. Ed. 2d 525 (1993), and National

Organization of Women, Inc. v. Scheidler, 510 U.S. 249, 114 S. Ct. 798, 127 L.

Ed. 2d 99 (1994), for the proposition that while 18 U.S.C. §§ 1962(a) and (b) are

concerned with activities that victimize the enterprise, § 1962(c) is limited to

proscribing activities that use the enterprise as a “vehicle” to bilk third parties. 

Devaney’s argument draws heavily from a decision of the Third Circuit,

Jaguar Cars, Inc. v. Royal Oaks Motor Car Co., 46 F.3d 258 (3d Cir. 1995). That

case involved a civil RICO action brought by Jaguar automobile corporation

against a Jaguar dealership and its owners for defrauding Jaguar of more than a

million dollars through the submission of five years’ worth of fraudulent warranty

claims to Jaguar. Id. at 261. The central issue in Jaguar Cars was whether the

Jaguar dealership was sufficiently distinct from its owners to satisfy the

requirement that the “person” associated with the enterprise be distinct from the

“enterprise” itself. Id. at 260. The court held that the distinctiveness requirement
 Apparently, at least one court within the Third Circuit has chosen to disregard the 32

dictum. See Polymer Dynamics, Inc. v. Bayer Corp., No. CIV. A. 99-4040, 2000 WL 1146622,

at *5 (E.D. Pa. Aug. 14, 2000) (noting that a “plaintiff also can be an enterprise” and citing

cases).

76

was met by bringing a claim against the defendant-owners as persons conducting

the dealership enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity. Id. at 268. In

so holding, the court noted the statement of the Reves Court that “‘Congress

consistently referred to subsection (c) as prohibiting the operation of an enterprise

through a pattern of racketeering activity and to subsections (a) and (b) as

prohibiting acquisition of an enterprise.’” Id. at 267 (quoting Reves, 507 U.S. at

182, 113 S. Ct. at 1171). The court further observed that the Scheidler Court “held

that the ‘enterprise’ in subsection (c) is properly viewed as the ‘vehicle through

which the unlawful pattern of racketeering activity is committed, rather than the

victim of that activity.’” Id. (quoting Scheidler, 510 U.S. at 259, 114 S. Ct. at

804). The Third Circuit thus concluded:

[A] victim corporation ‘drained of its own money’ by pilfering

officers and employees could not reasonably be viewed as the

enterprise through which employee persons carried out their

racketeering activity. Rather, in such an instance, the proper

enterprise would be the association of employees who are victimizing

the corporation, while the victim corporation would not be the

enterprise, but instead the § 1962(c) claimant.

Id.

We find this dictum in Jaguar Cars to be unpersuasive. Like the district 32
77

court in LaSalle Bank Lake View v. Seguban, 937 F. Supp. 1309 (N.D. Ill. 1996),

we are of the opinion that the Scheidler Court’s statement cannot be so construed. 

In Scheidler, the plaintiff-clinics alleged that anti-abortion protesters conspired to

conduct the affairs of an enterprise to shut down abortion clinics through a pattern

of racketeering activity. Scheidler, 510 U.S. at 253, 114 S. Ct. at 801. The issue

in Scheidler was whether the alleged enterprise or racketeering acts must have an

economic motive. Id. at 254, 114 S. Ct. at 802. In holding that an economic

motive was unnecessary, the court explained that “the ‘enterprise’ in subsection

(c) connotes generally the vehicle through which the unlawful pattern of

racketeering activity is committed, rather than the victim of that activity.” Id. at

259, 114 S. Ct. at 804 (emphasis added). By so qualifying its language, therefore,

the Scheidler Court did not foreclose the possibility that the enterprise can also be

the victim of the alleged RICO violation. See also LaSalle Bank Lake View, 937

F. Supp. at 1323 (“[T]his court does not agree with the leap of logic made by the

Third Circuit from the Supreme Court’s Scheidler statement that ‘enterprises’

‘generally’ are not ‘victims,’ to the conclusion that ‘enterprises’ cannot be

‘victims.’”).

Nor can the selected statement from Reves be interpreted to mean that

§§ 1962(a) and (b) hold a monopoly on situations where an enterprise has been
78

victimized. The issue in Reves was how much involvement in a corporation’s

affairs an outside accounting firm must have in order to be deemed a participant in

the conduct of those affairs. See Reves, 507 U.S. at 176–77, 113 S. Ct. at

1168–69. The Court held merely that the defendant “must participate in the

operation or management of the enterprise itself.” Id. at 185, 113 S. Ct. at 1173. 

The Court’s statement that “Congress consistently referred to subsection (c) as

prohibiting the operation of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity

and to subsections (a) and (b) as prohibiting acquisition of an enterprise,’” id. at

182, 113 S. Ct. at 1171, thus underscored the Court’s application of an “operation

or management” test, not the validity of a victim/vehicle distinction.

Our holding today is consistent with our en banc opinion in United States v.

Goldin Industries, Inc., 219 F.3d 1268 (11th Cir. 2000), in which we held that in

the context of a § 1962(c) charge, the requirement of distinction “between the

RICO person and the RICO enterprise is necessary because the enterprise itself

can be a passive instrument or victim of the racketeering activity. See Bennett [v.

United States Trust Co. of New York], 770 F.2d [308, 315 (2d Cir. 1985)] (“Such

a distinction focuses the section on the culpable party and recognizes that the

enterprise itself is often a passive instrument or victim of the racketeering

activity.”).” Id. at 1270 (emphasis added). We believed then, as we do now, that
79

“Congress’ intention in § 1962(c) to target a specific variety of criminal activity

[includes] ‘the exploitation and appropriation of legitimate businesses by corrupt

individuals,’” not merely the use of an enterprise to swindle third parties. See

Goldin Indus., Inc., 219 F.3d at 1270.

Accordingly, Devaney’s argument to vacate her convictions on Counts 1

and 2 on this ground is without merit.

B.

Devaney also challenges her conviction on Count 1 on the ground that the

Government did not present sufficient evidence of an agreement between Devaney

and Browne on the overall objective of the conspiracy or an agreement by

Devaney to commit personally two predicate acts. Our review of the evidence in

the light most favorable to the Government indicates that there is more than

enough evidence in the record to support her conviction beyond a reasonable

doubt on the former theory, and we therefore do not reach the latter.

Devaney’s insufficiency challenge rests on the flawed argument that the

evidence supporting her conspiracy conviction requires “careful parsing” by

eliminating the predicate acts found to be committed by Browne alone, the

predicate acts found to be committed by herself alone, and the predicate acts that

the jury found had not been committed. Having done so, she points to Count 2’s
80

Predicate Act 14 – mail fraud connected to the submission of an expense voucher

on November 28, 1997 – as the only act that the jury found that Browne and

Devaney had committed jointly. She argues that based on that act, the evidence is

insufficient to show either an agreement on an “overall objective” or the existence

of a “single objective” conspiracy. 

Devaney’s argument fundamentally misconstrues the law and unduly

constricts the scope of evidence that may be considered by a jury with respect to a

RICO conspiracy charge. First, we note that Count 1 did not incorporate by

reference the substantive RICO charge in Count 2. Rather, it alleged a pattern of

racketeering activity from 1993 to 2003, consisting of multiple acts including

Taft-Hartley violations, embezzlement, bank fraud, and mail fraud. Thus, in

proceedings on Count 1, the Government was not limited to proving the specific

predicate acts charged in Count 2. Furthermore, Count 1 centered on the act of

agreement:

whether or not the jury believed that [the defendant] actually

committed the predicate acts has nothing to do with whether the jury

believed that he agreed to commit the predicate acts. Agreement to

commit two predicate acts, and not the actual commission of two

predicate acts, is the key issue in a RICO conspiracy charge. 

United States v. Russo, 796 F.2d 1443, 1461 (11th Cir. 1986). Accordingly, “the

jury was free to consider any act of [the type alleged as racketeering activity in
81

Count 1] that occurred within the time frame of the conspiracy.” United States v.

Phillips, 874 F.2d 123, 127 (3d Cir. 1989); see also United States v. Elliott, 571

F.2d 880, 911 (5th Cir. 1978) (“We have long followed the rule that the

government is not limited to overt acts pleaded in the indictment in proving a

conspiracy; it may show other acts of the conspirators occurring during the life of

the conspiracy.”).

Second, the fact that one conspirator may have been unaware of predicate

crimes committed by a co-conspirator does not necessarily negate the existence of

a conspiracy. Regardless of the method used to establish the agreement, the

Government need not prove that each conspirator agreed with every other

conspirator, knew of his fellow conspirators, was aware of all of the details of the

conspiracy, or contemplated participating in the same crime. United States v. To,

144 F.3d 737, 744 (11th Cir. 1998); Castro, 89 F.3d at 1451 (citing Pepe, 747 F.2d

at 659–60). “[T]he fact that ‘each conspirator may have contemplated

participating in different and unrelated crimes is irrelevant.’” To, 144 F.3d at

744–45 (quoting Starrett, 55 F.3d at 1544). 

Contrary to Devaney’s argument, therefore, the evidence in support of

Count 1’s RICO conspiracy charge was not limited to the predicate act that the

jury found was jointly committed by Browne and Devaney as the basis of Count
82

2’s substantive RICO violation. Instead, proof of an agreement on an overall

objective may be established through sufficient circumstantial evidence from

which a rational jury could conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that Devaney

“must necessarily have known” that Browne was also conspiring to participate in

the same enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity. See Castro, 89 F.3d

at 1451.

Devaney relies heavily on United States v. Gonzalez, 921 F.2d 1530 (11th

Cir. 1991), to argue that there was no evidence that she agreed with Browne as to

the overall objective. In Gonzalez, Michael Timothy Sweeton was charged with a

RICO conspiracy in connection with the LeQuire drug ring which imported

cocaine from Colombia to landing strips in Georgia, Alabama, and Tennessee. Id.

at 1533. Sweeton was a member of a ground crew deployed to a landing site in

Sylvania, Georgia, whose job it was to scout the landing area and unload cocaine

from an airplane arriving on May 23, 1983. Id. at 1533–34. That job went awry,

and Sweeton was indicted along with others in the drug ring. Although this court

found that there was sufficient evidence to convict Sweeton under a “single

objective” theory, we held that there was insufficient evidence of a “wide[r]

agreement” by Sweeton to join a conspiracy with an overall objective of violating

RICO. Id. at 1542–44. We noted that there was no evidence tying Sweeton to any
83

activity of the drug ring other than the Sylvania incident: “no witness could

remember seeing Sweeton, or hearing of his name, prior to the news that

something had gone wrong at Sylvania. In contrast to the other defendants, he is

not seen, or known of, at or around LeQuire’s home or [the] fixed base operation.” 

Id. at 1542. In those circumstances, therefore, we found proof of an agreement to

an overall conspiracy to be lacking.

In contrast to the dearth of evidence with respect to Sweeton, there is ample

circumstantial evidence to support a finding that Devaney agreed to the overall

objective of the alleged enterprise – namely, to control the financial affairs of the

union and misuse its assets and influence for personal gain. Browne hired

Devaney to be his administrative assistant, in which capacity she came to wield

extraordinary control over the books, records, and finances of the union. With that

authority, Devaney was able to enrich herself through her payroll scheme and by

charging personal expenses to the union. For his part, Browne was able to use his

influence to obtain payments from employers. In addition, Devaney’s activities

both facilitated Browne’s fraudulent expenses and shielded them from view. In

filling out Browne’s expense vouchers, Devaney admitted to fabricating the names

of persons attending dinners and ascribing a union-related purpose to personal

meals. Devaney herself attended several expensive dinners that were not related
 The Reves “operation or management” test is applicable to criminal RICO cases. 33

Starrett, 55 F.3d at 1542. However, we have held that the test does not apply to the conspiracy

offense, 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d). Id. at 1547.

84

to union business. She also failed to maintain adequate documentation for claimed

expenses. Her role thus brought her “squarely within [the alleged] enterprise.” 

See Gonzalez, 921 F.2d at 1541. In turn, Browne warded off the complaints of

union officials and accountants who expressed concerns over Devaney’s

performance and criticized the absence of checks and balances over the union’s

financial affairs. Indeed, when Zakaib repeatedly requested access to the union’s

books and records, Devaney appealed to Browne to “take care of it.” 

The sum of this evidence is such that we cannot say that a rational jury

could not have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Devaney agreed to the

overall objective charged. We therefore affirm Devaney’s conviction on Count 1.

C.

Devaney’s third argument on appeal is that the district court erred in

refusing to modify the pattern RICO jury instruction with respect to the fourth

element of the Count 2. The jury was instructed that the fourth element of the 33

substantive RICO offense required finding beyond a reasonable doubt that

Devaney “conducted or participated in the conduct of the enterprise’s affairs.”

Over Devaney’s objection, the district court delivered the unmodified pattern
85

instruction for this element, which reads:

[T]he Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the

Defendant was something more than an outsider lending aid to the

enterprise. It must be proved that the Defendant had some part in

either the management or the operation of the affairs of the enterprise

itself. Thus, it need not be proved that the Defendant had primary

responsibility or even a managerial position; it is enough if the

Defendant was involved in conducting the operation of the affairs of

the enterprise as a lower level participant.

Eleventh Circuit Pattern Jury Instruction, Offense Instruction 71.1 (2003). 

Devaney has no quarrel with the first two sentences of the pattern

instruction, which she admits are lifted directly from the Supreme Court’s opinion

in Reves. Her objection is limited to the second clause of the third sentence. 

Devaney asked the district court to omit the language that “it is enough if the

Defendant was involved in conducting the operation of the affairs of the enterprise

as a lower level participant,” and to substitute the language: “but the Government

must prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the Defendant had some part in

directing the enterprise’s affairs.”

As Devaney’s challenge was properly preserved, we review the district

court’s refusal to accept Devaney’s requested modification to the wording of the

instruction for an abuse of discretion. See United States v. Prather, 205 F.3d 1265,

1270 (11th Cir. 2000) (“We review the legal correctness of a jury instruction de

novo, but defer on questions of phrasing absent an abuse of discretion.”) (internal
86

citation omitted); United States v. Richardson, 233 F.3d 1285, 1292 (11th Cir.

2000) (“‘The district court has broad discretion in formulating a jury charge so

long as the charge as a whole accurately reflects the law and the facts.’”) (quoting

United States v. Turner, 871 F.2d 1574, 1578 (11th Cir. 1989). A district court’s

failure to give a requested jury instruction is an abuse of discretion if the requested

instruction “(1) was correct, (2) was not substantially covered by the charge

actually given, and (3) dealt with some point in the trial so important that failure to

give the requested instruction seriously impaired the defendant’s ability to conduct

his defense.” United States v. Eckhardt, 466 F.3d 938, 947–48 (11th Cir. 2006). 

Under our deferential standard of review, we reverse only if “we are left with a

substantial and eradicable doubt as to whether the jury was properly guided in its

deliberations.” Id.

We find no abuse of discretion in the district court’s refusal to modify the

pattern instruction to incorporate Devaney’s proposed language. There can be no

doubt that Devaney’s proposed instruction was substantially encompassed in the

instruction delivered by the district court. The first sentence of the pattern

instruction explains that the Government must prove this element beyond a

reasonable doubt. The proposed language that a defendant must have “some part

in directing the enterprise’s affairs” is likewise fully addressed by the second
87

sentence of the pattern instruction, which requires that a defendant must have

“some part in either the management or the operation of the affairs of the

enterprise itself.” To manage or operate an enterprise’s affairs is to direct the

enterprise’s affairs. See Reves, 507 U.S. at 179, 113 S. Ct. at 1170 (“[B]ut some

part in directing the enterprise’s affairs is required. The ‘operation or

management’ test expresses this requirement in a formulation that is easy to

apply.”). Notwithstanding Devaney’s semantic preference, to incorporate

Devaney’s proposed instruction would be to render redundant the second clause of

the third sentence. 

The language that Devaney would have stricken is an accurate reflection of

the law in this circuit. The reference to “conducting the operation of the affairs of

an enterprise as a lower level participant” contained in the second clause of the

third sentence closely tracks the Reves opinion, which states: “An enterprise is

‘operated’ not just by upper management but also by lower rung participants in the

enterprise who are under the direction of upper management.” Reves, 507 U.S. at

184, 113 S. Ct. at 1173. In Reves, the explanation that lower-level participants

under the direction of upper management may be found to satisfy the “operation or

management” test was necessary to ensure that the Court’s finding that the

particular outsider in question – i.e., the outside accounting firm – did not operate
88

or manage the enterprise would not unduly restrict the scope of liability for

insiders. A defendant must “‘knowingly implement[]’ and ‘make’ decisions” in

order to be liable under the “operation or management” test, see Official Comm. of

Unsecured Creditors of PSA, Inc. v. Edwards, 437 F.3d 1145, 1156 (11th Cir.

2006) (quoting Starrett, 55 F.3d at 1548), but those actions may be performed

under the direction of upper management. See United States v. Oreto, 37 F.3d

739, 750–51 (1st Cir. 1994) (stating that “[s]pecial care is required in translating

Reves’ concern with ‘horizontal’ connections – focusing on the liability of an

outside adviser – into the ‘vertical’ question of how far RICO liability may extend

within the enterprise but down the organizational ladder”; that defendants were

liable by being “plainly integral to carrying out the [orders from above]”; and that

“Congress intended to reach all who participate in the conduct of that enterprise,

whether they are generals or foot soldiers”).

Because the pattern instruction given by the district court was legally

accurate and was more than adequate in addressing Devaney’s proposed

instruction, Devaney has failed to establish an abuse of discretion.

VI.

With respect to sentencing, Devaney contends that the forfeiture order

against her should be vacated for two reasons. First, she argues that the district
 In this case, forfeiture was ordered pursuant to §§ 1963(a)(1) and (a)(3), which provide 34

in pertinent part that persons convicted of violating § 1962 “shall forfeit to the United States . . .

any interest the person has acquired or maintained in violation of section 1962; [and] any

property constituting, or derived from, any proceeds which the person obtained, directly or

indirectly, from racketeering activity or unlawful debt collection in violation of section 1962.”

89

court should not have adjudged her jointly and severally liable for the full amount

of the forfeiture order, and should have reduced the forfeiture amount by the

amount of her voluntary restitution. Second, she argues that the order of forfeiture

violated the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against excessive fines.

“We review de novo the district court’s legal conclusions regarding

forfeiture and the court’s findings of fact for clear error.” Puche, 350 F.3d at

1153. Whether a forfeiture order is constitutionally excessive under the Eighth

Amendment is also subject to de novo review. Id. 

A.

Under 18 U.S.C. § 1963, a trial court must order forfeiture in addition to

other penalties for violation of RICO. As individuals convicted under § 1962, 34

Browne and Devaney fall squarely within the forfeiture provision. At sentencing,

the district court entered a forfeiture order against the defendants in the amount of

$592,254.79, for which they were held jointly and severally liable. This figure

was reached by summing the amounts received by Browne from a variety of

sources as a result of honest services mail fraud and Taft-Hartley violations
90

($468,208.52); the amount received by Devaney through payroll embezzlement

and bank fraud ($116,207.66); the amount obtained through the submission of

fraudulent vouchers ($4,638.82); expenses stemming from Browne’s use of the

union cell phone and union calling card ($2,471.79); and the amount connected to

Devaney’s travel to New York ($1,428.00). 

Devaney challenges two aspects of the computation of her forfeiture

liability. First, she argues that she should not have been held jointly and severally

liable for Browne’s honest services mail fraud and Taft-Hartley violations because

they were not reasonably foreseeable to her. Second, she argues that the forfeiture

amount should have been reduced by the $26,500 of voluntary restitution that she

made to the union for her payroll embezzlement. We discuss these arguments in

turn and conclude that they fail.

We first considered the issue of joint and several liability in the context of a

forfeiture order in United States v. Caporale, 806 F.2d 1487 (11th Cir. 1986). 

After examining the statutory scheme as a whole and the purpose of the forfeiture

provision, we concluded that “imposition of joint and several liability in a

forfeiture order upon RICO co-conspirators is not only permissible but necessary

in these circumstances to effectuate the purpose of the forfeiture provision.” Id. at

1506. To saddle the Government with a requirement “to determine the precise
91

allocation of racketeering proceeds” between defendants would substantially

impair “the effectiveness of [the] remedy,” as “offenders would simply have to

mask the allocation of the proceeds to avoid forfeiting them altogether.” Id. at

1508. It was enough in that case that “the government can prove the amount of the

proceeds and identify a finite group of people receiving the proceeds.” Id. In

Caporale, therefore, the imposition of joint and several liability as a “collection

device” was necessary to effectuate RICO. Id. Caporale did not hold, however,

that joint and several liability may only be imposed where the Government cannot

prove the amount of ill-gotten gains that was funneled to each defendant.

Devaney relies principally upon United States v. Saccoccia, 823 F. Supp.

994 (D.R.I. 1993), aff’d, United States v. Hurley, 63 F.3d 1 (1st Cir. 1995), to

argue that a defendant may not be held liable to forfeit the proceeds of

racketeering activity generated by a conspiracy that were not reasonably

foreseeable to the defendant. In Saccoccia, each defendant was found guilty of a

RICO conspiracy violation and one or more related substantive offenses stemming

from a conspiracy to launder the proceeds of illegal narcotics sales for a

Colombian drug cartel. Saccoccia, 823 F. Supp. at 997. In determining the

amount of forfeiture to be imposed on each defendant, the district court looked to

the Sentencing Guidelines, U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(B), which require that “both
92

base offense levels and adjustments for specific offense characteristics be

determined on the basis of ‘all reasonably foreseeable acts and omissions of others

in furtherance of the jointly undertaken criminal activity.’” Id. at 1004. The court

concluded that “[s]ince criminal forfeiture is a form of punishment, it follows that

the same principles of sentencing accountability should apply.” Id. The First

Circuit agreed, noting in addition that the same principle underlies established

case law holding a defendant substantively liable for the foreseeable criminal

conduct of other members of the conspiracy. Hurley, 63 F.3d at 22 (citing

Pinkerton v. United States, 328 U.S. 640, 66 S. Ct. 1180, 90 L. Ed. 1489 (1946)). 

The court decided not “to depart from this principle of attributed conduct when it

comes to apply the forfeiture rules, which have aspects both of substantive liability

and of penalty.” Id.

We respectfully disagree with the reasoning of these opinions, as we do not

believe that section 1B1.3(a)(1)(B) can be conflated with the Sentencing

Guidelines applicable to forfeiture under RICO. The Guidelines expressly deal

with forfeiture in section 5E1.4, which provides in its entirety that “[f]orfeiture is

to be imposed upon a convicted defendant as provided by statute.” U.S.S.G. § 5

E1.4. The commentary then lists the various statutes, including 18 U.S.C. § 1962,

and notes that forfeiture is mandatory and automatic upon conviction of an
93

underlying offense.

Nor do we believe that the “reasonably foreseeable” limitation operative on

the imposition of vicarious Pinkerton liability is applicable here. The acts for

which Devaney disclaims forfeiture liability are not “merely a part of the

ramifications of the plan which could not be reasonably foreseen as a necessary or

natural consequence of the unlawful agreement.” Pinkerton, 328 U.S. at 648. The

RICO conspiracy count of which both Browne and Devaney were convicted

alleged, inter alia, that the defendants agreed to conduct and participate in the

conduct of the affairs of the enterprise through a pattern of activity including

violations of the Taft-Hartley Act and honest services mail fraud, and one of the

multiple objects of the racketeering conspiracy was to use the influence of D1-

MEBA, NFOPAPE, and their respective divisions for their personal gain. 

Accordingly, these offenses were the very objects of the unlawful conspiracy and

were committed in furtherance thereof. In that sense, their commission was

inherently “reasonably foreseeable” to Devaney.

The fact that Devaney was not herself charged with the commission of the

Taft-Hartley or honest services mail fraud predicate acts does not absolve her of

liability for the conspiracy. Cf. United States v. Faulkner, 17 F.3d 745, 775 (5th

Cir. 1994) (“The RICO offense here is not merely the commission of particular
94

predicate acts, but a conspiracy ‘to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in

the conduct of’ an enterprise.” (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c))). Although Devaney

claims that the district court ruled on her Rule 29 motion for judgment of acquittal

that she had not conspired with Browne with respect to the Taft-Hartley and

honest services mail fraud violations, our perusal of the trial record reveals

otherwise; the court found sufficient evidence to permit the jury to consider this

alleged object of the conspiracy, and the jury’s verdict found her guilty of so

conspiring with Browne. Thus, the money procured through Browne’s TaftHartley violations and honest services mail fraud was acquired through

racketeering activity directly in furtherance of the objects of the conspiracy and

was part of the conspiracy’s common pool of proceeds. In this respect the

conspiracy resembled a partnership in a criminal plan, in whose proceeds Devaney

held an interest.

Our finding that forfeiture in this circumstance is not subject to the same

“reasonably foreseeable” limitation that operates on vicarious Pinkerton liability

for the substantive offenses of a co-conspirator is also consistent with our opinion

in Caporale. In that case, we noted that the imposition of joint and several liability

on a forfeiture was not wholly inconsistent with traditional concepts of criminal

law and named Pinkerton liability as one example. Caporale, 806 F.2d at 1508. 
 Devaney urges us that it is “incomprehensible” to “graft a common-law principle of 35

vicarious liability and not the common-law limitation on that liability.” We note, however, that

the imposition of joint and several liability for a forfeiture order operates as a penalty collection

device and not as a theory of substantive liability. See Caporale, 806 F.2d at 1508 (noting that

forfeiture “goes only to the penalty imposed rather than to the individual’s criminal liability”);

see also United States v. Gilbert, 244 F.3d 888, 924 (11th Cir. 2001) (“It is beyond doubt that

criminal forfeiture is part of a defendant’s sentence. 18 U.S.C. §§ 1963(a), 3554; United States

v. Bissell, 866 F.2d 1343, 1349 n.3 (11th Cir. 1989) (“Criminal forfeiture operates in personam

against the defendant, serving as a penalty, upon conviction.”) . . . .”); cf. Hurley, 63 F.3d at 22

(collecting cases that conclude that forfeiture provisions involve joint and several liability and

acknowledging that “[t]his is a somewhat backward way of putting the matter, since ‘joint and

several’ roughly describes the result without explaining the underlying theory of liability”). In

this respect, we disagree with Hurley’s characterization of forfeiture rules as featuring “aspects

both of substantive liability and of penalty,” Hurley, 63 F.3d at 22.

95

However, our discussion did not stop there; we observed that:

The imposition of joint and several liability on a forfeiture is even

less theoretically problematic than vicarious liability for a substantive

conviction might be because it goes only to the penalty imposed

rather than to the individual’s criminal liability. In addition,

traditional notions of criminal law are not altogether analogous

because RICO itself by design is not traditional criminal law: it

represents a radical departure from common law notions of liability

and punishment in criminal law in a number of respects. 

Id. Indeed, to hold otherwise would be to assign to the Government the onerous 35

task of proving to the trial judge which proceeds were reasonably foreseeable to

each defendant in a conspiracy. Such a move would significantly blunt the

effectiveness of a weapon that Congress specifically authorized “to strike at the

heart of an illegal enterprise by confiscating tainted property and proceeds in

hopes of putting the criminal enterprise out of business.” See United States v.

Gilbert, 244 F.3d 888, 909 (11th Cir. 2001); see also United States v. Bajakajian,
 The MVRA provides that restitution will be ordered to any victim for “an offense

36

against property under this title, . . . including any offense committed by fraud or deceit.” 18

U.S.C. § 3663A(c)(1)(A)(ii). A victim is defined as any person directly harmed by a defendant’s

criminal conduct in the course of a scheme, conspiracy, or pattern. 18 U.S.C. § 3663A(a)(2).

96

524 U.S. 321, 332 n.7, 118 S. Ct. 2028, 2035, 141 L. Ed. 2d 314 (1998) (“It was

only in 1970 that Congress resurrected the English common law of punitive

forfeiture to combat organized crime and major drug trafficking.”).

Devaney also argues that the amount of forfeiture ought to have been

reduced by the two checks totaling $26,500 that she sent to the union after an

internal investigation discovered that she had embezzled $116,207.66 from

NFOPAPE’s payroll. This argument is specious and can be dealt with in short

order. Restitution pursuant to the Mandatory Victims Restitution Act (MVRA)

and forfeiture pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1963 are both mandatory in this case, and

each serves a different goal. Restitution is to be paid in the full amount of each

36

victim’s losses. 18 U.S.C. § 3664(f)(1)(A). At sentencing, the probation officer,

who prepared the Presentence Investigation Report, recommended restitution in

the amount paid to NFOPAPE by its insurer, $87,100. Presumably, this amount

reflected the two checks that Devaney sent to the union. 

While the focus of restitution is on the victim, forfeiture focuses on the

defendant. In addition to forcing the disgorgement of dishonest profits, therefore,

forfeiture is also a punitive action against the defendant. Caporale, 806 F.2d at
97

1507; see also Libretti v. United States, 516 U.S. 29, 39, 116 S. Ct. 356, 363, 133

L. Ed. 2d 271 (1995) (noting that “Congress conceived of forfeiture as punishment

for the commission of various drug and racketeering activities,” and it is imposed

“‘in addition to any other sentence’” (quoting 18 U.S.C. § 1963)). Devaney’s

interest in the proceeds of her payroll embezzlement was forfeited and vested in

the United States government upon her conviction, but that interest dated back to

the time of the act that made the interest subject to forfeiture – in other words,

when Devaney embezzled the money from NFOPAPE. Cf. Gilbert, 244 F.3d at

903 n.38 (noting that under the relation back doctrine, “any subsequent transfer of

part or all of a defendant’s tainted property does not automatically extinguish the

government’s superior entitlement to the property”). The fact that Devaney

subsequently sent $26,500 to the union does not divest the Government of any

portion of its interest in the $116,207.66 obtained through the payroll scheme. 

Accordingly, Devaney’s challenge to the forfeiture order on these grounds

fails.

B.

Devaney’s last-ditch effort to vacate the forfeiture order rests upon the

argument that the inclusion of $468,208.52 received by Browne through the TaftHartley and honest services mail fraud violations, as applied to her, constitutes an
98

excessive fine in violation of the Eighth Amendment. 

Forfeitures are subject to the Eighth Amendment’s prohibition against

excessive fines “if they constitute punishment for an offense.” Bajakajian, 524

U.S. at 328, 118 S. Ct. at 2033. Subject forfeitures violate the Excessive Fines

Clause if they are “grossly disproportional to the gravity of the defendant’s

offense.” Id. at 337, 118 S. Ct. at 2038. This, in turn, is determined by examining

three factors: (1) whether the defendant falls into the class of persons at whom the

criminal statute was principally directed; (2) other penalties authorized by the

legislature (or the Sentencing Commission); and (3) the harm caused by the

defendant. Id. at 337–40, 118 S. Ct. at 2038–39.

The forfeiture order in question, which was “imposed at the culmination of a

criminal proceeding and require[d] conviction of an underlying felony,” id. at 328,

118 S. Ct. at 2033, constituted punishment for an offense and was thus a “fine.”

On the first factor, Devaney was precisely the type of defendant toward whom

RICO is principally directed – 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c) targets not just leaders, but

also those who operate or manage the criminal enterprise, while 18 U.S.C. §

1962(d) sweeps more broadly to include all persons who conspire to violate any of

the other subsections. Second, Devaney faced a statutory maximum of 40 years’

imprisonment and $500,000 fine (i.e., 20 years and $250,000 each for Counts 1
99

and 2), and a Guidelines sentence range of 37 to 46 months’ imprisonment and a

fine of $7,500 to $1 million. Thus, the forfeiture here was significantly less than

the maximum fine allowable under the Guidelines, severely undermining

Devaney’s argument that the forfeiture order is grossly out of proportion to the

gravity of her offense. Third, we consider the harm caused by Devaney’s violation

of the RICO conspiracy statute. In enacting the statute, Congress “intended to

provide new weapons of unprecedented scope for an assault upon organized crime

and its economic roots” by providing “enhanced sanctions and new remedies to

deal with the unlawful activities of those engaged in organized crime.” Russello

v. United States, 464 U.S. 16, 26–27, 104 S. Ct. 296, 302, 78 L. Ed. 2d 17 (1983)

(citing Pub. L. No. 91-452, 84 Stat. 922, 923 (1970)) (quotations omitted). That

Congress authorized a maximum fine of $250,000 and 20 years’ imprisonment

each for Counts 1 and 2 further underscores that it viewed such violations as

serious transgressions. We adhere to Congress’s view that Devaney’s violations

of § 1962 constitute a significant harm. Moreover, her fraudulent activities and

participation in an unlawful conspiracy harmed two labor unions and their

members.

Devaney’s reliance on Bajakajian is sorely misplaced. In that case, the

defendant pled guilty to failing to report $356,144 in cash that he was trying to
 The Court also noted that Bajakajian did not fit into the class of persons for whom the 37

reporting statute was principally designed – he was neither a money launderer, nor a drug

trafficker, nor a tax evader. Under the Sentencing Guidelines, the maximum sentence that

Bajakajian could have received was six months’ imprisonment and a fine of $5,000, suggesting a

low level of culpability. Finally, the harm that Bajakajian caused was minimal, as it affected

only the government “in a relatively minor way.” Bajakajian, 524 U.S. at 338–39, 118 S. Ct. at

2038–39.

100

take overseas. In finding that his forfeiture of the entire amount was grossly

disproportionate to the offense, the Court found significant the fact that the

defendant’s “crime was solely a reporting offense,” and “the violation was

unrelated to any other illegal activities.” Bajakajian, 524 U.S. at 337–38, 118 S.

Ct. at 2038. In this case, Devaney and Browne were convicted of conspiracy to 37

abuse their positions in the unions and to misuse union assets for personal gain

and substantive RICO violations. Accordingly, the district court’s forfeiture order

was within constitutional bounds. Devaney has simply failed to demonstrate that

the amount of forfeiture is grossly disproportional to the gravity of her offense.

VII.

For the reasons herein stated, the judgment of the district court is

AFFIRMED.