2012 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

11-21-2012

USA v. Amifa;Knight

Precedential or Non-Precedential: Precedential

Docket No. 11-2037

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 PRECEDENTIAL 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT

No. 11-2037

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

AMIFA S. KNIGHT,

 Appellant

On Appeal from the District Court of the Virgin Islands

(Division of St. Croix)

(D. C. No. 1-09-cr-00005-001)

District Judge: Honorable Raymond L. Finch 

Argued on December 6, 2011

Before: FISHER, GREENAWAY,JR. and ROTH, Circuit 

Judges

(Opinion filed: November 21, 2012) 

Natalie Nelson Tang How, Esquire (Argued)

27 & 28 King Cross Street
2

Phoenix Court Business Complex

Christiansted, St. Croix, VI 00820

Counsel of Appellant

Alphonso G. Andrews, Jr., Esquire (Argued)

Office of the Unites States Attorney

1108 King Street, Suite 201

Christiansted, St. Croix, VI 00820

Counsel for Appellee

O P I N I O N

ROTH, Circuit Judge:

Amifa Knight appeals the judgments of conviction and 

sentence on charges of perjury arising out of statements she 

made at a suppression hearing in the District Court of the 

Virgin Islands. She seeks review of the District Court’s 

ruling on an evidentiary issue, its denial of her motion for 

acquittal, and its application of the United States Sentencing 

Guidelines. We find no error in the District Court’s 

determinations on these issues, and we will therefore affirm.

I. BACKGROUND
3

On May 12, 2008, Amon Thomas and Shadrock Frett 

engaged in a violent gun fight at Frett’s apartment in St. 

Croix, United States Virgin Islands. Both men sustained 

gunshot wounds which resulted in their hospitalization at 

Juan Luis Hospital in St. Croix. Thomas, less severely 

injured than Frett, was discharged on May 16, 2008. Five 

days later, on May 21, 2008, at approximately 3:50 a.m., six 

masked gunmen entered the hospital, located Frett, and shot 

him to death.

A police investigation revealed that the gunmen 

entered the hospital through an employee entrance with the 

benefit of an employee “swipe card,” proceeded directly to 

Frett’s room, committed the murder, and left in under three 

minutes. Based on these circumstances, investigators 

suspected that a hospital employee may have been involved in 

the crime in some capacity. They examined the hospital’s 

electronic patient records system, which showed that Knight, 

an admissions clerk, had accessed Frett’s records at 7:24 p.m. 

on May 20, 2008, just hours before he was killed. 

Investigators subsequently obtained Knight’s cell phone 

records, which indicated that she had telephone conversations 

with Thomas’s brother, Halik Milligan, at 7 p.m. and 7:30 

p.m. that same evening.

On January 26, 2009, Thomas Drummond, a special 

agent from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, and Dino 

Herbert, an officer of the Virgin Islands Police Department,

jointly interviewed Knight about the hospital shooting. 

During her questioning, Knight stated to the investigators that 

she had no prior knowledge that someone would enter the 

hospital and kill Frett. She claimed that she did not know 

Frett’s room number on May 20, 2008, and that she did not 
4

remember accessing the hospital’s records system to ascertain 

it that night. She admitted that Milligan was her boyfriend 

but denied that she had any phone conversations with him on

May 20th. She further stated that she never disclosed Frett’s

room number to anyone.

The following day, January 27, 2009, Herbert and 

Drummond obtained a warrant and arrested Knight for 

making false statements to a federal agent on the basis of this 

interview. They again questioned her, but this time 

confronted her with her cell phone records, showing that she 

had been in contact with Milligan on the night of Frett’s 

murder, and with a printout from the hospital’s records

system, indicating that she had looked up his room number 

that night. Faced with this evidence, Knight admitted that, 

prior to May 20, 2008, Milligan had asked her whether she 

could obtain Frett’s room number and that she informed him 

that she could. She stated that at 7 p.m. on May 20th, 

Milligan called her and specifically asked her for Frett’s room 

number. Knight admitted that she then accessed the 

hospital’s records system to determine Frett’s location, and 

that at 7:30 p.m., she called Milligan to inform him that she 

had this information. According to Knight, Milligan came to 

the hospital approximately one hour later, at which point she 

gave him Frett’s room number. She admitted that she had 

been aware of a plan to kill Frett prior to the time that it was 

carried out.

On February 19, 2009, Knight was indicted on six 

counts of making false statements to a federal officer, in 
5

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2).1 She moved to suppress 

the statements she had made following her arrest on January 

27th, arguing that they were coerced and that she had not 

been properly advised of her Miranda rights. A hearing was 

held on Knight’s suppression motion on April 16, 2009, at 

which she testified about her January 27th interrogation. She 

also made a number of statements concerning events at the 

hospital on the night of Frett’s murder. First, she stated that 

she had accessed Frett’s electronic hospital records three or 

four times on the evening of May 20, 2008. Second, she

claimed that she did so in order to determine his room number 

so that she could provide it to friends and family of Frett’s 

who wanted to visit him and whose telephone calls had been 

transferred to her by the hospital’s telephone operator. Third, 

she claimed that Milligan was a friend of Frett’s and wanted 

to visit him at the hospital.

On August 13, 2009, the Government issued a 

superseding indictment in Knight’s case, charging that each 

of these three statements constituted perjury, in violation of 

18 U.S.C. § 1621(1). A charge of conspiring in Frett’s 

 

1 Knight was specifically charged with falsely stating 

to Special Agent Drummond that (1) she did not know on 

May 20, 2008, that anyone was planning to enter the hospital 

to kill Frett; (2) on May 20, 2008, she did not know Frett’s 

hospital room number; (3) she did not on May 20, 2008, make 

calls to or receive calls from two telephone numbers assigned 

to Milligan; (4) she did not speak with Milligan on May 20, 

2008; (5) she did not recall whether she searched the 

hospital’s records system on May 20, 2008, to ascertain 

Frett’s room number; and (6) she had not disclosed Frett’s 

room number to anyone.
6

murder, in violation of 14 V.I.C. §§ 551(1) and 922(a) (1),

was also added. Knight was ultimately acquitted on the six 

original charges of making false statements to a federal agent 

and on the conspiracy charge. She was convicted, however,

on the three perjury charges and sentenced to 36 months 

imprisonment.

2

 Knight now appeals, arguing that the District 

Court erred in (1) admitting irrelevant and unfairly prejudicial 

evidence pertaining to the May 12th shooting at Frett’s 

apartment and the May 21st shooting at the hospital, (2)

denying her motion for acquittal as untimely, and (3) 

sentencing her pursuant to a provision of the United States 

Sentencing Guidelines that is applicable only to perjury that is 

in respect to a criminal offense.

II. DISCUSSION

The District Court had jurisdiction under 48 U.S.C. § 

1612, and we have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291. We 

will review the District Court’s decision regarding the 

admissibility of evidence for abuse of discretion. United 

States v. Serafini, 233 F.3d 758, 768 n.14 (3d Cir. 2000). Our 

review of the dismissal of Knight’s motion for acquittal as 

untimely, however, is plenary. United States v. Mike, 655 

F.3d 167, 174 (3d Cir. 2001). Finally, with respect to the 

District Court’s factual finding in applying the United States 

Sentencing Guidelines, our inquiry is whether it was clearly 

 

2 Knight was also charged with one additional count of 

perjury, which related to her testimony at the suppression 

hearing that she never expressed to anyone that she had prior 

knowledge of a plan to kill Frett at the hospital. She was 

found not guilty on this charge.
7

erroneous. See United States v. Ali, 508 F.3d 136, 143 (3d 

Cir. 2007).

A. Admission of Evidence Related to the May 12th & 

May 21st Shootings

Prior to trial, Knight moved in limine to exclude 

evidence regarding both the gun battle between Frett and 

Thomas on May 12, 2008, and the subsequent killing of Frett 

on May 21, 2008, at the hospital. The motion was denied, 

and the jury heard evidence of both of these events. Knight 

contends on appeal that this evidence was irrelevant to the 

perjury charges and therefore should have been excluded 

under Rule 401 of the Federal Rules of Evidence. She further 

argues that even assuming its relevancy, the evidence was 

unfairly prejudicial and thus should have been excluded on 

the basis of Rule 403.

We conclude, however, that the evidence was not 

irrelevant to the perjury charges because it put into context 

why Knight was accessing Frett’s hospital records and the 

nature of her relationship with Milligan and through him with 

Thomas. This inclusion of evidence of both shootings helped 

to explain why Knight committed perjury by lying about her 

access to the electronic hospital records and the reasons for 

that access.

Moreover, Knight’s argument overlooks the fact that 

she was concurrently on trial for conspiracy to murder Frett. 

In order to establish her guilt on this charge, the government 

had to prove that she and at least one other person (1) 

intentionally entered into an agreement (2) with the purpose 

of killing Frett (3) with malice aforethought. See 14 V.I.C. §§ 
8

551(1), 922(a)(1); see also United States v. Reyeros, 537 F.3d 

270, 277 to78 (3d Cir. 2008) (setting forth elements of 

conspiracy). The government sought to meet this burden by 

showing that Knight participated in a plot to kill Frett by 

obtaining his hospital room number and disclosing it to 

Milligan so that Frett’s assailants could locate him and 

complete their mission. Any evidence that has a tendency to 

make this account more probable than it otherwise would be

is relevant. See Fed. R. Evid. 401. Evidence related to the 

May 12th shooting at Frett’s apartment is also relevant

because it suggests a motive for the conspiracy to kill Frett

and provides a link between that conspiracy and Knight. 

Finally, we reject Knight’s contention that evidence of 

these shootings should have been excluded on account of 

unfair prejudice. “Unfair prejudice means an undue tendency 

to suggest decision on an improper basis, commonly, though 

not necessarily, an emotional one.” Fed. R. Evid. 403 

(advisory committee’s note). Relevant evidence may be 

excluded for this reason only if its “probative value is 

substantially outweighed by a danger of unfair prejudice.” 

Fed. R. Evid. 403 (emphasis added). In determining whether 

evidence must be excluded as unfairly prejudicial, we owe 

“considerable deference” to the judgment of the District 

Court, United States v. Guerrero, 803 F.2d 783, 785 (3d Cir. 

1986), and we will not disturb its ruling unless it was 

“arbitrary or irrational.” United States v. Universal Rehab. 

Servs. (PA), Inc., 205 F.3d 657, 665 (3d Cir. 2000) (en banc). 

As we have outlined, evidence of both shootings was relevant 

to all the charges against Knight in significant ways. Knight 

contends, however, that this relevance is trumped by the risk 

that the evidence might have led the jury to convict her in 

order to punish someone for the shootings rather than because 
9

of a conclusion that she was guilty of perjury. We find no 

merit in this argument. With respect to the May 12th

shooting at Frett’s apartment, Knight makes no claim that the 

Government alleged or even implied that she had any 

involvement, and we therefore see no risk that the jury would 

have sought to punish her for that incident. Regarding the 

May 21st hospital shooting, evidence of that shooting is 

critical to explain the perjury. Moreover, to the extent that 

the jury was motivated to convict Knight in order to punish 

someone for that shooting, it could have found her guilty on 

the conspiracy charge. We see no logic in Knight’s argument 

that the jury would acquit her on the conspiracy charge but 

punish her for the underlying events by convicting her of 

perjury.

We conclude that evidence pertaining to the May 12th

and May 21st shootings was relevant and not unfairly 

prejudicial. Its admission at trial was therefore appropriate.

B. Denial of Knight’s Motion for Acquittal

Knight also claims that the District Court erred in 

denying her motion for acquittal, which she sought after the

jury returned its verdict. The District Court denied that 

motion on the grounds that it was untimely. A motion for a 

judgment of acquittal sought after a jury verdict must be filed 

within 14 days after the verdict or after the court discharges 

the jury, whichever is later. Fed. R. Crim. P. 29(c)(1). This 

time limit may be extended for good cause before its 

expiration, or even afterwards if the defendant’s failure to act 

was due to excusable neglect. Fed R. Crim. P. 45(b)(1). A 

district court has no jurisdiction, however, to consider a
10

motion for acquittal that is untimely. United States v. 

Gaydos, 108 F.3d 505, 512 (3d Cir. 1997).

The jury returned its verdict in Knight’s case on 

December 22, 2009, meaning that her motion for acquittal 

initially needed to be filed by January 5, 2010. On December 

29, 2009, she filed a motion for an extension of the time to 

file it. The District Court granted this request and gave her 

until 30 days after receipt of the trial transcript to make her 

filing. The transcript was available on March 16, 2010, 

rendering Knight’s motion due by April 15, 2010. She did 

not submit it until July 9, 2010, 85 days beyond the due date. 

She also failed to make any showing of excusable neglect. 

Knight’s motion was accordingly untimely, and the District 

Court was without jurisdiction to consider it. We conclude 

therefore that the denial of her motion was appropriate.

C. Application of § 2J1.3(c) of the United States 

Sentencing Guidelines

Sentences for perjury convictions such as Knight’s are

governed by § 2J1.3 of the United States Sentencing 

Guidelines. In the ordinary case, that provision dictates a 

base offense level of 14 and a corresponding sentence range 

of 15 to 21 months imprisonment. U.S.S.G. § 2J1.3(a). 

Where perjury is “in respect to a criminal offense,” however, 

it instructs that the defendant be sentenced pursuant to § 

2X3.1 as if she were an “Accessory After the Fact” to that 

criminal offense. Id. at § 2J1.3(c). The District Court applied 

this cross-reference to Knight in light of its finding that her 

perjurious statements were in respect to the crime of first 

degree murder, and as a result determined that the Guidelines 
11

range was 60 months.3 Knight contends that her perjury was 

not in respect to the offense of first degree murder and that 

her sentence must therefore be vacated.

Other courts have found that “[p]erjury is in respect to 

a criminal offense where the defendant knew or had reason to 

know, at the time of [her] perjury, that [her] testimony 

concerned such a criminal offense.” United States v. LeonReyes, 177 F.3d 816, 824 (9th Cir. 1999) (citation and 

internal quotation marks omitted); see also United States v. 

Flemmi, 402 F.3d 79, 96 n.28 (1st Cir. 2005); United States v. 

Blanton, 281 F.3d 771, 776 (8th Cir. 2002); United States v. 

Leifson, 568 F.3d 1215, 1220 (10th Cir. 2009). We agree 

with this interpretation of § 2J1.3(c) of the Sentencing 

Guidelines and adopt it here. Applying this standard, we find 

that Knight’s perjury was in respect to Frett’s murder. Her 

perjury convictions related to her testimony that (1) she 

accessed Frett’s hospital records three or four times on the 

evening of May 20, 2008;4(2) she did so in order to be able to 

 

3

The Guidelines dictate that the base offense level for 

an accessory after the fact be “6 levels lower than the offense 

level for the underlying offense” but “not more than level 

30.” U.S.S.G. § 2X3.1(a). The base offense level for the 

underlying offense here, first degree murder, is 43, id. at § 

2A1.1(a), and 6 levels less would be 37, so the maximum 

offense level of 30 and its corresponding sentence range of 97 

to121 months would be triggered. However, because the 

crime of perjury has a statutory maximum sentence of 60 

months, 18 U.S.C. § 1621, that limit applies here.

4

The Government’s theory was that Knight falsely 

claimed to have accessed Frett’s records three or four times, 
12

provide his room number to friends and family who were 

making telephone calls to the hospital because they wanted to 

visit him; and (3) that Milligan was a friend of Frett’s and 

called on May 20, 2008, because he wanted to visit Frett in 

the hospital. She gave this testimony at a suppression hearing 

in criminal proceedings concerning charges that she had made 

false statements to federal agents specifically investigating 

Frett’s murder. All of the testimony, moreover, was given in 

response to questions which pertained to events at the hospital 

on the very night that Frett was killed and which were clearly 

being asked to establish facts surrounding that crime. Finally, 

based on her initial interview by investigators on January 

26th, her post-arrest interrogation on January 27th, and the

details of the charges of making false statements to a federal 

agent on which she had already been indicted, Knight was 

aware of the government’s theory that Frett’s murder had 

been facilitated by her obtaining his room location from the 

hospital’s records system and disclosing it to Milligan. For 

these reasons, we conclude that Knight knew or had reason to 

know that the testimony underlying her perjury convictions 

concerned Frett’s murder. Accordingly, the District Court did 

not commit clear error in finding that the perjury was in 

relation to that criminal offense.

 

rather than just once, in order to corroborate her claim that 

she had done so in response to multiple inquiries from his 

friends and family members and to mask the conspicuousness 

of her single instance of access in the short interval between 

two phone calls with Milligan.
13

III. CONCLUSION

For the reasons stated above, we will affirm the 

District Court’s judgments of conviction and sentence.