1 14-2735-cr United States v. Santiago

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECO ND CIRCUIT

SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NO T HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT. CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILE D ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007 IS PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32. 1.1. WHEN CITING A SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WI TH THIS COURT, A PARTY MUST CITE EITHER TH E FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE (WITH THE NOTATION “SUMMARY ORDER”). A PARTY CITING TO A SUMMARY ORDE R MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESEN TED BY COUNSEL.

At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seco nd Circuit, held at 1 the Thurgood Marshall United Stat es Courthouse, 40 Foley Sq uare, in the City of New 2 York, on the 15 th day of May, two thousand fifteen. 3 4 PRESENT: PIERRE N. LEVAL, 5 RAYMOND J. LOHIER, JR., 6 CHRISTOPHER F. DRONEY, 7 Circuit Judges. 8

-------------------------------------- ---------------------------- 9 10 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 11 12 Appellant , 13 14 v. No. 14-2735-cr 15 16 IRENE SANTIAGO, 17 18 Defendant-Appellee .* 19 20

-------------------------------------- ---------------------------- 21 22 FOR APPELLEE: M ICHAEL J. G RUDBERG (Marjorie J. Peerce, on the 23 brief ), Ballard Spahr LLP, New York, NY. 24 25

* The Clerk of Court is directed to amend th e official caption to conform with the above.2 FOR APPELLANT: J ONATHAN P. L AX , Special Assistant United States 1 Attorney (Sarah Coyne, Da vid C. James, Assistant 2 United States Attorneys, on the brief ) for Loretta E. 3 Lynch, United States Attorn ey for the Eastern District 4 of New York, Brooklyn, NY. 5 6 Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the Eastern District 7 of New York (I. Leo Glasser, Judge). 8 UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, 9 AND DECREED that the judgment of the District Court is REVERSED. 10 The Government appeals from a judgment of the District Court granting Irene 11 Santiago’s petition for a writ of error coram nobi s. We assume the parties’ familiarity 12

with the facts and record of the prior proceedings, to which we refer only as necessary to 13 explain our decision to reverse. 14 In 2005 Santiago pleaded gu ilty to conspiracy to obst ruct justice for lying to 15 investigators and perjur ing herself before a grand jury in vestigating an alleged securities 16

fraud scheme. She lied to conceal the sche me, which was operated, in part, by her 17 superiors at work. There seems to be no dispute that Santiago lied “out of a misguided 18 sense of loyalty to” her superiors rather than for personal gain or advantage. Nor is it 19 disputed that she cooperated extensively with the Government . Santiago was sentenced to 20 a fine of $10 and a special assessment of $100. 21 Two of Santiago’s superiors we re convicted of witness ta mpering or conspiracy to 22 commit witness tampering for their roles in su borning Santiago’s perjury. One of these 23 superiors and others were al so convicted of conspiracy to commit securities fraud. 24 Although these securities fraud convictions we re later vacated due to the Government’s 25 failure to disclose Brady material, the witne ss tampering convictions remained intact. See 26 United States v. Mahaffy, 693 F.3d 113 (2 d Cir. 2012). On remand, the Government 27 declined to retry th e securities fraud charges after the defendants entered into deferred 28 prosecution agreements. 293 Santiago petitioned the District Court for a wr it of error coram nobis, arguing that it 1 was unfair for her to have a felony conviction, given the vacatur of the convictions of more 2 culpable defendants. She also argued that the vacatur of th e securities fraud convictions 3 cast doubt on whether her perjury “was related to criminal activ ity.” But she did not argue 4 that she was factually innocen t of the crime to which she pleaded guilty. Nor did she 5 identify any legal error in the proce dures by which she was convicted. 6 In granting Santiago’s petiti on and issuing the writ, the District Court pointed to 7 Santiago’s relatively minimal culpability and the comparatively light punishment of her 8 more culpable superiors. These facts did not justify the issuance of the writ. Relief under 9 coram nobis “is strictly limited to those cases in which errors . . . of the most fundamental 10 character have rendered the [challenged criminal ] proceeding . . . irregular and invalid.” 11 Foont v. United States, 93 F.3d 76, 78 (2 d Cir. 1996) (quotation marks omitted) (first 12 alteration in original). Santia go concedes her guilt, and sh e points to no flaw in the 13 proceedings that led to her conviction. Th ere was neither error nor unfairness in her 14 conviction, much less the kind of “extraordi nary” circumstance, United States v. Denedo, 15 556 U.S. 904, 911 (20 09), or “fundamental” error, Foont, 93 F.3d at 78, that might justify 16

the issuance of the writ. We therefore are compelled to reverse the District Court’s 17

issuance of the writ. 18 We have considered all of Santiago’s re maining arguments and conclude that they 19 are without merit. For the foregoing reason s, the judgment of the District Court is 20

REVERSED. 21

FOR THE COURT: 22

Catherine O = Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court 23