Source: http://ny.findacase.com/research/wfrmDocViewer.aspx/xq/fac.19690324_0040328.C02.htm/qx
Timestamp: 2017-01-17 11:13:01
Document Index: 569859912

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 371', '§ 1084', '§ 1952', '§ 605', '§ 605', '§ 605', '§ 1732', '§ 605', '§ 3500', '§ 3500', '§ 3500', '§ 3500', '§ 3500', '§ 3500', '§ 3500', '§ 3500', '§ 3500']

| United States v. Covello
United States v. Covello
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, APPELLEE,v.JOSEPH COVELLO, APPELLANT
Joseph Covello having been found guilty after a jury trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York appeals from the judgment of conviction entered upon the verdict. He was indicted on nineteen counts,*fn1 was found guilty on counts 1 through 6, on count 17 and on count 19, and was acquitted by the jurors on each of the remaining eleven counts. We affirm the judgment of conviction.
Count 1 charged appellant Covello and codefendants Thomas Molinaro, Armando Restaino and Anthony Nappi with a conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371*fn2 to violate federal interstate gambling statutes, 18 U.S.C. § 1084*fn3 and 18 U.S.C. § 1952.*fn4
Covello was sentenced to concurrent sentences of three years imprisonment on count 1, two years imprisonment on each of counts 2 through 6, and three years imprisonment on each of counts 17 and 19.*fn5
Merrill Garfinkel, the key government witness, testified that during the baseball season of 1961 and throughout the football, basketball, and baseball seasons of 1961 up to June 19, 1963, he furnished Covello for an agreed biweekly compensation of $200 a "betting line" by telephoning the "line" to a number in New Jersey. In addition, Merrill testified he would wager with Covello for himself and others over the telephone by using the same number. The calls, he said, were usually placed from a New York City phone booth but were made occasionally from his home at 944 Park Avenue. Merrill did not recall the number which he called in New Jersey during the 1961 baseball season, but he did remember the numbers OR 6-1730, HU 4-4190, and HU 4-9011 as the ones by which he reached Covello during the 1962-1963 sporting seasons. He had no reccollection of the specific contents of any of these calls.
At the trial the Garfinkels were unable to recall the specific times and dates of their alleged phone calls to the defendant. Instead, the Government submitted in evidence the New York Telephone Company's records of toll calls, or "toll slips," made from the Garfinkels' home number to the aforementioned New Jersey numbers. The slips showed the number from which the call was placed, the number and city to which the call was placed, the fact that the call was completed, the date and time of the call and the length of the conversation. Appellant's objection to the admissibility of the "toll slips" as evidence obtained in violation of § 605 of the Federal Communications Act of 1934, 47 U.S.C. § 605 (1964), as amended, Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, P.L. 90-351 (June 19, 1968), was denied.
No person receiving or assisting in receiving, or transmitting, or assisting in transmitting, any interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio shall divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning thereof, except through authorized channels of transmission or reception, to any person other than the addressee, his agent, or attorney, or to a person employed or authorized to forward such communication to its destination, or to proper accounting or distributing officers of the various communicating centers over which the communication may be passed, or to the master of a ship under whom he is serving, or in response to a subpoena issued by a court of competent jurisdiction, or on demand of other lawful authority; and no person not being authorized by the sender shall intercept any communication and divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of such intercepted communication to any person; and no person not being entitled thereto shall receive or assist in receiving any interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio and use the same or any information therein contained for his own benefit or for the benefit of another not entitled thereto; and no person having received such intercepted communication or having become acquainted with the contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of the same or any part thereof, knowing that such information was so obtained, shall divulge or publish the existence, contents, substance, purport, effect, or meaning of the same or any part thereof, or use the same or any information therein contained for his own benefit or for the benefit of another not entitled thereto: Provided, That this section shall not apply to the receiving, divulging, publishing, or utilizing the contents of any radio communication broadcast, or transmitted by amateurs or others for use of the general public, or relating to ships in distress.*fn6
The statute addresses itself to two distinct classes of persons. See Bubis v. United States, 384 F.2d 643, 646 (9 Cir. 1967); United States v. Russo, 250 F. Supp. 55 (E.D.Pa. 1966). In the first category are persons who have to do with the "receiving or assisting in receiving, or transmitting, or assisting in transmitting, any interstate or foreign communication by wire or radio." The second category encompasses all other persons not within the first class. Arguably, the accounting employees of the New York Telephone Company who furnished the FBI the toll slips in the case at bar, having nothing to do with sending, receiving, or forwarding communications, are not within the ambit of persons proscribed by Clause 1 of § 605, see Hanna v. United States, 393 F.2d 700, 705 (5 Cir. 1968) (rev'd on rehearing, 404 F.2d 405) (5 Cir. 1968); Bubis v. United States, supra at 646, and we need go no further unless we find an interception as required by Clause 2. For purposes of this case, however, and this case only, we assume, as appellant apparently wishes us to hold, that treatment of the entire telephone company as one person is the sounder construction of the statute. See Hanna v. United States, 404 F.2d 405 (5 Cir. 1968); United States v. Russo, supra.
We agree with defendant that Section 605 was not intended to apply only to the substance of communications, United States v. Dote, 371 F.2d 176, 180 (7 Cir. 1966), affirming United States v. Guglielmo, 245 F. Supp. 534 (N.D.Ill.1965), and see United States v. Caplan, 255 F. Supp. 805, 808 (E.D.Mich.1966), but we are not here involved with the manipulative use of a pen register,*fn7 as in Dote or Caplan, or with some other investigatory device.*fn8 Rather, the keeping of toll records is a necessary part of the ordinary course of the telephone company's business and is necessary in order that the company may substantiate its charges to its customers. Toll records are kept for all telephone subscribers and are not kept just for subscribers being investigated by officers of the law, or ones suspected of criminal proclivities. The subscriber is fully aware that such records will be made, United States v. Gallo, 123 F.2d 229, 231 (2 Cir. 1941), and the records of the telephone company so kept in the ordinary course of the company's business are entitled to the same evidentiary treatment as the records of other businesses. See Federal Business Records Act, 28 U.S.C. § 1732 (1964). Section 605 was not designed to render evidentially inadmissible the records made in the ordinary course of the telephone company's business and which are essential to the ordinary operation of that business.
Our disposition of this issue obviates the need for us to consider whether the demand of an FBI agent to obtain the records constitutes "other lawful authority" under § 605, or, if a divulgence to a government investigator had been voluntarily made, whether the issuance of a subpoena for the records so as to have them produced at a trial cure any original illegal divulgence, or whether a defendant charged with federal crime has standing to challenge the receipt into evidence against him at his trial of telephone company toll records showing that his number had been called.
Appellant urges that the rights secured to him by the so-called Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500 (1964), were violated on several grounds. First, he claims that following the direct testimony of an FBI agent at the pretrial hearing on appellant's motion to suppress evidence obtained through an alleged illegal eavesdrop, discussed infra, he was entitled to inspect the agent's reports relating to the agent's testimony, and this inspection was denied him. We approve the ruling below. The Act was enacted by Congress in order to qualify the loose interpretations the lower federal courts*fn9 had accorded the Supreme Court decision in Jencks v. United States, 353 U.S. 657, 77 S. Ct. 1007, 1 L. Ed. 2d 1103 (1957), and to provide an exclusive*fn10 procedure for handling demands by a defendant for the production of statements, reports, and similar material that government witnesses had given to law enforcement agencies prior to the defendant's trial. S.Rep. No. 981, 85th Cong., 1st Sess. (1957), 1957 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin. News, pp. 1861. The specific purposes of the bill were not to make such material available to the defense until "after the Government witness has testified against the defendant on direct examination in open court, and to prevent disclosure before such witness has testified." Id. at 1863. Suppression hearings are nowhere alluded to in the legislative history and the statute does not supply any direct guidance for conduct at such hearings.*fn11 In all probability Congress did not consider the question whether a suppression hearing is itself a "trial" or whether such a hearing is so much an integral part of the criminal trial that determines a defendant's innocence or guilt so as to intend either that the Act apply to such a hearing or that it not do so. In any event, the courts have consistently construed the statute literally, reading "trial" to mean "trial," and have held that under 18 U.S.C. § 3500 the pre-witness-stand statements of persons testifying at suppression hearings are not comprehended within the statements the defense is entitled to examine at suppression hearings. See United States v. Giuliano, 348 F.2d 217 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 382 U.S. 946, 86 S. Ct. 406, 15 L. Ed. 2d 354 (1965); United States v. Wallace, 272 F. Supp. 838 (SDNY 1967); United States v. Cobb, 271 F. Supp. 159, 164 (SDNY 1967); United States v. Leighton, 265 F. Supp. 27, 35 (SDNY), affirmed, 386 F.2d 822 (2 Cir. 1967), cert. denied, 390 U.S. 1025, 88 S. Ct. 1412, 20 L. Ed. 2d 282 (1968); United States v. Tane, 29 F.R.D. 131, 133 (EDNY 1962); United States v. Abrams, 29 F.R.D. 178, 183 (SDNY 1961); United States v. Rosenberg, 157 F. Supp. 654, 661 (E.D.Pa.), affirmed, 257 F.2d 760 (3 Cir. 1958), affirmed, 360 U.S. 367, 79 S. Ct. 1231, 3 L. Ed. 2d 1304 (1959). Our decision in United States v. Foley, 283 F.2d 582 (2 Cir. 1960), relied upon by appellant, is not to the contrary. In Foley the Government sought by mandamus to have us instruct the district judge to vacate his order providing for a suppression hearing and providing for the production of documents at that hearing. We denied the petition but we read our denial as holding no more than that we left it to the discretion of the trial judge whether to order a production of documents; we do not read it to hold as a matter of law that the Jencks Act compelled disclosure to defense counsel of the pre-hearing statements of a witness who testifies at a suppression hearing.
Appellant next claims that the good faith destruction of handwritten interview notes deprived him of his rights at trial under the Jencks Act. At the close of the direct examination of each of the Government's main witnesses defendant requested and received FBI reports regarding FBI interviews with each of the witnesses. Defendant claims, however, that under 18 U.S.C. § 3500 he was also entitled to the original handwritten interview notes of the FBI agents from which the reports were made. At a voir dire examination the agents testified that, pursuant to the practice they customarily follow, they destroyed their notes in good faith after incorporating them into typewritten reports. Under the circumstances, we find no violation of § 3500. The case law amply supports our ruling. Absent an indication that the notes were destroyed for an improper purpose or that the handwritten data was not preserved in the formal reports the reports satisfy the requirements of § 3500. United States v. Williams, 384 F.2d 488, 493 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 836, 87 S. Ct. 84, 17 L. Ed. 2d 71 (1966); United States v. Jones, 360 F.2d 92, 95 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 1012, 87 S. Ct. 721, 17 L. Ed. 2d 549 (1966); United States v. Comulada, 340 F.2d 449, 451 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 380 U.S. 978, 85 S. Ct. 1343, 14 L. Ed. 2d 272 (1965); United States v. Aviles, 337 F.2d 552, 559 (2 Cir. 1964); United States v. Greco, 298 F.2d 247, 250 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 369 U.S. 820, 82 S. Ct. 831, 7 L. Ed. 2d 785 (1962); United States v. Thomas, 282 F.2d 191, 194 (2 Cir. 1960); United States v. Baker, 358 F.2d 18 (7 Cir.), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 869, 87 S. Ct. 135, 17 L. Ed. 2d 96 (1966); Ogden v. United States, 323 F.2d 818 (9 Cir. 1963), cert. denied, 376 U.S. 973, 84 S. Ct. 1137, 12 L. Ed. 2d 86 (1964).*fn11a
Appellant, however, argues that § 3500 does not contain any "good faith exception," citing Lee v. United States, 125 U.S.App.D.C. 126, 368 F.2d 834, 837-838 (1966) and United States v. Lonardo, 350 F.2d 523, 529 (6 Cir. 1965). Both cases are distinguishable. In Lee the court's statement that "the Jencks Act does not embody in terms any 'good faith' exception," 368 F.2d at 837, must be read in conjunction with the court's explicit statement distinguishing Lee from cases like the one here where the destroyed notes were "incorporated into documents which were produced for the defense." Id. at 838, n. 7.*fn12 And in Lonardo the court's holding that the failure to produce interview notes was a violation of § 3500 was carefully restricted to apply when the notes are deliberately destroyed by an FBI agent on the eve of trial and substantial differences between the content of the notes and that of the formal interview report are evident.
We have examined the sealed statements and we hold that the trial court did not commit error. In essence the withheld materials related to the Garfinkels' knowledge of the gambling activities of persons other than the defendants. While the information contained in these materials may have been employed by defense counsel to show that the Garfinkels, whose "betting line" activities they had themselves testified to, were engaged in the business of book-making, it is clear that the information the trial judge withheld was not sufficiently relative to the subject matters the witnesses had testified about to fall within limits of demandable material Congress had carefully delineated in 18 U.S.C. § 3500; and if the defense demand had been complied with the judge would have exceeded the statutory proscription embodied within 18 U.S.C. § 3500(b). See note 11, supra.
The Government's four main witnesses, Merrill and Howard Garfinkel, Seid, and Conour, did not testify before the grand jury that returned the original indictment or the grand jury that returned the superseding indictment. Though these witnesses were available to be called the only evidence presented to either grand jury was hearsay testimony by FBI agents who related statements made to officers by Merrill Garfinkel and Conour. This was discovered by the defense at trial and appellant, attacking the validity of the indictment, moved in arrest of judgment. This motion was denied. We affirm. In Costello v. United States, 350 U.S. 359, 76 S. Ct. 406, 100 L. Ed. 397 (1956) the Supreme Court held that an indictment based exclusively on hearsay need not be dismissed. See also Pittsburgh Plate Glass Co. v. United States, 360 U.S. 395, 400, 79 S. Ct. 1237, 3 L. Ed. 2d 1323 (1958).
Though we have recently voiced our disapproval of indictments grounded totally on hearsay where the witnesses whose information was related to the grand jury by others were available to testify in person, we have never quashed an indictment for this reason. United States v. Umans, 368 F.2d 725, 730 (2 Cir. 1966), cert. dismissed as improvidently granted, 389 U.S. 80, 88 S. Ct. 253, 19 L. Ed. 2d 255 (1967); see United States v. Beltram, 388 F.2d 449, 451 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, sub nom. Colon v. United States, 391 U.S. 955, 88 S. Ct. 1860, 20 L. Ed. 2d 869 (1968); United States v. Andrews, 381 F.2d 377 (2 Cir. 1967), cert. denied, 390 U.S. 960, 88 S. Ct. 1058, 19 L. Ed. 2d 1156 (1968); cf. United States v. Payton, 363 F.2d 996, 998-999 (2 Cir.), cert. denied, 385 U.S. 993, 87 S. Ct. 606, 17 L. Ed. 2d 453 (1966).
The court below, after holding an evidentiary hearing at which four government agents testified, denied the motion to suppress, and found that no evidence in the case at bar was derived as a result of the eavesdropping in the Borgese case. The trial judge found that "the FBI developed this case independently and without knowledge or use of any evidence obtained by the Internal Revenue Service in the Borgese case * * * including the fact that Borgese used or called ORange 6-1730 or any other evidence," and therefore he saw no need to determine the validity of the eavesdropping, if any there were, involving activities and communications of either Borgese or the present appellant, Covello.*fn13
As far as we can tell, the Government has never admitted, and the defense has never shown, that there ever had been any electronic "bugging" of the appellant's conversations. Absent a revelation of monitoring activity, Covello's reliance on Black v. United States, 385 U.S. 26, 87 S. Ct. 190, 17 L. Ed. 2d 26 (1966), vacating and remanding 122 U.S.App.D.C. 347, 353 F.2d 885 (1965), in which certiorari was initially denied, 384 U.S. 927, 86 S. Ct. 1444, 16 L. Ed. 2d 530 but granted upon rehearing, 384 U.S. 983, 86 S. Ct. 1884, 16 L. Ed. 2d 1002 (1966), and O'Brien v. United States, 386 U.S. 345, 87 S. Ct. 1158, 18 L. Ed. 2d 94 (1967), which he offers to support his claim that he is entitled to a new trial is misplaced. In both of these cases the Supreme Court vacated judgments of conviction only after the Solicitor General voluntarily advised the Court that conversations in which the defendants participated were overheard and intercepted through use of concealed monitorial devices.
Appellant further requests that the Government state whether there has been any electronic eavesdropping or wiretapping upon him by any government agency. He also requests that, if necessary to obtain a compliance, the Government be judicially directed to divulge this information. The trial court ruled that whether action was to be taken upon this request was a matter for the Government, in its discretion, to decide, and not a subject for a court order. While it seemed to us unlikely that a defendant, on whom the burden of proof lies at a suppression hearing, might reasonably be able to uncover the existence of an electronic or wiretap surveillance other than by asking his adversary to tell him of it,*fn14 for the purposes of this case we have not undertaken the task of evaluating the merits of the ruling below. Instead, we have endeavored to elicit, from the Department of Justice, a response to appellant's question. The Department courteously cooperated and the essential parts of our correspondence are set forth below.
"The panel of Judges Waterman, Feinberg and Bartels have discussed the above case, and, in view of the proceedings in U.S. v. Schipani and U.S. v. Borgese with which you are so familiar, and in view of statements recently made by the Attorney General of the United States, we three judges, through me as the panel scrivener, desire to know whether the United States has conducted a Schipani-type review to ascertain whether there may have been monitoring that might have affected the trial.
"Such a review has been conducted with respect to the above-captioned case of Joseph Covello. The Department of Justice has no information indicating that conversations of Joseph Covello were at any time overheard by unlawful electronic surveillance."
Thereafter, defense counsel, interpreting the above reply, suggested that the review undertaken by the Department of Justice was insufficient and that an adversary hearing in the district court to determine whether there had been electronic surveillance was still necessary. He advanced four grounds in support of his position, none of which appear to us to have merit for we fail to perceive how an additional hearing would further illumine the problem.
Appellant first objects to the United States Attorney's February 27 letter on the ground that the question of the "lawfulness" of any electronic eavesdropping is not properly a matter for ex parte determination by the Justice Department. This objection is adequately disposed of by a subsequent communication from the United States Attorney's office. In this later correspondence, in reply to a letter of defense counsel inquiring whether the Schipani-type review the Department had conducted included an examination of the recordings and records of the monitoring that was done in the case of United States v. DeCavalcante, Criminal No. 111-68 (D.N.J. April 16, 1968), the Government flatly and unequivocally stated that "Mr. Joseph Covello * * * had not been a subject of direct microphone surveillance nor were any of his conversations monitored by any electronic device."*fn15 In DeCavalcante the prosecution conceded that premises which the defense now asserts Covello frequented on numerous occasions had been under microphone surveillance. The recent Supreme Court pronouncement in Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 89 S. Ct. 961, 22 L. Ed. 2d 176 (March 10, 1969) denying a defendant standing to suppress evidence derived from the electronic surveillance of other persons, including the defendant's codefendants and co-conspirators, eliminates a second claim that Covello is entitled to have the Government disclose that very information. See note 13, supra.
As for the last two grounds urged to demonstrate that the Schipani-type review has been insufficient, we agree with appellant that, despite all the correspondence that has transpired in this case while it has been sub judice, there remains the possibility that a federal agency other than the FBI, such as the IRS, or state or local authorities, may have engaged in eavesdropping activities affecting Covello's privacy, and that such possibilities have not been fully foreclosed. But we feel assured that if any monitoring of defendant has taken place by any agency other than the U.S. Department of Justice, the monitoring was not known to the prosecution when Covello stood trial and that no information was obtained from any electronic surveillance of anyone's activities that was of value to the Government in connection with the case against Covello to taint the evidence the Government introduced at his trial.
Covello additionally submits that he should be granted another adversary hearing on his motion to suppress in order to cross-examine the FBI agents who monitored the electronic surveillance involved in the DeCavalcante case, discussed supra, and thereby to verify the assertions made by the FBI to the United States Attorney's office. See note 15 supra. Furthermore, for purposes of such hearing, relying upon Baker v. United States, 131 U.S.App.D.C. 7, 401 F.2d 958 (1968), appellant contends "that the logs kept by the agents who conducted the monitoring (and the recordings made if they are still in existence), insofar as these contain voices not identified by the agents, should be produced for inspection by appellant and his counsel to see if they can identify the conversation as one in which the appellant participated or which relates to the subject matter of the indictment."*fn16
Appellant argues that inasmuch as the prosecution in the DeCavalcante case has admitted the installation of microphonic devices at two specific New Jersey locations his case should be remanded to the district court for a hearing on the eavesdropping issue. He points out that he lives in New Jersey and that on numerous occasions during the time of the electronic surveillance directed at DeCavalcante he was present at the "bugged" premises. The Government assures us that the Schipani-type review conducted at our request included a review of the eavesdropping directed against DeCavalcante, and we refuse to subscribe to the need for a hearing; otherwise we would enable any defendant each time an eavesdropping of a location is disclosed subsequent to his trial to assert he was present at that location sometime during the "bugging" and thereby be entitled to a suppression hearing.
Nor are we persuaded that the holding in Baker v. United States, supra, aids the appellant in his quest for a hearing. Prior to the hearing in Baker the Government had made available to the defense all logs of conversations in which appellant Baker had been identified by the monitors as a participant or as having been present but did not make available any logs of conversations involving only unidentified persons. The Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit reversed this aspect of the district court ruling which had been in favor of the Government and remanded for another adversary hearing before which appellant Baker could inspect the logs of conversations of these unidentified persons. The court stated:
Nor does the recent Supreme Court ruling in Alderman v. United States supra, extending the right of defendants to see transcripts of illegally monitored conversations have any bearing upon a judicial determination relative to whether one may also have the right to a suppression hearing. The rules set forth in Alderman do not become operative unless there is an admission by the Government that a pertinent electronic eavesdropping had occurred.