Opinion ID: 1598202
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 15

Heading: overt act in furtherance of the conspiracy

Text: A person shall be guilty of criminal conspiracy if he or another person with whom he conspired commits an overt act in pursuance of the conspiracy. § 28-202(1)(b). Null asserts that the evidence was not sufficient to support a finding that he committed an overt act in furtherance of a conspiracy to commit bribery. In regard to the overt act requirement of § 28-202, we have stated: `[A]n overt act, as something done pursuant to a conspiracy, tends to show a preexisting conspiracy and manifests an intent or design toward accomplishment of a crime.... An overt act, by itself, need not have the capacity to accomplish the conspiratorial objective and does not have to be a criminal act.' State v. Anderson, 229 Neb. 427, 435, 427 N.W.2d 764, 770 (1988), quoting State v. Lafler, 225 Neb. 362, 405 N.W.2d 576 (1987). As here, conspiracies frequently involve intricate situations and complex acts which make it difficult to establish by direct proof a conspiracy or conspiratorial intent. See State v. Copple, 224 Neb. 672, 401 N.W.2d 141 (1987). Circumstantial evidence may establish the existence of a conspiracy or the criminal intent necessary for a conspiracy. Id. Intent may be inferred from the words and acts of the defendant and from the facts and circumstances surrounding his or her conduct. Anderson, supra; State v. Ladehoff, 228 Neb. 812, 424 N.W.2d 361 (1988). The overt act necessary to prove an intent to conspire can be silence which is designed to conceal the conspiracy. Copple, supra . In State v. John, 213 Neb. 76, 328 N.W.2d 181 (1982), we determined that the defendant's acts of giving a business card to a person whom he believed could find a hit man for him, in meeting with the hit man, and in furnishing him with the proposed victim's itinerary were overt acts with respect to a charge of conspiracy to commit a murder. As the Court of Appeals noted, the bill of exceptions in this matter consists of over 600 pages of testimony and many hours of tape-recorded conversations. The evidence clearly established that Null approached Mayor Goodman and offered one third of all profits and income of the keno operation in Papillion in exchange for the mayor's assistance in making Null and Vogel the keno franchisors. The mayor was to accomplish this by appointing people to a nine-member keno committee that he could control or manipulate. The mayor would put out the word that Null and Vogel were the ones with the right ideas for the keno operation. Null and Vogel planned to establish a corporation to run the keno operation, and the mayor would be able to purchase a one-third share of the corporation for $1. These overt acts are more than sufficient to establish that Null acted pursuant to a conspiracy and manifest Null's intent to bribe Mayor Goodman in order to ensure that he would be awarded Papillion's keno operation.