Opinion ID: 408161
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Admission of Williams's hearsay statements.

Text: 76 Margiotta's final claim is that the trial court erred by admitting into evidence Richard A. Williams's hearsay account of his father's alleged agreement with Margiotta. Since the alleged secret agreement was forged at a 1969 meeting attended by the elder Williams, now deceased, Margiotta and Weis, the Government sought to prove the existence of this agreement in large part through the testimony of the younger Williams, who had waited outside the meeting room. At trial, the district court permitted Williams to describe his father's (the declarant's) purported account of the agreement reached at the meeting, over objection by Margiotta's counsel. Williams first recounted his father's plan to offer fifty percent of the Williams Agency's commissions to Margiotta if the latter secured the Town of Hempstead's insurance business for Williams. Judge Sifton admitted this hearsay testimony pursuant to the state of mind exception to the hearsay rule, Federal Rules of Evidence, Rule 803(3), 26 as a statement of the decedent's design or plan. See also United States v. Annunziato, 293 F.2d 373, 377 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 368 U.S. 919, 82 S.Ct. 240, 7 L.Ed.2d 134 (1961). Margiotta asserts, however, that the district court improperly admitted Williams's testimony that his father reported to him that an agreement had been reached concerning the municipal insurance business. Since the statement was offered to prove that Margiotta had engaged in a past act, the formation of an unlawful secret agreement, the state of mind exception of Fed.R.Evid. 803(3) was not available. Instead, Judge Sifton admitted this testimony on the co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule, Fed.R.Evid. 801(d)(2)(E), which provides that a statement by a co-conspirator of a party during the course and in furtherance of the conspiracy is not hearsay. We believe Judge Sifton did not commit error. 77 The law is well-settled that declarations that are otherwise hearsay may nonetheless be provisionally admitted pursuant to Rule 801(d)(2)(E), subject of course to ultimate connection of the defendant with the conspiracy alleged in the indictment, if the trial court determines that the defendant and the declarant participated in the conspiracy, by a fair preponderance of the evidence independent of the hearsay utterances. See, e.g., United States v. Cambindo-Valencia, 609 F.2d 603, 630 (2d Cir. 1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 940, 100 S.Ct. 2163, 64 L.Ed.2d 795 (1980); United States v. Geaney, 417 F.2d 1116, 1120 (2d Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 1028, 90 S.Ct. 1276, 25 L.Ed.2d 539 (1970). In this case, sufficient evidence independent of the challenged hearsay statements established that a conspiracy existed, that it was in existence at the time the statement was made, that the declarations were made in furtherance of the conspiracy, and that both the elder Williams and Margiotta participated in the conspiracy. See, e.g., United States v. Lyles, 593 F.2d 182, 194 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 440 U.S. 972, 99 S.Ct. 1537, 59 L.Ed.2d 794 (1979); United States v. Cafaro, 455 F.2d 323, 326 (2d Cir.), cert. denied sub nom., Schulman v. United States, 406 U.S. 918, 92 S.Ct. 1769, 32 L.Ed.2d 117 (1972). This evidence includes Margiotta's own admissions concerning his approach by, and meeting with Richard B. Williams. Margiotta testified that during the meeting, Williams stated that he would continue the system carried on by Mortimer Weis, the Broker of Record for Hempstead at that time. Moreover, Margiotta testified that if the Williams Agency should ever have ceased distributing portions of its commissions, he would have convened a meeting of the Executive Committee of the Republican Party, and would have probably voted to replace Williams. Margiotta stated that he never told Ralph Caso, or other public officials, about the arrangement to share commissions on a 50-50 basis. 78 Furthermore, the non-hearsay evidence showed that as soon as the Williams Agency obtained the Town's insurance business following its designation as Broker of Record, the Agency, which had been sharing approximately ten percent of the commissions generated by placement of policies on properties owned by the Town of Oyster Bay, began setting aside fifty percent of the commissions earned. This evidence included ledger sheets dating from 1969 which contained a column labelled 50% of commissions, and a list of recipients sent by Margiotta's office to the Williams Agency designating amounts which totalled exactly 50% of the amount of the commissions shown on the ledger sheet as of the date of that list. The Williams Agency paid 50% of the commissions to the persons whose names appeared on the list. Indeed, ample evidence also supported a finding that Margiotta and Williams understood that their illicit arrangement should remain secret. In addition to Margiotta's admission that he did not disclose the terms of the arrangement to Ralph Caso or other officials, the recipients of the kickbacks were ultimately directed to assist in the creation of falsified property inspection reports to make it appear they had performed work in exchange for the money they received. In the case of William Cahn, the parties to the agreement devised an arrangement of a legal retainer. Moreover, as noted above, numerous individuals associated with the municipal insurance scheme provided dissembling testimony to the State Investigation Commission. In short, the non-hearsay evidence was sufficient to show that a conspiracy existed, that it was in existence at the time the statement was made, and that both Williams and Margiotta participated in the agreement. Furthermore, since the parties to the agreement desired to keep the terms of the pact secret, and Richard A. Williams would necessarily participate in the distribution of insurance commissions, the elder Williams's declaration to his son can reasonably be considered to have been made in furtherance of the conspiracy. See United States v. Lyles, supra, 593 F.2d at 194. 79 Margiotta claims that despite this evidence, the trial court erred in admitting the challenged hearsay statements because it did not explicitly make the findings articulated in United States v. Geaney, supra, and its progeny. This Court has never required a district court to use any talismanic words when admitting testimony under the co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule. In United States v. Cambindo-Valencia, supra, 609 F.2d at 631, appellant Cambindo-Valencia argued that the trial judge failed to make an explicit finding of sufficient independent evidence. This Court rejected his claim as a ground of reversible error, noting that it was possible to infer that the finding was made implicitly when the court admitted the statements over the defense's objections. Id. In light of Judge Sifton's familiarity with this evidence after the completion of the first trial, this inference seems especially warranted on the facts of this case. See also United States v. Rosenstein, 474 F.2d 705, 711-12 (2d Cir. 1973). 80 In any event, in explaining the admission of Richard A. Williams's hearsay account of his father's secret agreement, Judge Sifton observed that there was a fairly substantial showing that at least as an initial matter there was a starting point of 50/50, and that there was a sufficient basis for inferring that there was some agreed upon arrangement made in advance. Such language makes clear that Judge Sifton made the requisite Geaney findings, if not in haec verba. Finally, in stating that there was a sufficient basis to present Williams's testimony to the jury for them to decide whether to accept it or not, Judge Sifton was not permitting the jury to decide whether the co-conspirator exception was available. Rather, he was merely noting that once the hearsay account was admitted, the jury could accept or reject the testimony. As a result, the district court did not violate the principle that determining the admissibility of challenged testimony is a function for the court, not the jury. See United States v. Rosenstein, supra, 474 F.2d at 712. For all these reasons, the district court did not err in admitting Richard A. Williams's hearsay account of his father's statements. 81