Opinion ID: 4531772
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Lacerda’s 2010 Email to Sawyer Was

Text: Properly Excluded as Hearsay In its case-in-chief, the government presented evidence showing that Lacerda sometimes used the alias “Robert Klein” when contacting VOG customers. During the presentation of his defense, Lacerda testified that he was not the only person at VOG using that alias. On direct examination, he testified that he only began using the Robert Klein alias to respond to customer complaints that otherwise weren’t being addressed by other employees who would not admit having used the moniker. He further claimed that he did not use the alias before 2010. The government used that assertion to impeach Lacerda, confronting him with a check made out to “Robert Klein” in 2009, which he had deposited into his account. On redirect, Lacerda tried to enter a 2010 email he wrote to VOG’s former CFO, Jeff Sawyer, asking Sawyer to investigate who else was using the Robert Klein alias. But the District Court excluded the email as hearsay. Lacerda now challenges the District Court’s ruling on appeal. We review this evidentiary ruling for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Frazier, 469 F.3d 85, 87 (3d Cir. 17 2006). Finding no abuse of the District Court’s discretion, we will affirm. At the time of Lacerda’s trial, a witness’s prior consistent statement was admissible as non-hearsay only when the witness testified and was subject to cross-examination, and the out-of-court statement was offered to rebut a charge of recent fabrication or recent improper motive. See Fed. R. Evid. 801(d)(1)(B) (2011).4 The Supreme Court had explained that the purpose of the exception was to rebut a charge of recent fabrication. Tome v. United States, 513 U.S. 150, 157–58 (1995). “Prior consistent statements [could] not be admitted to counter all forms of impeachment or to bolster the witness merely because she has been discredited.” Id. at 157. In this case, the government did not accuse Lacerda of recently fabricating the claim that he began using the Robert Klein alias in 2010. Rather, it employed impeachment by contradiction: of course, Lacerda was using the Robert Klein alias before 2010; he profited from using the alias in 2009. Thus, under the former rules of evidence, Lacerda’s email to Sawyer was hearsay, and the District Court properly excluded it.