Opinion ID: 3011239
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: at 327-28 (emphasis added).

Text: Statement 2: Q: Well, then why wouldn't he reimburse you for your Dole contribution under the same rationale? _________________________________________________________________ 8. At the time of Serafini's testimony befor e the grand jury, the government did not know why Michael's r eimbursement check to Serafini had been for $2,000 rather than $1,000. The government later had grounds to believe that the second $1,000 r epresented reimbursement for a $1,000 contribution that Serafini's legislative aide, Thomas Harrison, had made to the Dole campaign. Serafini had reimbursed Harrison, and so Michael's check to Serafini apparently served to reimburse Serafini both for Serafini's own contribution and for that made by Harrison. 9. These questions and responses are r eproduced here verbatim, except that they have been numbered so that they need not be repeated throughout this opinion. We will r efer to these statements as Statement 1, etc. Statements 1, 2, 4, and 5 appear as they did in the redacted transcript of Serafini's grand jury testimony; because Statement 3 was eventually stricken in part from the redacted version, it appears here as it did in the original transcript. See infra pp. 10, 11-12 (describing why Statement 3 was not included in the final perjury indictment). 6 A: Because I wanted to contribute to Bob Dole. Q: And you didn't want to fix his car? A: Not necessarily -- Q: Oh, I see. A: -- would you? Q: I don't know. A: And $2,000 for a thousand dollar contribution. Q: $2,000 for what? A: $2,000 -- Q: What was that last statement? A: $2,000 this check is for, if I see it correctly? Q: Right. A: And my check here is for a thousand dollar contribution? Q: Right. So you are saying you don't know what the other thousand dollars is for? A: I would not relate it to that -- Q: What would you relate? A: -- in my mind. Q: What would you relate it for? A: To something else, whether it wasfixing his car, whether it is something else. It could be something else and that's just what I am saying to you now, because when he asked me for a thousand dollar contribution I wrote a check for a thousand dollars, I found no problem with that, I was delighted, I was happy to be able to do it. A. at 349-350 (emphasis added). Statement 3: Q: Is there any check that you received that reimbursed you other than that $2,000 check for your contribution? 7 A: No. Q: Is there another check that you ar e aware of that is connected to this investigation, to this Dole contribution, other than the $2,000? A: Not other than what you have shown me today, no. A. at 296 (emphasis added). Statement 4: Q: And you have no knowledge, as you sit her e today, or is it accurate that as you sit here today you have no knowledge why Michael issued that check to you for $2,000? A: I still think the $2,000 would have been just around the time that I was fixing his car, the transmission was gone, I was fixing it, it is just about that amount of money that would have paid for the repair. It could have been for a number of things, but it certainly does not relate to me contributing to Bob Dole. I contribute quite frequently to candidates and those kind of amounts. A. at 359-360 (emphasis added). Statement 5: Q: I am going to wrap this up. I want to make sur e we are absolutely on the same page here, ther e is no misunderstanding. It is your testimony under oath, as you sit here today, that as far as you're concerned, as far as you know, there is no connection between the check that you wrote to Dole for President dated April 27th of '95 for $1,000, check 3781, and the check that you received from the Michael Serafini-Melinda Marcotte account dated April 25th of '95 for $2,000, it is your testimony that there is no connection between these two items? A: In my mind I can honestly say that ther e is no connection between those two checks, the thousand and the two thousand. In my, I mean in my mind I know I contributed to Bob Dole because I wanted 8 to contribute to him without reimbursement. The $2,000, I truly believe I cashed that check and spent it to, for another reason, I am assuming it was when I was fixing his vehicle. A. at 371-72 (emphasis added). About a week after Serafini's appearance before the grand jury, Serafini's legislative aide, Thomas Harrison, testified in fr ont of the grand jury. See Gov't Suppl. A. at 82-122. When the prosecutor confronted Harrison with a r ecently discovered reimbursement check drawn on Serafini's account and deposited to Harrison's, Harrison admitted that Serafini had solicited and reimbursed Harrison for his Dole contribution, see id. at 87-88, and that he[Harrison] had previously lied to FBI agents and to the grand jury about this contribution in order to protect Frank and kind of insulate him from this, A. at 2631. See also A. at 2670-71; Gov't Suppl. A. at 97. Based on Harrison's statements and other evidence resulting from the investigation, the grand jury indicted Serafini for perjury. Serafini moved to dismiss the indictment on the basis that the grand jury questioning was insufficiently precise to support a perjury allegation. The United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania, Chief Judge Thomas I. Vanaskie, dismissed the portion of the indictment that was based on Statement 3, finding that the grand jury questioning with r egard to Serafini's awareness of other checks in the contribution scheme was so ambiguous and unclear as to pr eclude a perjury conviction. A. at 5 (Dist. Ct. Mem. Op., Apr. 7, 1998). However, the District Court denied the motion to dismiss the indictment in all other respects. 10 The case proceeded to trial. At trial, Michael did not testify. The government presented as its principal evidence Harrison's testimony regarding his transactions with Serafini; the testimony of other conduits describing their own transactions with Michael and with other Empir e officials; and a series of 34 checks, all fr om the same _________________________________________________________________ 10. The government filed an interlocutory appeal of the District Court's dismissal of the indictment insofar as it related to Statement 3, and we affirmed. See United States v. Serafini , 167 F.3d 812, 824 (3d Cir. 1999). 9 sequence of checks, showing reimbursements paid by Michael to Serafini and to the other conduits. The government also introduced evidence r elating generally to Serafini's financial and personal relationship with Michael and with Empire. The jury convicted Serafini of perjury. Chief Judge Vanaskie then sentenced Serafini to the ten- month split sentence described above. See supra note 2. Serafini now appeals his conviction and sentence.