Opinion ID: 1361622
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Version of the Guidelines Applicable to the Nunez Murder

Text: The district court, when sentencing DeFilippo in 2007, chose to use the post-2004 Guidelines to calculate the base offense level for the 1985 attempted murder of David Nunez, which was a predicate racketeering act under the RICO conspiracy charged in Count 1. Prior to November 2004, the Guidelines base offense level for an attempted murder was 28. U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 2A2.1(a)(1) (2003). Effective November 1, 2004, the base offense level for attempted murder became 33. U.S. Sentencing Guidelines Manual § 2A2.1(a)(1) (2004). The district court used the post-2004 Guidelines because it found that DeFilippo's involvement in the RICO conspiracy had continued beyond his arrest in 2003. The court based this finding on several items of evidence introduced by the Government. First, the Government had introduced a list of names, including DeFilippo's, that had been seized during the arrest of Anthony Rabito, the Family's consigliere, in 2007. The Government alleged that the list was of then-current captains in the Family, and it asserted that DeFilippo's inclusion in the list indicated his continuing membership. Second, one witness testified at trial that membership in the Family was lifelong and continued even when an individual had been arrested. Third, the Government introduced a recorded conversation between Basciano and another member of the Family about the use of the Family's war chest funds to pay for DeFilippo's legal fees. In response, DeFilippo's attorney proffered that DeFilippo's fees were being paid by his family members, not by the Family war chest. DeFilippo requested a hearing on this point. He argued further that the law presumed that membership in a conspiracy ends upon incarceration, and he claimed that the Government had not rebutted that presumption. The district court refused the request for a hearing because, during the lengthy interim between verdict and sentencing, the defense failed to introduce any documentary proof that DeFilippo's family members were paying his legal fees. On appeal, DeFilippo argues that the Government failed to rebut an alleged presumption that a person withdraws from a conspiracy when he is arrested. DeFilippo also challenges the district court's refusal to hold a hearing on this issue, as requested.
We find no support for DeFilippo's assertion that incarceration creates a rebuttable presumption of withdrawal from a conspiracy. For support, DeFilippo cites to United States v. Escobar, 842 F.Supp. 1519 (E.D.N.Y.1994), where the district court held that [w]hile the arrest and incarceration of a conspirator does not always constitute withdrawal from the conspiracy, there is a rebuttable presumption that incarceration constitutes withdrawal by that conspirator. Id. at 1528. In Escobar, the district court was deciding whether the Government could admit a statement made by the defendant's coconspirator after his arrest. Id. After reviewing the factual context of the statement, the court concluded that the speaker had not been a member of the conspiracy when he made the statement, in part because he had been incarcerated, and that the statement was therefore not admissible under the coconspirator hearsay exception. Id. The Escobar court's statement regarding a rebuttable presumption that a person withdraws from a conspiracy when arrested is not the law of this Circuit. As we have noted, a conspirator who has been arrested remains responsible for acts committed in furtherance of the conspiracy by co-conspirators who are still at large. United States v. Cruz, 797 F.2d 90, 98 (2d Cir.1986); see also United States v. Joyner, 201 F.3d 61, 72 (2d Cir.2000) (holding that although the defendant was incarcerated when those offenses occurred, he remained a coconspiratorhe soon emerged from jail to resume participation in the ring's drug-traffickingand was responsible for crimes that were foreseeable consequences of the conspiracy), reh'g denied and modified on other grounds by United States v. Joyner, 313 F.3d 40 (2d Cir.2002). Although arrest may constitute withdrawal, whether it does is a fact-dependent question: While arrest or incarceration may constitute a withdrawal from a conspiracy, it does not follow that in every instance it must, and whether a coconspirator's imprisonment constitutes a withdrawal must be decided by the jury in light of the length and location of the internment, the nature of the conspiracy, and any other available evidence. United States v. Flaharty, 295 F.3d 182, 192-93 (2d Cir.2002) (citations and internal quotation marks omitted). We made no reference to any purported presumption. Even if we were to find a presumption to exist, the Government introduced sufficient evidence to overcome it. Evidence established that (1) membership in the Family was lifelong and continued beyond arrest and incarceration; (2) after his arrest, DeFilippo remained on a list of active members that included other individuals who had also been incarcerated; and (3) DeFilippo continued to receive funds from the Family's war chest. These pieces of evidence, considered together, demonstrate DeFilippo's continuing membership in the Family after his arrest. We also find that the district court did not abuse its discretion when it refused DeFilippo's request for a hearing. Neither the Due Process Clause nor the Guidelines require the district court to resolve sentencing disputes through a `full-blown evidentiary hearing.' United States v. Phillips, 431 F.3d 86, 93 (2d Cir.2005) (quoting United States v. Slevin, 106 F.3d 1086, 1091 (2d Cir.1996)). [T]his is not the sort of situation where all a defendant need do is knock on the hearing room door, and it will automatically open to him. United States v. Ibanez, 924 F.2d 427, 430 (2d Cir. 1991). The district court is required only to `afford the defendant some opportunity to rebut the Government's allegations,' Phillips, 431 F.3d at 93 (quoting Slevin, 106 F.3d at 1091), and [t]he procedures to be adopted for resolution of such disputes lie within the sound discretion of the sentencing judge, United States v. Berndt, 127 F.3d 251, 257 (2d Cir.1997). Here, despite having ample time, DeFilippo failed to introduce any evidence that his attorney's fees were being paid by members of his own family. DeFilippo did not even offer an affidavit to that effect. Even now on appeal, DeFilippo has not identified the evidence he would have introduced at a hearing nor described what the evidence would have shown. The district court did not abuse its discretion by resolving the dispute over attorney's fees without a hearing.