Opinion ID: 196165
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: The Wiretap Tapes.

Text: 115 The district court allowed the prosecution to introduce tape recordings of two conversations in which Saccoccia's employees made reference to drugs. The tapes are not entirely audible, and the parties disagree about what was said during two potentially significant conversations. The government asserts that, in a discussion that took place at Trend's offices, Kenneth Saccoccio referred to cash that he and Hurley were counting as fuckin' drug money. Appellant claims that this portion of the tape was inaudible. The other conversation took place at Saccoccia Coin Company. In it, Stanley Cirella spoke to Stephen Pizzo about an ongoing investigation of appellant's organization. According to the government, Cirella declared that he--a pronoun that we take in context to refer to Saccoccia--had told him that they [the authorities] ain't doin' this [conducting the investigation] because of the coke, they're doin' this because of the washing of money. Appellant contends that Cirella said gold rather than coke. 116 The issue on appeal is whether the district court abused its discretion in allowing the taped conversations to be presented to the jury in conjunction with the government's transcript. In appellant's view, the inaudible portions of the tapes are so critical as to make the rest more misleading than helpful. See United States v. Carbone, 798 F.2d 21, 24 (1st Cir.1986). Having listened to the tapes, see United States v. Carbone, 880 F.2d 1500, 1503 (1st Cir.1989), cert. denied, 493 U.S. 1078, 110 S.Ct. 1131, 107 L.Ed.2d 1037 (1990), we believe that they are reasonably audible and that the judge appropriately left their interpretation to the jury. What was or was not said during a tape-recorded conversation is ordinarily a question of fact, not a question of law. 117 Appellant's fallback position is that, even if the government accurately transcribed the tapes, the lower court erred in failing to tell the jury that any statements about the source of the laundered money were relevant only to the speakers' subjective beliefs. This position hinges on the premise that, in the absence of a concinnous foundation showing the speakers' knowledge, the comments cannot constitute proof vis-a-vis Stephen Saccoccia (who did not participate in the discourse) as to whether the money in fact emanated from drug transactions. 118 We disagree with appellant's premise for two reasons. First, Evidence Rule 104(b) provides that [w]hen the relevancy of evidence depends upon the fulfillment of a condition of fact, the court shall admit it upon, or subject to, the introduction of evidence sufficient to support a finding of the fulfillment of the condition. In addressing foundational issues, the trial judge acts as a gatekeeper, examining the evidence and deciding whether the jury could reasonably find the conditional fact ... by a preponderance of the evidence. Huddleston v. United States, 485 U.S. 681, 690, 108 S.Ct. 1496, 1501, 99 L.Ed.2d 771 (1988). The conditional fact may be based on reasonable inference from the circumstantial evidence. Onujiogu v. United States, 817 F.2d 3, 5 (1st Cir.1987); see, e.g., Veranda Beach Club Ltd. Partnership v. Western Sur. Co., 936 F.2d 1364, 1372 (1st Cir.1991). 119 In light of the wide discretion afforded to trial judges in deciding whether an adequate foundation has been laid, see Real v. Hogan, 828 F.2d 58, 64 (1st Cir.1987), we think that Judge Torres acted unexceptionably in determining that the jury could rationally infer that appellant's employees would not refer to the cash as drug money without some basis in fact. The men who made the statements were substantially involved in appellant's operation and could easily have had opportunities to learn of the money's origins. 120 As we have indicated, there is a second reason why appellant is mistaken insofar as he sees personal knowledge about the source of the funds as a prerequisite to general admissibility of the comments. Both statements were made by coconspirators and are thus admissible under Evidence Rule 801(d)(2)(E) without a showing of personal knowledge. See United States v. Goins, 11 F.3d 441, 443-44 (4th Cir.1993), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 114 S.Ct. 2107, 128 L.Ed.2d 668 (1994) (holding that the personal knowledge requirement of Evidence Rule 602 does not apply to statements of a co-conspirator admissible as non-hearsay under Rule 801(d)(2)(E)); cf. Brookover v. Mary Hitchcock Memorial Hosp., 893 F.2d 411, 415-18 (1st Cir.1990) (finding no requirement of personal knowledge for admission of a statement under Rule 801(d)(2)(D)). 121 For these two reasons the challenged statements were properly before the jury, and the court acted appropriately in refusing appellant's proposed limiting instruction. 122