Opinion ID: 779372
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Versaci Gambling Operation Enhancement

Text: 11 The district court found at resentencing that Tocco was not an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor in the Versaci Gambling Operation, and, therefore, the court did not apply a four-level enhancement to the Versaci Gambling Operation offense level pursuant to U.S.S.G. § 3B1.1(a). We conclude that the district court erred in not applying the enhancement. 8 In our first opinion in this case, we held in regard to Tocco's offense level for the Count 6 Hobbs Act conspiracy that [w]e find from a review of the record that the district court committed clear error in concluding that Tocco did not have a supervisory role in this case. Tocco, 200 F.3d at 432. We then explained that: 12 The government's theory of the case was that Nove [Tocco] and [Paul] Corrado could not engage in their extortionate activities without the permission of Tocco.... The jury found Tocco guilty of conspiring to commit those extortionate activities in Count Six, indicating that they found Tocco to be the boss or manager or supervisor. 13 Id. Therefore, we instructed the district court on remand to apply a three-level aggravating role enhancement to Tocco's offense level for the Count 6 Hobbs Act conspiracy. 14 We believe that the same rationale applies to the four-level aggravating role enhancement for the Versaci Gambling Operation offense level. The government's theory of the gambling operation was that Tocco was the financial backer of the operation and that the other participants in the operation could not act without Tocco's permission. In fact, Tocco's only alleged participation in the Versaci Gambling Operation was as its organizer or leader. We recognize that because the jury verdict for the Count 1 RICO conspiracy was general, we do not know whether the jury found Tocco guilty of the conspiracy in regard to the Versaci Gambling Operation. See United States v. Neuhausser, 241 F.3d 460, 467 (6th Cir.2001) (in light of the jury's general verdict, it was not possible to say whether [the defendant] had been found guilty of conspiracy to distribute crack, marijuana, or both.) (interpreting United States v. Dale, 178 F.3d 429, 431 (6th Cir.1999)); see also Corrado I, 227 F.3d at 541 (The jury's general verdict of guilty as to the RICO conspiracy count did not indicate whether the jury found that the defendants had actually conspired to murder Bowman.). However, the district court concluded that the Versaci Gambling Operation was underlying racketeering activity for the purpose of Tocco's Count 1 RICO conspiracy conviction. For the same reason, then, that we previously determined that we could not ignore the implication of the jury verdict on Count 6, we cannot ignore the implication of the district court's conclusion that the Versaci Gambling Operation was an underlying offense of Tocco's Count 1 RICO conspiracy conviction. If Tocco indeed agreed to the commission of the Versaci Gambling Operation — as the district court found that he did — then he must have done so as an organizer or leader of the operation. 15 We instruct the district court on remand to apply a four-level aggravating role enhancement to the Versaci Gambling Operation offense level for the purpose of calculating Tocco's Count 1 RICO conspiracy base offense level. 9