Opinion ID: 790692
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The District Court's Denial of a New Trial

Text: 34 Although the government opposed Canova's Rule 33 motion as both untimely and lacking in merit, the district court agreed only with the latter argument. In an unpublished memorandum opinion, the court concluded that a jury could reasonably have found from the trial evidence that Canova, in an effort to increase the volume of tests and revenue, [had] importuned technicians at Raytel to skip the third [Medicare testing] requirement and/or not take the minimum 30 seconds of ECG strips in each of the three portions of the test. United States v. Canova, No. 3:01 CR 264(AVC), at 3 (D.Conn. Mar. 18, 2003). Further, the jury may have reasonably found that in order to conceal Raytel's non-compliance with the monitoring requirements, the defendant conspired to obstruct a federal audit, and knowingly made false statements to Medicare representatives. Id. 35 Insofar as Canova specifically challenged the government's proof of his guilty knowledge, the court summarized the testimony of Puziak, Vincent, and Pelletier, and concluded therefrom that the jury could reasonably have found that, as early as 1998, defendant knew that Raytel was not complying with Medicare's testing specifications, id. at 8, and that his knowledge of this problem continued into December 1999 and January 2000, when he made the false statements of which he was found guilty, id. at 9. 36 To the extent Canova presented new evidence to challenge the prosecution's case, the court decided that no new trial was warranted because the defendant had failed to prove ... that he was justifiably ignorant of said evidence at the time of the trial despite due diligence. Id. at 11. The court rejected the suggestion that the prosecutors had presented improper argument or evidence at trial, so as to excuse Canova's failure to secure the aforementioned evidence for trial. In any event, the court concluded that, even if Canova's new arguments might add new support to his claim of innocence with a second jury, he ha[d] not demonstrated a miscarriage of justice or exceptional circumstances sufficient to warrant a new trial. Id. at 12.