Opinion ID: 779372
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Bowman Murder Conspiracy

Text: 21 The district court concluded that the Bowman murder conspiracy was not underlying racketeering activity for the purposes of determining Tocco's Count 1 RICO conspiracy base offense level. The court found that Tocco had no direct involvement in the murder conspiracy and that the conspiracy was not a reasonably foreseeable act in furtherance of the criminal activity jointly undertaken by Tocco and his codefendants. We do not believe these findings are clearly erroneous. First, the only evidence that Tocco was directly involved in the Bowman murder conspiracy was Nove Tocco's testimony that when he and Paul Corrado presented their plan to kill Harry Bowman to Paul's uncle, Anthony Corrado, Anthony said that they, meaning Anthony and Jack Tocco, would control the matter. J.A. at 2243-44 (Nove Tocco Test. at Resentencing Hearing). However, it is unclear from this testimony what control means, and, as the government concedes, other evidence indicates that instead of causing Paul Corrado and Nove Tocco to plan to murder Bowman, Jack Tocco actually prevented them from killing Bowman. 11 22 Second, this same evidence could also demonstrate that the Bowman murder conspiracy was not reasonably foreseeable conduct in furtherance of Jack Tocco's jointly undertaken criminal activity with Nove Tocco and Paul Corrado. Although we would not necessarily have interpreted the evidence in this way, we believe that the district court could plausibly have found that the Bowman murder conspiracy was not in the scope of the criminal activity Jack Tocco agreed to undertake with Nove Tocco and Paul Corrado. As we have explained, in order to hold a defendant accountable for the acts of others [under U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(B)], a district court must make two particularized findings: (1) that the acts were within the scope of the defendant's agreement; and (2) that they were foreseeable to the defendant. Campbell, 279 F.3d at 399-400 (quoting United States v. Studley, 47 F.3d 569, 574 (2d Cir.1995)). We have further stated that: 23 In order to determine the scope of the defendant's agreement, the district court may consider any explicit agreement or implicit agreement fairly inferred from the conduct of the defendant and others. The fact that the defendant is aware of the scope of the overall operation is not enough to satisfy the first prong of the test and therefore, is not enough to hold him accountable for the activities of the whole operation. 24 Id. at 400 (quotation omitted). Thus, the district court could have found in this case that because Jack Tocco prevented Nove Tocco and Paul Corrado from going through with their plan to murder Bowman, the murder conspiracy was not in the scope of Jack Tocco's agreement to conspire with Nove Tocco and Paul Corrado.