Opinion ID: 569341
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: andrini-varga

Text: 4 Andrini-Varga raises a number of claims relating to the venue of his trial. Though the majority of the group's activities took place in Puerto Rico, the defendants were tried in Milwaukee. This prompted Andrini-Varga to file a motion pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 21(b) requesting that his trial be transferred to Puerto Rico. The district court denied the motion and Andrini-Varga contests that decision on appeal. Rule 21(b) states that a district court may effect transfer of venue (as to particular defendants or as to particular counts of an indictment) [f]or the convenience of the parties and witnesses, and in the interest of justice. We defer to the district court's resolution of Rule 21(b) motions, and will reverse its decision only if it amounts to an abuse of discretion. United States v. Zylstra, 713 F.2d 1332, 1336 (7th Cir.1983). The facts must compel and not merely support venue transfer before an abuse of discretion will be found by an appellate court. United States v. Hunter, 672 F.2d 815, 816 (10th Cir.1982). Andrini-Varga asserts that the balance of relevant factors, which were set out in Platt v. Minnesota Mining & Mfg. Co., 376 U.S. 240, 243-44, 84 S.Ct. 769, 771, 11 L.Ed.2d 674 (1964), 1 militate in favor of his request for a change of venue: he makes his home in Puerto Rico, all of his witnesses resided in Puerto Rico, and his participation in the drug ring's import operations occurred solely in Puerto Rico. Weighed against these factors, however, was the fact that Andrini-Varga was charged with conspiring to violate the drug laws and tried with five co-defendants. Because of the number of defendants involved, to have transferred Andrini-Varga's trial--essentially granting him a severance--would have given rise to a multiplication of litigation resulting in great inconvenience to the witnesses involved as well as considerable expense to the government. Zylstra, 713 F.2d at 1336. We recognize that the proper venue for criminal actions is normally in [the] district in which the offense was committed, see Fed.R.Crim.P. 18, and that the majority of the conspiracy's activities took place in Puerto Rico. Nevertheless, given the countervailing considerations we have discussed above, and the fact that the drug ring did indeed distribute some of the drugs it imported in Milwaukee, we cannot say that the facts compelled the transfer of Andrini-Varga's trial. The district court did not abuse its discretion in denying his Rule 21(b) motion.
5 Andrini-Varga also argues that the district court erred in denying his motion requesting that his Wisconsin attorney be allowed to travel to Puerto Rico at government expense to interview potential witnesses, take their depositions, and investigate the scene of the drug ring's alleged operations. Under Rule 15 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, an indigent defendant may petition the court for the payment of the cost of deposing witnesses (including attorney travel costs) when exceptional circumstances warrant the preservation of the testimony of prospective witnesses for use at trial. And under 18 U.S.C. § 3006A(e)(1), counsel for a person who is financially unable to obtain investigative, expert, or other services necessary for an adequate defense may request them in an ex parte application. Upon a finding that the requested services are necessary and that the defendant is indigent, § 3006A(e)(1) directs courts to authorize such expenditures. At least one court has read this subsection to apply not only to requests by counsel for investigators, but to the travel reimbursement requests of attorneys embarking on their own investigations on behalf of their clients. See United States v. Mateos-Sanchez, 864 F.2d 232, 239 (1st Cir.1988). 6 Under § 3006A(e)(1), investigative expenditures on behalf of indigent defendants are authorized to the extent they are necessary for an adequate defense. The decision to grant or deny such requests is committed to the discretion of the trial court and will be overturned only for abuse of discretion. United States v. Goodwin, 770 F.2d 631, 635 (7th Cir.1985); United States v. Alden, 767 F.2d 314, 319 (7th Cir.1984). Andrini-Varga contends that the district court erred in refusing to authorize his attorney to travel to Puerto Rico to interview potential witnesses. We are perplexed by this argument. While the district court denied Andrini-Varga's request for attorney travel expense reimbursement, it did indeed authorize the expenditure of $3,000 for investigative services to be used in the preparation of his defense. Andrini-Varga makes no mention of this fact in his brief on appeal. In light of the fact that Andrini-Varga was granted a $3,000 investigation budget, and in the absence of any argument on his part that the authorized sums were insufficient to mount an adequate defense, we cannot say that the district court abused its discretion in not authorizing additional investigative expenditures beyond that sum. 7 With respect to that portion of his motion implicating Rule 15, Andrini-Varga was required to demonstrate the existence of exceptional circumstances warranting the preservation of the testimony of prospective witnesses for use at trial. He failed to do so. His motion stated only that it is possible that a number of depositions will need to be taken in regard to the preparation of this defendant's defense. This is not the stuff of exceptional circumstances; a showing of exceptional circumstances must be considerably more concrete and particularized than mere speculation about the possible need for depositions in the future. Faced only with Andrini-Varga's single sentence request, the district court (through Magistrate Bittner) did not err in denying the motion to the extent that it rested on Rule 15. We recognize that the ambiguous nature of Andrini-Varga's request may have been due to the fact that, at the time of the motion, his attorney was in the early stages of preparing a defense. We note that Andrini-Varga's Rule 15 motion was denied without prejudice and could have been renewed at a later date when he had collected more information relevant to his defense and the witnesses upon whom he wished to rely.
8 Andrini-Varga also faults the district court for denying his request pursuant to Rule 17 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure to subpoena--at the government's expense--sixty witnesses to appear to testify at his trial. 2 Andrini-Varga asserted generally that these sixty witnesses were relevant to his alibi defense, but did not relate the substance of their anticipated testimony or otherwise explain the importance of each. The district court ruled that Andrini-Varga's request was excessive and insufficiently specific and denied it in toto; the judge invited the defendant to submit a more reasonable request indicating precisely the nature of the testimony that the witnesses would offer and what specific testimony by government witnesses would be contradicted by any of the prospective defense witnesses. Andrini-Varga never renewed his motion. 9 He now argues that he need not have been more specific in explaining the relevance of each witness on his list. His motion breaks down his sixty person witness list into smaller lists, each relevant to particular places and time periods. For example, at one point, Andrini-Varga lists eight people who could confirm his presence in New York City and Florida during a one-week period when the government alleged that he was elsewhere. He did not, however, explain where he saw or interacted with his alibi witnesses and whether they were duplicative; apparently this is the type of specificity the district court desired. We do not think the district court asked too much of Andrini-Varga. Under Rule 17, a defendant must show that the presence of a witness to be subpoenaed at government expense is necessary to an adequate defense. Andrini-Varga, then, had a burden to carry; to be sure, it was not an especially heavy one, but he had to establish the necessity--which seems to us to be more than the mere relevance--of each witness' testimony. Other courts have indeed required the kind of particularity that the district judge here demanded, see, e.g., United States v. Espinoza, 641 F.2d 153, 159 (4th Cir.1981), especially when it appears, as here, that the testimony of some of the witnesses for whom subpoenas were requested would be cumulative, and hence of diminishing marginal value. See United States v. Solina, 733 F.2d 1208, 1213 (7th Cir.1984); United States v. Garza, 664 F.2d 135, 141 (7th Cir.1981). In sum, we do not believe that the district judge abused his wide discretion, Garza, 664 F.2d at 141, in asking Andrini-Varga to resubmit a more detailed Rule 17 request.
10 Andrini-Varga also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction for conspiring to import marijuana. To prove that a defendant was a member of a conspiracy the government must present sufficient evidence to demonstrate that the defendant knew of the conspiracy and that he intended to join and associate himself with its criminal purpose. United States v. Auerbach, 913 F.2d 407, 414-15 (7th Cir.1990); see also United States v. Townsend, 924 F.2d 1385, 1390 (7th Cir.1991). To know of a conspiracy, of course, is to know of an agreement between conspirators to achieve a criminal purpose. See Townsend, 924 F.2d at 1390-92. In evaluating whether the government met its burden of proof, we will view the evidence in a light most favorable to the government, and will reverse a conviction only if no rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the offense charged beyond a reasonable doubt. See United States v. Atterson, 926 F.2d 649, 655 (7th Cir.1991). 11 At trial, a number of Andrini-Varga's co-conspirators--Dennis McCarthy, Randy Friedl, Kevin Cleary, and James Brandt--testified that on four different occasions Andrini-Varga participated in the pick up of air-dropped marijuana bundles by boat, that he was the owner of Gonzi Marine, the establishment where the conspirators met before and after air-drops and pick ups and where marijuana was sometimes stored and packaged for shipment, and that he participated in the packaging of marijuana for shipment to the United States mainland on at least two occasions. In his brief, Andrini-Varga denies little of this; he claims, however, that the government has failed to prove what he considers a critical element of the crime of conspiracy: that he was involved in the planning of--rather than in the mere participation in--the smuggling venture. Absent such evidence of planning, he argues, the government has not proven his specific intent to achieve the objective of the conspiracy. We disagree. Evidence of planning is not a critical element of the crime of conspiracy, agreement is. Planning the crime is simply one way to help bring about the object of the conspiracy; executing the plan is another. Andrini-Varga's extensive participation in the drug ring's pick-up and packaging operation is more than sufficient to give rise to the inference that he agreed with his co-conspirators to import marijuana into the United States and to demonstrate that he joined with them to further that end.
12 Andrini-Varga's final argument on appeal is that the district court erred in applying the Sentencing Guidelines to his conviction for conspiring to import marijuana. He contends that the Guidelines are inapplicable because all of the marijuana imported by the conspiracy came into the country before November 1, 1987, the Guidelines' effective date. Andrini-Varga's assertion of fact is correct, though the legal conclusion he draws from it is not. The conspiracy's only activities after November 1, 1987, consisted of two failed attempts to air-drop marijuana. In January of 1988, the drug ring lost 3,000 pounds of marijuana at sea in two unsuccessful smuggling runs. Andrini-Varga argues that these attempts ought not to be considered as part of the conspiracy's operations. We disagree. A failed air-drop may be insufficient to support a substantive conviction for importing marijuana, but it is most certainly an act in furtherance of the importation conspiracy. See U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3, comment. (n. 1) (conduct ... in furtherance of the execution of the jointly-undertaken criminal activity should be considered in sentencing under the guidelines); see also § 2D1.4 (If a defendant is convicted of a conspiracy or an attempt to commit any offense involving a controlled substance, the offense level shall be the same as if the object of the conspiracy or attempt had been completed.). The conspiracy's actionable conduct, then, straddles the operational date of the Guidelines. It is well settled that the Guidelines indeed apply to convictions for criminal conduct that began prior to the effective date of the Guidelines and continued after that date. United States v. Osborne, 931 F.2d 1139, 1144 (7th Cir.1991); see also United States v. Fazio, 914 F.2d 950, 959 (7th Cir.1990). Thus, the district court did not err in sentencing Andrini-Varga under the Guidelines.