Opinion ID: 572629
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Counts 8 and 9: Defrauding CSX of the Value of Its Land

Text: 59 Counts 8 and 9 charged Paccione, Vulpis, and the corporate defendants with use of the mails to conceal from CSX the fact that defendants were causing vast amounts of garbage, asbestos, and medical waste to be dumped on CSX's property, thereby depriving CSX of the value of that property. See, e.g., United States v. Angelilli, 660 F.2d 23, 36-37 (2d Cir.1981) (cognizable fraud where mailings of payments to investors victimized by scheme lulled them into false sense of security), cert. denied, 455 U.S. 945, 102 S.Ct. 1442, 71 L.Ed.2d 657 (1982). Defendants' argument that their convictions on counts 8 and 9 should be overturned on the ground that [u]nder McNally, ... a scheme to damage a person's property is not a scheme to defraud him within the meaning of the mail fraud statute (brief on appeal of Paccione, et al., at 50), is frivolous. Defendants schemed to conceal from CSX their dumping of noxious wastes on its land and mailed letters to CSX containing fraudulent statements to achieve that end. Prior to defendants' dumpings, the CSX property had an estimated value for residential purposes of $20 million; after their acts, it had no value for that purpose without a clean-up expenditure of some $15 million. There can be no doubt that defendants schemed to and did deprive CSX of the value of its property, using the mails in furtherance of their scheme. This conduct was within the purview of § 1341. 60