Opinion ID: 495278
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Defendants' Links to the RICO Violations

Text: 57 Caspersen and Kragness, who were convicted on both the RICO-conspiracy count (Count I) and the substantive RICO count (Count II), each claim the government failed to demonstrate an adequate nexus between them and any enterprise or pattern of racketeering activity. RICO, they stress, makes it unlawful for any person ... to conduct or participate ... in the conduct of [an] enterprise's affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity. 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1962(c) (emphasis added). They contend that to meet this standard, it must be shown that the individual defendant engaged in a pattern of racketeering activity by personally and directly taking part in two different schemes. 58 We doubt that it is necessary for each defendant to be personally and directly engaged in two different schemes (though the enterprise must be), given that the statute requires only that one participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of [the] enterprise's affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity. See infra pp. 859-860. Even were we to accept this proposition, it would be of no avail to Kragness and Caspersen, for they each participated directly in two different schemes conducted by the enterprise. 59 Kragness asserts that there is no evidence that he had any truck with the cocaine-and-quaalude project. 13 This, even if true, makes no difference, since Kragness participated in both of the marijuana schemes we have identified, supra pp. 6-9 and 14-16. As for Caspersen, there is evidence that he participated in the La Junta marijuana scheme and in the cocaine-and-quaalude scheme. Caspersen objects that evidence of his participation in the cocaine-and-quaalude project may not be considered in assessing the validity of his RICO convictions because to do so would be inconsistent with his acquittal on Count VI, which charged him with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and quaaludes. 14 However, inconsistency between verdicts on separate counts of an indictment does not entitle a defendant to reversal of a conviction on insufficient-evidence grounds. United States v. Powell, 469 U.S. 57, 68-69, 105 S.Ct. 471, 478-79, 83 L.Ed.2d 461 (1984); Dunn v. United States, 284 U.S. 390, 52 S.Ct. 189, 76 L.Ed. 356 (1932); United States v. Bryant, 766 F.2d 370, 376 (8th Cir.1985), cert. denied, 474 U.S. 1054, 106 S.Ct. 790, 88 L.Ed.2d 768 (1986). 15 Evidence of Caspersen's cocaine activities, together with evidence of his role in the La Junta scheme, is sufficient to support his RICO conviction.
60 Prescott was acquitted on Count II, which charged a violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1962(c), but was convicted on Count I, which charged a conspiracy to violate 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1962(c), a violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1962(d). 61 There is a split of authority among the circuits as to whether a Sec. 1962(d) conspiracy to violate Sec. 1962(c) requires that one agree personally to commit at least two predicate crimes, a view espoused by two circuits, 16 or whether it is instead sufficient, as six circuits have held, 17 to agree to the commission of two or more predicate crimes by coconspirators. This Court expressly reserved judgment on this issue in Lemm, 680 F.2d at 1203 n. 11. Under the mode of analysis established by our definition of pattern of racketeering activity in Superior Oil, supra, to require two racketeering schemes, the question is whether it is necessary that a defendant agree personally to take part in two schemes, or whether it is sufficient that he agree to the perpetration of two schemes by coconspirators. Here, if the former is the law, then Prescott's conviction must be overturned, for there is no evidence that he ever agreed to participate in any scheme other than the cocaine and quaalude scheme. 62 However, we agree with the majority of the other circuits that RICO conspiracy law, like traditional conspiracy law, requires only that each defendant agree to join the conspiracy, not that he agree to commit each of the acts that would achieve the conspiracy's objective. The terms Congress employed in the statute are expansive; it speaks not just of conduct[ing], but also of participat[ing], directly or indirectly, in the conduct ... through a pattern of racketeering activity. As other circuits have observed, the statute does not explicitly require an agreement personally to commit predicate acts, and such a narrow construction would not square with the congressional purpose in RICO of broadening the remedies available to combat organized crime. See United States v. Neapolitan, 791 F.2d at 495-96; United States v. Carter, 721 F.2d at 1528-29. 63 The problem here thus becomes whether there is evidence sufficient to support a jury finding that Prescott agreed that others associated with the enterprise would engage in one or both of the marijuana schemes, schemes in which he did not personally participate. There is no substantial evidence that Prescott knew of either scheme. His conviction on Count I (RICO conspiracy) must therefore be reversed for lack of sufficient evidence.