Opinion ID: 622756
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Racketeering Act One

Text: Coppola contends that his conviction must be reversed because the alleged subpredicate acts comprising Racketeering Act One (1) fail to state extortion or mail fraud offenses, particularly after Skilling v. United States, 130 S.Ct. 2896; and (2) were not proved by sufficient evidence. We review Coppola's first challenge de novo. See, e.g., United States v. Gotti, 459 F.3d 296, 320 (2d Cir.2006). Because the jury returned findings of guilt on each of the identified subpredicate acts, we will uphold the jury's finding that Racketeering Act One was proved if any one of the identified subpredicate actsextortion conspiracy, extortion, or wire fraud (whether to obtain tangible property or intangible property in the form of honest services)states an offense. See United States v. Ruggiero, 726 F.2d 913, 922-23 (2d Cir.1984), abrogated on other grounds by Salinas v. United States, 522 U.S. 52, 61-62, 118 S.Ct. 469, 139 L.Ed.2d 352 (1997); see also id. at 925-28 (Newman, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). [9] Where, however, the jury returned a general verdict as to any subpredicate act charged under multiple theories, we can uphold the jury's finding as to that subpredicate act only if every charged theory states an offense, see Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. 298, 312, 77 S.Ct. 1064, 1 L.Ed.2d 1356 (1957), overruled on other grounds by Burks v. United States, 437 U.S. 1, 8-10, 98 S.Ct. 2141, 57 L.Ed.2d 1 (1978); United States v. Salmonese, 352 F.3d 608, 624 (2d Cir.2003), unless the pleading error was harmless, see Hedgpeth v. Pulido, 555 U.S. 57, 58, 129 S.Ct. 530, 172 L.Ed.2d 388 (2008); accord Skilling v. United States, 130 S.Ct. at 2934 n. 46 (extending Hedgpeth harmlessness principle beyond habeas review). As to Coppola's sufficiency challenge, we will uphold the jury's finding as to Racketeering Act One if the evidence was sufficient to prove any one of the subpredicate acts on any legally valid theory charged. See, e.g., Griffin v. United States, 502 U.S. 46, 56-57, 112 S.Ct. 466, 116 L.Ed.2d 371 (1991); United States v. Salmonese, 352 F.3d at 624. While we make this determination de novo, we view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict, and we will reverse only if we conclude that no reasonable jury could have found guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. See, e.g., United States v. Heras, 609 F.3d 101, 105-06 (2d Cir.2010). Applying these principles to this case, our analysis can begin and end with the extortion subpredicates, which state a viable offense and are supported by sufficient evidence.
To charge extortion under the Hobbs Act, an indictment must allege that a defendant obtained (or in the case of conspiracy, schemed with others to obtain) property from another with his consent induced by the wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right. See 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a), (b)(2). [10] In this case, the indictment charged Coppola with obtaining and conspiring to obtain both intangible and tangible property from Local 1235 union members, with the consent of union officials induced by the wrongful use of threats and fear.
The government's intangible property theory was based on a provision of the Labor-Management Reporting and Disclosure Act of 1959 (LMRDA), Pub.L. No. 86-257, 73 Stat. 519, stating that the officials of a labor organization occupy positions of trust in relation to such organization and its members as a group. 29 U.S.C. § 501(a). That provision specifies particular duties owed by officials to the union and membership they serve: It is, therefore, the duty of each such person, taking into account the special problems and functions of a labor organization, to hold its money and property solely for the benefit of the organization and its members and to manage, invest, and expend the same in accordance with its constitution and bylaws and any resolutions of the governing bodies adopted thereunder, to refrain from dealing with such organization as an adverse party or in behalf of an adverse party in any matter connected with his duties and from holding or acquiring any pecuniary or personal interest which conflicts with the interests of such organization, and to account to the organization for any profit received by him in whatever capacity in connection with transactions conducted by him or under his direction on behalf of the organization. Id. Explaining this provision to the jury in this case, the district court charged that union members have a right to the loyal service of union officials; and this right constitutes a form of property. Trial Tr. at 1816. This instruction conforms to our precedent, which recognizes that the concept of property under the Hobbs Act reaches beyond tangible property to include union members' LMRDA rights to loyal representation by their officers, agents, and other representatives. United States v. Gotti, 459 F.3d at 325; see also United States v. Tropiano, 418 F.2d 1069, 1075-76 (2d Cir.1969) (holding that concept of property under the Hobbs Act ... is not limited to physical or tangible property or things, but includes ... any valuable right considered as a source or element of wealth (citations omitted)). Coppola does not contend that the district court misconstrued Gotti. Rather, he asserts that we must revisit Gotti's holding in light of the Supreme Court's recent decision in Skilling v. United States, 130 S.Ct. 2896. Skilling was not a Hobbs Act case. It considered a conviction under the honest services provision of the wire fraud statute. See 18 U.S.C. § 1346 (defining term `scheme or artifice to defraud' to include scheme or artifice to deprive another of the intangible right of honest services). To avoid due process concerns underlying the vagueness doctrine in the undefined phrase right of honest services, Skilling v. United States, 130 S.Ct. at 2931; see id. at 2935 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), the Supreme Court construed the statutory provision as limited to fraudulent schemes to deprive another of honest services through bribes or kickbacks supplied by a third party who had not been deceived, id. at 2928 (identifying bribe and kickback schemes as core of honest services fraud recognized by appellate courts before McNally v. United States, 483 U.S. 350, 107 S.Ct. 2875, 97 L.Ed.2d 292 (1987)). Coppola argues that there is little difference between the LMRDA rights alleged in this case and the right to honest services at issue in Skilling. He maintains that both are too vague to state a criminal charge consistent with due process. See Appellant Br. at 67 (stating it makes no sense to posit that the same `honest services' that are too vague to be defrauded nonetheless can be extorted). We disagree. First, to the extent Coppola asserts that Skilling identifies vagueness concerns with intangible rights generally, he is mistaken. Skilling addressed a particular intangible rightto honest servicesidentified, but not defined, by § 1346. It did not identify vagueness concerns with all intangible rights. To the contrary, Skilling held that even the intangible right of honest services can constitutionally be the basis of a wire fraud prosecution when that intangible right is deprived through a bribe or kickback. See 130 S.Ct. at 2928. Thus, nothing in Skilling warrants a conclusion that intangible property rights can no longer support a Hobbs Act extortion or extortion conspiracy charge. See United States v. Cain, 671 F.3d 271, 281-82 (2d Cir.2012) (affirming conviction for extortion under Hobbs Act of intangible right to solicit business). Second, the vagueness concerns identified in Skilling with respect to the § 1346 right to honest services do not translate to the LMRDA rights derived from § 501(a). A statute is not void for vagueness if it define[s] the criminal offense with sufficient definiteness that ordinary people can understand what conduct is prohibited and in a manner that does not encourage arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement. Kolender v. Lawson, 461 U.S. 352, 357, 103 S.Ct. 1855, 75 L.Ed.2d 903 (1983); accord Arriaga v. Mukasey, 521 F.3d 219, 224 (2d Cir.2008). This test does not demand meticulous specificity in the identification of proscribed conduct. Rather, it requires only that the statutory language conveys sufficiently definite warning as to the proscribed conduct when measured by common understanding and practices. United States v. Farhane, 634 F.3d 127, 139 (2d Cir.) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted), cert. denied sub nom. Sabir v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 132 S.Ct. 833, 181 L.Ed.2d 542 (2011). Additionally, [v]agueness challenges to statutes not threatening First Amendment interests are examined in light of the facts of the case at hand; the statute is judged on an as-applied basis. Maynard v. Cartwright, 486 U.S. 356, 361, 108 S.Ct. 1853, 100 L.Ed.2d 372 (1988); accord Arriaga v. Mukasey, 521 F.3d at 223. In challenging § 501(a) as vague, Coppola notably avoids discussion of the statutory language, a failure that obscures critical textual distinctions between § 501(a) and § 1346. Whereas § 1346 provides no textual guidance about the duties whose violation will amount to a deprivation of honest services, see, e.g., Sorich v. United States, 555 U.S. 1204, 129 S.Ct. 1308, 1310, 173 L.Ed.2d 645 (2009) (Scalia, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari ) (discerning no coherent limiting principle defining what honest services is, whence it derives, and how it is violated), § 501(a) specifically enumerates the duties that labor representatives owe to their union and its members: (1) to hold union money and property solely for the benefit of the union and its members; (2) to manage, invest, and expend union money in accordance with the union's constitution and bylaws and any applicable resolutions; (3) to refrain from dealing with the union as an adverse party or on behalf of an adverse party in any matter connected with the representative's union duties; (4) to refrain from holding or acquiring any pecuniary or personal interest which conflicts with the interests of the union; and (5) to account to the union for any profit received by the representative in whatever capacity in connection with transactions conducted by him or under his direction on behalf of the union. See 29 U.S.C. § 501(a). Thus, in contrast to § 1346, which references, at best, only a general and undefined fiduciary standard, see Skilling v. United States, 130 S.Ct. at 2936 (Scalia, J., concurring in part and concurring in judgment), § 501(a) avoids unconstitutional ambiguity by detailing the duties owed and the persons from and to whom they are owed, see Gurton v. Arons, 339 F.2d 371, 375 (2d Cir.1964) (A simple reading of [§ 501(a) ] shows that it applies to fiduciary responsibility with respect to the money and property of the union and that it is not a catch-all provision under which union officials can be sued on any ground of misconduct with which the plaintiffs choose to charge them.). Third, while § 501(a) creates the intangible right here at issue, it does not define the predicate crime. That task is performed by the Hobbs Act, which identifies a crime only when propertyincluding the intangible rights specified in § 501(a)is obtained by extortion. The Hobbs Act, unlike § 1346, cannot be construed to proscribe mere self-dealing, that potentially staggeringly broad swath of behavior, Sorich v. United States, 129 S.Ct. at 1309 (Scalia, J., dissenting from denial of certiorari ), that had raised particular vagueness concerns regarding honest services fraud before Skilling, 130 S.Ct. at 2932-33 & n. 44 (noting that if Congress wished to criminalize self-dealing, it would have to speak more clearly than it has, and further noting various concerns with limiting standard proposed by government). To eliminate that vagueness concern, Skilling cabined honest services fraud to cases in which the breach of duty was procured by the corrupt participation of a third party who paid either bribes or kickbacks for the breach. See id. at 2928. By contrast, because the principal in a Hobbs Act violation is not the party committing the fiduciary breach, but the person who procures the breach by statutorily specified wrongful meansextortionthe ambiguity concerns with § 1346 are simply not present in the Hobbs Act. The extortion element of the Hobbs Act serves the same limiting function as the bribe-kickback element of § 1346, serving notice that a crime depends on a third party obtaining property through the wrongful use of threats or fear to achieve the property's surrender. Indeed, such extortion with respect to § 501(a) rights fits within the core misconduct that is labor racketeering. See Evans v. United States, 504 U.S. 255, 262-63, 112 S.Ct. 1881, 119 L.Ed.2d 57 (1992) (noting Congress passed Hobbs Act to prohibit labor racketeering). In sum, we identify nothing in Skilling that warrants a deviation from our holding in Gotti that intangible property, specifically, the LMRDA rights derived from the enumerated duties in § 501(a), can support a valid Hobbs Act extortion charge.
The indictment alleged that Coppola obtained and conspired to obtain tangible property from union members in the form of labor union positions, money paid as wages and employee benefits and other economic benefits that the union members would have obtained but for the conspirators' corrupt influence over [the] union. Indictment ¶¶ 16, 19. Through trial and on appeal, the government focused on two tangible property theories: (1) tribute payments from membership funds, and (2) the salary and benefits paid to [Local 1235] presidents who were not living up to their obligations to have the membership in their best interest. Trial Tr. at 1544. Coppola does notand cannotcontend that the extortion of tribute payments from a union by an organized crime family fails to state a viable Hobbs Act offense. Rather, he challenges the viability of the government's salary theory, i.e., that Coppola obtained tangible property from Local 1235 union members in the form of the salaries they paid to corrupt union presidents. See Trial Tr. at 1644 (government summation: When the Mob threatens a union leader to get a union leader to do what it wants, the Mob deprives the union membership [of] the benefit of the salary that they paid that official. The Mob deprives the membership of a union leader who will exercise his rights solely in the interest of the membership of the union.). [11] In support, Coppola relies on Scheidler v. National Organization for Women, Inc., 537 U.S. 393, 123 S.Ct. 1057, 154 L.Ed.2d 991 (2003), which holds that the use of threats or fear to interfere with or disrupt a person's exercise of property rights is not enough to establish a Hobbs Act violation. A defendant must obtain the property for himself. Id. at 405, 123 S.Ct. 1057. The government has never claimed that the Genovese family obtained the actual dollars that were supposed to be paid as salary to Local 1235 presidents. Rather, it contends that the enterprise received the loyalty of these presidents without having to pay for it because the presidents were compensated by the union membership. This, Coppola submits, at most alleges the procurement of members' intangible right to their presidents' honest services, a claim that cannot be maintained under either the Hobbs Act or § 1346 after Skilling. Cf. United States v. Goodrich, 871 F.2d 1011, 1013-14 (11th Cir. 1989) (concluding, in fraud context, that similar theory could be maintained only as fraudulent deprivation of intangible rights, not property). The point merits little discussion because even if we were to agree with Coppola and, further, conclude that Yates v. United States, 354 U.S. at 312, 77 S.Ct. 1064, applied to these circumstances, any error would be harmless. See Hedgpeth v. Pulido, 555 U.S. at 58, 129 S.Ct. 530; accord Skilling v. United States, 130 S.Ct. at 2934 n. 46. If the jury found that Coppola conspired to extort the salaries of Local 1235 presidents by corrupting them to act in the interests of the Genovese family rather than their membership, then the jury necessarily would have had to conclude that Coppola conspired to extort the union membership of its intangible LMRDA rights under § 501(a). [12] For the reasons stated in the preceding section, we conclude that the alleged extortion of such LMRDA rights is validly proscribed by the Hobbs Act even after Skilling. Moreover, as discussed below, the government adduced sufficient evidence to support the jury's finding that Coppola extorted the LMRDA rights of Local 1235 members. We thus reject Coppola's challenge to the validity of Racketeering Act One.
Coppola challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support the jury's conclusion that (a) he obtained and conspired to obtain tangible or intangible property from Local 1235 members; (b) with consent; (c) through the wrongful use of actual or threatened fear or violence. The record defeats his arguments.
The recorded March 6, 2007 conversations between Coppola and Edward Aulisi provide direct evidence that Coppola obtained and conspired to obtain property belonging to the members of Local 1235 for the benefit of the Genovese family. The conversations indicate that the property at issue was both tangible, insofar as Coppola received monies belonging to the union membership, and intangible, insofar as he deprived members of their § 501(a) right to have union presidents hold union money and property solely for the benefit of the organization and its members and obtained for himself the right to dispose of such money and property for the benefit of the Genovese family. In reaching this conclusion, we assume that the jury interpreted certain coded terms to reference three Local 1235 presidents: (1) the Vet referenced then-Local 1235 president, Vincent Aulisi, based on the context of the conversation as well as the fact that Vincent Aulisi's initials, VA, are an acronym for the Veterans Administration; (2) Cong referenced Vincent Colucci, based on Coppola's statements that Cong had the same name as the younger Aulisi's Pop, i.e., Vincent, and was the first one, i.e., the first Local 1235 president to align the union with the Genovese family, as testified to by Barone, Gov't Ex. TR-CD-7 (T6) at 7; [13] and (3) Bull referenced outgoing Local 1235 president Albert Cernadas, based on Coppola's statement that a party was being thrown for him, which was corroborated by agent testimony. With this understanding, a reasonable jury could have found that, in the March 6 conversations, the younger Aulisi was conveying to Coppola his father's assurances that Local 1235 would continue to make tribute payments to the Genovese family. Edward Aulisi reported to Coppola that outgoing Local 1235 president Cernadas had made statements suggesting that month[ly] payments and Christmases were gonna end when he stepped down as president. Gov't Ex. TR-CD-7 (T6) at 6. By themselves, such statements confirmed that Coppola and the Genovese family had obtained membership money in the past. The younger Aulisi, however, went further, stating that his father had told Cernadas that he was wrong about the payments ending: [T]he beat goes on, whether you're here or not. Id. Indeed, Edward Aulisi told Coppola that payments not only would continue, but also that amounts collected had almost doubled, id., and that he had another chunk for Coppola, representing approximately three months' payments, Gov't Ex. TR-CD-7 (T7) at 1-2. These statements permitted the jury to find that Coppola was involved in a continuing scheme to obtain union members' tangible and intangible property. In urging a different view of the March 6 conversations, Coppola submits that the government's interpretation of coded references and its assertion that the conversations concerned money payments were uncorroborated. In any event, Coppola asserts that, even if the conversations did reference money payments, the source was not necessarily Local 1235 membership funds. The payments could as easily have come from Edward Aulisi's trucking business or from Vincent Aulisi's personal funds. The argument is not convincing. As our discussion of code names in the March 6, 2007 conversations demonstrates, the references are not as obscure as Coppola urges. Nor are the interpretations and inferences urged by the government so speculative as to preclude adoption by a reasonable jury familiar with the totality of the evidence. Indeed, the inferences are entirely consistent with the totality of the evidence, which established the common scheme or plan employed by the Genovese family to control substantial parts of the New York-New Jersey waterfront and to extort millions of dollars from businesses and unions alike through fear. Insofar as Coppola hypothesizes alternative sources for the monies paid, we are mindful that the task of choosing among permissible competing inferences is for the jury, not a reviewing court. United States v. Florez, 447 F.3d 145, 154-55 (2d Cir.2006). Coppola was free to argueand in fact did arguealternative inferences in urging the jury to interpret the March 6 conversations narrowly in his favor, but we cannot conclude that a reasonable jury was compelled as a matter of law to adopt Coppola's arguments. Assuming, as we must, that the jury drew the inferences permissibly urged by the government, we conclude that the March 6 conversations provide direct evidence that Coppola had obtained and conspired to obtain tangible property in the form of Local 1235 membership monies and intangible property in the form of the members' § 501(a) right to have union presidents dispose of that money for the sole benefit of members and the union, not for the benefit of the Genovese family. This part of Coppola's sufficiency challenge, therefore, fails on the merits. [14]
Coppola contends that the evidence was insufficient to satisfy the Hobbs Act's consent element because the victims of the charged extortion were the Local 1235 members whose property was obtained, not the union presidents, and no union member testified to consenting to any property transfer. Appellant Br. at 54. [15] Indeed, in its bill of particulars, the government maintained that Local 1235 members were unaware that their leadership was beholden to organized crime ... [or] that tribute payments were being made to members of organized crime. Gov't Letter at 2, United States v. Coppola, 08-cr-763 (JG) (E.D.N.Y. May 22, 2009), ECF No. 33. While styled as a sufficiency challenge, Coppola's argument appears to question the legal validity of the indictment, which specifically charged Coppola with conspiring to obtain the property of Local 1235 union members ... with the consent of such union members' officers, agents, delegates, employees and other representatives, which consent was to be induced by wrongful use of actual and threatened force, violence and fear. Indictment ¶¶ 16, 19. Coppola appears to be arguing that only a property owner, and not an agent in possession, can provide the consent necessary to establish an extortion. We are not persuaded. In Gotti, the district court similarly charged the jury that the members' agents, representatives, or trustees could provide the necessary consent. See United States v. Gotti, 459 F.3d at 329. While we had no occasion in Gotti to discuss the consent element of extortion, upon review of the language of the statute, we now clarify that there is no requirement that the property owner provide the necessary consent. See generally Connecticut Nat'l Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, 253-54, 112 S.Ct. 1146, 117 L.Ed.2d 391 (1992) ([C]ourts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there. When the words of a statute are unambiguous, then this first canon is also the last: judicial inquiry is complete. (internal quotation marks and citations omitted)); accord United States v. Salim, 549 F.3d 67, 78 (2d Cir.2008). Title 18 U.S.C. § 1951(b)(2) defines extortion as the obtaining of property from another, with his consent, induced by wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear, or under color of official right. The statute does not use the word owner to limit the class capable of giving the requisite consent. Nor would such a limitation make sense given that the consent element serves not to distinguish illegal from legal obtaining of property by the wrongful use of threats or fear, but rather to distinguish between two illegal means of so obtaining property: extortion (with consent) and robbery (without consent). See United States v. Zhou, 428 F.3d 361, 371-72 (2d Cir.2005) (noting that victim's consent is essential element of crime of extortion and razor's edge that distinguishes extortion from robbery). A predecessor statute employed somewhat different language with respect to the consent element: [o]btains the property of another, with his consent. Anti-Racketeering Act of 1934, ch. 569, 48 Stat. 979, § 2(b) (emphasis added). Even if the quoted language from this earlier statute might be construed to require the consent of the person who owns the property obtaineda question we need not decidethe language of the phrase obtaining of property from another, with his consent in the current statute reaches more broadly. 18 U.S.C. § 1951(b)(2) (emphasis added). It references any circumstance in which property is obtained from a person with that person's consent. This plainly encompasses persons holding property in a fiduciary capacity for an owner, such as the union officials referenced in the indictment. Indeed, this court has upheld Hobbs Act convictions involving extortions of individuals not in lawful possession of the property obtained. See, e.g., United States v. Gotti, 459 F.3d at 325-26 (deeming untenable proposition that one can never `extort,' under the Hobbs Act, illegal property (such as narcotics)); United States v. Scarpa, 913 F.2d 993, 999 (2d Cir.1990) (affirming conviction for extorting rival drug dealers); see also United States v. Box, 50 F.3d 345, 353 (5th Cir. 1995) (affirming conviction for extorting forfeited drug proceeds); cf. United States v. Celaj, 649 F.3d 162, 168-69 (2d Cir.2011) (affirming conviction for Hobbs Act robbery of marijuana). Moreover, we have recognized that businesses may be extorted under the Hobbs Act by using threats or fear to induce certain employees' consent to part with company property. See United States v. Daley, 564 F.2d 645, 649 (2d Cir.1977). Thus, while we have described the consent element by reference to victim's consent, United States v. Zhou, 428 F.3d at 372, the requirement can be satisfied, as in this case, by showing that union officials were wrongfully induced to consent to surrender property that they held in trust for the union membership. Indeed, while Local 1235 members were undoubtedly the primary victims of the charged extortion in that they lost both tangible and intangible property, their union presidents might also be deemed victimsalbeit less sympathetic onesinsofar as they were forced to choose between relinquishing some property [belonging to the membership] immediately or risking unlawful violence. United States v. Arena, 180 F.3d 380, 395 (2d Cir.1999). The Hobbs Act prohibits the extortionist from forcing a victim to make such a choice. Id.; see United States v. Cain, 671 F.3d at 282 (noting that extortion victim is presented with Hobson's choice (internal quotation marks omitted)). Because there is no question as to the sufficiency of the evidence to permit a reasonable jury to find that Local 1235 presidents consented to surrender to the Genovese family property that the presidents held for the union membership, this part of Coppola's sufficiency challenge also fails.
Similarly meritless is Coppola's sufficiency challenge to that element of extortion requiring that consent be induced by the wrongful use of actual or threatened force, violence, or fear. 18 U.S.C. § 1951(b)(2). Insofar as Coppola submits that the government offered no evidence that he ever threatened any Local 1235 president in order to induce payments, we have held that the Hobbs Act leaves open the cause of the fear inducing a party to consent to part with property and does not require that such fear be created by implicit or explicit threats. United States v. Gotti, 459 F.3d at 333 (internal quotation marks omitted). What is required is evidence that the defendant knowingly and willfully created or instilled fear, or used or exploited existing fear with the specific purpose of inducing another to part with property. See id.; United States v. Abelis, 146 F.3d 73, 83 (2d Cir.1998). Insofar as Coppola maintains that the cordiality of his March 6, 2007 conversations with Edward Aulisi precluded a finding of underlying fear, we are not convinced. A reasonable jury could have concluded that the necessary fear of Genovese family retaliation had been instilled over decades across the Manhattan and New Jersey waterfronts. See United States v. Hedman, 630 F.2d 1184, 1194 (7th Cir. 1980) (rejecting argument that seeming cordiality between extortionist and victim precluded finding that payment was induced by fear). The totality of the evidence here demonstrated that fear, intimidation, whatever were the means routinely used by members of the Genovese family who conspired over half a century to control unions and businesses operating on the Manhattan and New Jersey waterfronts. Trial Tr. at 1114; see supra Part I.B. Unions and businesses that met Genovese family payment demands were allowed to operate without interference. Those that did not faced personal violence and/or economic destruction. Further, where an organized crime enterprise cultivates a reputation for violence and intimidation in achieving its conspiratorial goal of control throughout an industry or area, a jury may reasonably consider that reputation in assessing whether payments were induced by the exploitation of existing fear without an explicit or implicit threat. See United States v. Mulder, 273 F.3d 91, 103-04 (2d Cir. 2001) (noting that [b]ad reputation is relevant to the fear element in a Hobbs Act conspiracy since such a reputation frequently conveys a tacit threat of violence (internal quotation marks omitted)). Here, evidence showed that Coppola and his one-time captain Fiumara cultivated and used the Genovese family's reputation for violence in furtherance of extortionate endeavors. Thomas Buzzanca, vice president of Local 1804-1, which like Local 1235 was controlled by Fiumara and Coppola on behalf of the Genovese family, told William Montella, another Genovese extortion victim, that everybody fears Fiumara and that we all live under[] fear when dealing with him. Gov't Ex. TR-CD-5b at 1-2, 5. Coppola's willingness to exploit the fear attending the Fiumara crew was evidenced by his allusion to contacts in telling undercover officer Delaney that the price for labor peace was a percentage of his business's profits. Trial Tr. at 148. Further, the evidence showed that Cernadas, in making payments to Fiumara and Coppola on behalf of Local 1235, knew that these men had a reputation, even among their criminal confederates, for being particularly powerful within the Genovese family. See id. at 1145. Viewed in this context, Coppola's March 6, 2007 statement to Edward Aulisi that we were right next to Cernadas all the time to prevent a union appointment is hardly benign. Rather, it demonstrates Coppola's exploitation of existing fear of Genovese family retaliation to achieve a result desired by the enterprise. Similarly, a reasonable jury could conclude that Vincent Aulisi's eagerness to assure Coppola that Local 1235 would continue to meetand even exceedits past tribute payments was animated by fear of organized crime retaliation. That conclusion is only reinforced by the fact that Vincent Aulisi felt obliged to give such assurances to a man who was a fugitive from the law and judicially barred from having anything to do with any ILA local. It was further evidenced by the younger Aulisi's subservient manner in accounting to Coppola for monies collected and explaining a possible delinquency. In sum, we conclude that the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's finding that all elements of the extortion predicates of Racketeering Act One were proved.