Opinion ID: 396887
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Apparently, I fixed races. I've been convicted. (Emphasis added).

Text: 15 In his FBI statement and grand jury testimony, Ciulla explained that he would approach three or four businessmen, tell them he was fixing a race and if they would put a certain amount of money up front, he would give them the winning combinations on the race. The combinations furnished, however, were not the winning ones; Ciulla suckered the businessmen out of their front money. We think it significant that Ciulla himself never used the word tout; that is the FBI description given to this operation. None of the dictionary definitions of tout encompasses the deliberate giving of false information about races. We don't know and do not decide whether Ciulla was a tout. It is abundantly clear that he was a crook, but the jury knew that. We do not think that this additional confirmation of Ciulla's dishonesty would have made any difference in the jury's credibility assessment of his testimony. 16 We agree with the district court that an evidentiary hearing was not necessary. We shudder to think of how much time these imaginative and ingenious attorneys would have spent mining the rich vein of detail dug out from the 302's to no avail. 17