Opinion ID: 6330205
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Maintained or Used

Text: A defendant need not lease or own the building to “maintain” it under the second element. Russell, 595 F.3d at 644. Instead, “control, duration, acquisition of the site, renting or furnishing the site, repairing the site, supervising, protecting, supplying food to those at the site, and continuity” all evince “maintenance.” Id. (emphasis added). The government submitted sufficient evidence to show that Hofstetter supervised the clinics. She oversaw the clinics as office manager and part owner by administering daily operations and managing personnel. She controlled the clinics by instructing staff to modify medical records and directing employees without medical licenses to attend to patients. The record also sufficiently supports a finding that Clemons, Newman, and Womack “used” the clinics for the purpose of distributing controlled substances illegally. Section 856(a)(1) “uses the disjunctive conjunction ‘or’ between the listed alternative ways of violating the statute, [so] § 856(a)(1) is violated simply by using a place for the commission of the specified drug crimes; proof that the defendant ‘maintain[ed]’ the premises, which is a separate way of violating the statute, is not necessary for conviction.” United States v. Facen, 812 F.3d 280, 289 (2d Cir. 2016). Thus, whether the government proved that Clemons, Newman, and Womack “maintained” the premises is not the sole inquiry; we must also consider whether the defendants used the premises for the purpose of illegal drug distribution. Nos. 20-6245/6426/6427/6428 United States v. Hofstetter, et al. Page 18 The government showed that Clemons, Newman, and Womack each used the clinics to write hundreds of prescriptions for opioids and benzodiazepines during their tenures at the clinics, and in roughly the same proportion: 54 to 57 percent of their prescriptions were for oxycodone, 24 to 33 percent for oxymorphone, and 8 to 14 percent for morphine. Non-opioid, non-benzodiazepines accounted for less than three percent of their prescriptions. Drawing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, the jury could have reasonably concluded that Hofstetter maintained the clinics, and Clemons, Newman, and Womack used the clinics, to distribute drugs illegally.