Opinion ID: 3011009
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Counts of Conviction

Text: Count 2 of the indictment charged obstruction of justice under 18 U.S.C. S 1503. That law reads in relevant part: Whoever . . . corruptly or by threats or force, or by any threatening letter or communication, influences, obstructs, or impedes, or endeavors to influence, obstruct, or impede, the due administration of justice, shall be fined not more than $5,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. In order to violate S 1503, a defendant must have notice or knowledge of the pendency of some judicial proceeding constituting the administration of justice. See United States v. Nelson, 852 F.2d 706, 710 (3d Cir. 1988). The District Court ruled that there were two possible judicial proceedings that Davis might have obstructed: the grand jury investigation into the Giampa Crew and the wiretap investigation. Though there is some confusion on this point, we presume that the jury would have considered the Customs wiretap rather than the later FBI wiretap 7 investigation into the source of the leak about Sabol's status.1 The verdict form provided to the jury separated the grand jury obstruction from the wiretap obstruction and allowed the jury to find Davis guilty or not guilty separately, and repeated this for the conspiracy counts. The jury found Davis guilty of both grand jury obstruction and wiretap obstruction. Therefore, while we conclude that S 1503 does not prohibit wiretap obstruction, thus invalidating Davis's conviction therefor, we must also evaluate the sufficiency of the evidence of grand jury obstruction.
As a foundation for this charge, Customs Agent James Delia testified that the Giampa Crew wiretaps were reviewed every ten days by the district court that authorized them. Davis does not contest this, but argues that a wiretap is not a pending judicial proceeding within the meaning of S 1503. This is an issue of first impression in the federal courts. We conclude that the wiretap was at bottom an element of the Customs investigation and that it could not be a pending judicial proceeding within the scope of the statute. Courts have repeatedly held that an investigation simpliciter is not enough to trigger S 1503. For example, intentionally interfering with the execution of a search warrant by warning its target to conceal or dispose of evidence does not involve a pending judicial proceeding and therefore falls outside of S 1503. See United States v. Brown, 688 F.2d 596, 598 (9th Cir. 1982). Investigation by agents of the Treasury Department or some other like instrumentality of the United States does not constitute a pending proceeding. United States v. Perlstein, 126 F.2d 789, 792 (3d Cir. 1942); see also United States v. Simmons, _________________________________________________________________ 1. We do so because Davis's acts indicated that he surmised the existence of the Customs wiretap, and he interfered with its success. By contrast, there was no evidence that he had any idea that the FBI wiretap existed, and the government did not argue that his acts interfered with its success. It was evident in context that the charged wiretap obstruction involved the Customs investigation, just as the grand jury obstruction did. 8 591 F.2d 206, 208 (3d Cir. 1979) ([T]he obstruction of an investigation that is being conducted by the FBI, or by any similar governmental agency or instrumentality, does not constitute a S 1503 violation because such agencies or instrumentalities are not judicial arms of the government `administering justice.' ). Even probation supervised by court-appointed officers does not constitute a pending proceeding. See Haili v. United States, 260 F.2d 744 (9th Cir. 1958). Thus a wiretap, which is generally part of an investigation conducted by agents of the executive branch, would seem to fall within Perlstein's and Simmons's description of investigations that are insufficient to invoke S 1503. The government nonetheless argues that a wiretap investigation may constitute a judicial proceeding within the meaning of S 1503 where it is monitored actively by a federal district court, citing United States v. Aguilar, 515 U.S. 593 (1995), and United States v. Walasek, 527 F.2d 676 (3d Cir. 1975). However, Aguilar does not support the government's claim. Indeed, in that case, the government charged the defendant's wiretap-related conduct under a separate statutory provision that prohibits revealing the existence of a wiretap, 18 U.S.C. S 2232(c); his S 1503 obstruction charge related to conduct specifically involving a grand jury. The government's theory is drawn from our caselaw, which has heretofore focused on when a grand jury investigation progresses to a stage where it can be said to be pending. Describing the level of involvement a grand jury must have with an investigation to triggerS 1503, we wrote: Appellant would have us adopt a rigid rule that a grand jury proceeding is not pending until a grand jury has actually heard testimony or has in some way taken a role in the decision to issue the subpoena. He offers no authority for such a rule, and we are not inclined to adopt it. Appellant is correct in his observation that a grand jury subpoena may become an instrumentality of an investigative agency, without meaningful judicial supervision. Nevertheless, the remedy against potential abuses is not to establish a rule, easily circumvented, 9 by which some formal act of the grand jury will be required to establish pendency. The remedy is rather to continue to inquire, in each case, whether the subpoena is issued in furtherance of an actual grand jury investigation, i.e., to secure a presently contemplated presentation of evidence before the grand jury. Walasek, 527 F.2d at 678 (footnote omitted) (emphasis added). The government seizes upon the phrase judicial supervision to argue that, because the wiretap was subject to judicial supervision, it is sufficiently analogous to a grand jury investigation to qualify as a pending judicial proceeding. The flaw in the government's argument is that judicial supervision is not the test; the test is whether there is a judicial proceeding. Walasek considered the role of the grand jury in investigations, and we decline to read one phrase in that decision as authorizing a sweeping expansion in the concept of pending judicial proceedings, one for which the government has no other support. Fundamentally, a wiretap order is an investigative method used by the executive branch, not an element of the judicial process. See United States v. Giordano, 416 U.S. 505 (1974) (discussing the history of wiretapping regulation). Judicial supervision pursuant to Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, 18 U.S.C. SS 2510-2520, does not make wiretaps a function of the judicial branch, but rather ensures that wiretaps-- searches--are carried out within the confines of the Fourth Amendment. See United States v. Cafero, 473 F.2d 489 (3d Cir. 1973). We conclude that a wiretap order is more like a search warrant than it is like a grand jury and that its pendency does not constitute the administration of justice within the meaning of S 1503. See Brown, 688 F.2d at 598. It follows that Davis cannot be convicted of violatingS 1503 for intentionally interfering with a wiretap.
A grand jury investigation clearly qualifies as a pending judicial proceeding under S 1503. See United States v. 10 Wood, 6 F.3d 692, 696 (10th Cir. 1993). The District Court, in its written opinion upon Davis's sentencing, found that there was a pending grand jury investigation into organized crime and the Giampa Crew in particular at the time of Davis's acts. However, the trial record is nearly barren of any evidence of this fact. The government identifies one piece of evidence in support of its contention--the testimony of Agent Delia, who testified that, before obtaining the wiretap order of January 13, 1994, Customs subpoenaed subscriber information and toll records for a number of customers from NYNEX. But Agent Delia did not testify that a grand jury was actually in the process of investigating the people whose records were subpoenaed or that the subpoena issued in furtherance of a presently contemplated presentation of evidence before a grand jury. As in many districts in modern times, a grand jury is always empaneled in the District of New Jersey, which comprises the entire state of New Jersey. For that very reason, the mere existence of a grand jury in a district does not trigger S 1503; the grand jury must have some relationship to the investigation that is obstructed. See Nelson, 852 F.2d at 711. Nor is the issuance of a subpoena automatically proof of a pending grand jury investigation. As we wrote in Nelson: Fed. R. Crim. P. 17(a) provides for issuance of subpoenas signed and sealed but otherwise blank to a party requesting it, who shall fill in the blanks before it is served. Because these subpoenas are issued without meaningful judicial oversight, the pendency of a grand jury investigation cannot be determined from their face alone. Not every investigation in which grand jury subpoenas are used ripens into a pending grand jury investigation for purposes of 18 U.S.C. S 1503. Id. Thus, the government must show something more than that a grand jury exists in the district and that subpoenas have issued in order to prove that a judicial proceeding is pending. We have refused to make rigid rules about how the connection between an investigation and a grand jury must be shown so as to avoid meaningless formality, see 11 Walasek, 527 F.2d at 678, but the record in this case is devoid of any evidence of such a connection. There is no testimony that the subpoena was issued in furtherance of an ongoing or presently contemplated presentation of evidence to the grand jury. We cannot, consistent with our precedent, find Agent Delia's testimony about the subpoena sufficient to sustain Davis's conviction. There is another fundamental flaw in the government's case. A person who lacks knowledge or notice of a pending proceeding necessarily lacks the intent to obstruct that proceeding. See Aguilar, 515 U.S. at 599; Pettibone v. United States, 148 U.S. 197, 206 (1893). The Aguilar Court explained that recent decisions of the appellate courts have placed certain boundaries on S 1503's apparently broad sweep. For example, the defendant's action must be with an intent to influence judicial or grand jury proceedings; it is not enough that there be an intent to influence some ancillary proceeding, such as an investigation independent of the court's or grand jury's authority. Aguilar, 515 U.S. at 599 (citing Brown, 688 F.2d at 598).[I]f the defendant lacks knowledge that his actions are likely to affect the judicial proceeding, he lacks the requisite intent to obstruct. Id. The government concedes that there is no record evidence that Davis had actual knowledge of a grand jury proceeding, but argues that the evidence was sufficient to support a conviction on the ground that Davis inferred that a grand jury investigation was pending. Davis knew that Sabol had been convicted in Georgia on serious drug charges and was facing a twenty-year prison term. He received assurances from a FBI agent that Sabol would serve a lengthy sentence. In light of the fact that Davis was a police officer, the District Court found that there was a sufficient basis to conclude that Davis knew or believed that Sabol was only out of prison because he was an informant or cooperating witness in some federal investigation. Indeed, Davis communicated this belief to Michael and Vittorio, and, in the District Court's view, the jury could take him at his word, even though he later claimed that he was just bluffing to get Sabol out of his life. 12 The District Court concluded that Davis's failure to take proper police action from December 25, 1993 (when hefirst learned about Sabol's link to Vittorio), through March 4, 1994, justified an inference that Davis knew that Sabol was involved in an ongoing investigation. The District Court believed that Davis should have reported Sabol and Vittorio's illegal activities to his superiors, and that, when he did not, a jury could infer that he believed that Sabol was working for the government.2 At the very least, the District Court held, the jury could have found that Davis was willfully blind to the likelihood that Sabol was involved in an investigation. Moreover, the jury could have concluded that Davis knew that his actions had the natural and probable effect of interfering with a federal investigation. As Vittorio testified, but for Davis's actions, he and other members of the Giampa crew would have continued to deal with Sabol. The District Court's reasoning is sound, but it fails to go far enough to show Davis's knowledge of a grand jury investigation. There was no evidence that Davis concluded that Sabol was involved in a grand jury-based investigation. Agent Geer and Davis's superior, Larry Wirsing, both testified that a police officer would likely conclude that a person in Sabol's situation was or had been an informant. Both men formed the impression that Davis had reached this conclusion, though nothing explicit was said. But informants and investigations exist without grand juries. We cannot find in this record a shred of evidence that Sabol's status as an informant would have led Davis to conclude that Sabol was involved in an investigation related to a pending grand jury proceeding. _________________________________________________________________ 2. The District Court also noted that Davis reported his contacts with Vittorio to his supervisor, Larry Wirsing, on March 4, 1994. At that point, Wirsing and Davis contacted FBI Agent John Truslow. The court found that the jury could have viewed Davis's contacts with authorities as another attempt to rid himself of Sabol's presence. While this behavior is probative of Davis's underlying motive, it is inconsistent with a belief that Sabol was an informant; if Sabol were an informant, the government would not have any reason to rearrest Sabol for associating with Vittorio. 13 In United States v. Frankhauser, 80 F.3d 641 (1st Cir. 1996), the defendant took a number of acts to cover up evidence of hate crimes. The evidence clearly showed that he was aware of an FBI investigation into the crimes. The court, after scouring the record, found no evidence that the defendant knew or had notice of the pending grand jury proceeding. The government offered two pieces of evidence to meet its burden. The first was a misstatement by the defendant that he expected the FBI investigator to return with a subpoena or search warrant, when it was clear that he meant to say search warrant. In addition to finding that this was an irrelevant misstatement, the court also held that, even if the defendant was referring to a subpoena, there was no way to infer from this statement that he knew that a grand jury proceeding was underway, rather than merely a future possibility. See id. at 650. The government's second piece of evidence was similar to the government's evidence in this case: A witness testified that the defendant knew that the crimes were under investigation. The court found that we see no way the jury could have inferred that the investigation was by a grand jury rather than by the FBI. Id. Frankhauser, which we find persuasive, strongly supports Davis's argument, as it clearly distinguishes simple awareness of a federal investigation from knowledge of a pending judicial proceeding. The only relevant case from this circuit involves police officers who beat a civilian to death and then took actions to cover up their misbehavior. See United States v. Messerlian, 832 F.2d 778 (3d Cir. 1987). The defendants argued that there was no evidence that they could have foreseen that federal judicial proceedings were in the offing when they committed their obstructive conduct. We found that the defendants, ten- and twenty-five-year veterans of the New Jersey State Police, could, by reason of their positions, be expected to know that federal grand jury investigations often follow when an arrestee dies suspiciously in police custody. See id. at 794 n.23. By contrast, we do not think that a police officer, particularly a transit police officer, should ordinarily expect that an informant is involved with a grand jury investigation, and the government offered no testimony to the contrary. Intent 14 to influence an investigation, which the evidence clearly supports, is insufficient to sustain a conviction under S 1503. See Aguilar, 515 U.S. at 599. The government's proof in this case is deficient in two respects: First, it failed to show that the NYNEX subpoena was issued pursuant to a presently contemplated presentation of evidence to a grand jury. Second, it failed to show that Davis had the requisite knowledge that a grand jury investigation, as opposed to an investigation by federal agents, was pending. Davis's conviction on this count must therefore be reversed.
Count 1 of the indictment charged conspiracy to obstruct justice in violation of 18 U.S.C. S 371. The sufficiency of the evidence in a conspiracy prosecution requires close scrutiny. See United States v. Schramm, 75 F.3d 156, 159 (3d Cir. 1996). In order to prove a conspiracy to obstruct justice, the government must establish that there was an agreement whose object was to obstruct justice, that the defendant knowingly joined it, and that at least one overt act was committed in furtherance of the object of the agreement. See United States v. Mullins, 22 F.3d 1365, 1368 (6th Cir. 1994). Circumstantial evidence may be used to prove all the elements. See United States v. Kapp, 781 F.2d 1008, 1010 (3d Cir. 1986). It is the first element--the existence vel non of an agreement to obstruct justice--that is in issue here.3 _________________________________________________________________ 3. The lack of evidence that a grand jury proceeding was pending is not dispositive on this count. In Perlstein, there was a conspiracy surrounding an illegal still. The conspiracy to suppress evidence and keep potential witnesses away from any investigating agency began more than two years before any judicial proceeding began. The indictment alleged overt acts both before and after the grand jury began to investigate. We assumed that the substantive offense of obstruction of justice could not have been committed at the inception of the conspiracy, but held that the defendants could still be charged with conspiracy to obstruct justice to be administered in the federal courts in the future. We suggested that conspirators who expect or fear that federal proceedings will be instituted can be prosecuted for conspiracy to obstruct justice. Perlstein, 126 F.2d at 795. 15 The District Court ruled that the evidence that Davis had informed Vittorio, Michael, and Maria of the Customs investigation and of Sabol's status as a confidential informant was sufficient to establish that he conspired with others to obstruct justice. The evidence spins out as follows: Michael and Maria had a relationship with Vittorio, and Davis first convinced them that Sabol was an informant, then got them to arrange a meeting between Davis and Vittorio. Davis provided Michael and Vittorio with information about Sabol's Georgia conviction, including the names of an FBI agent and an AUSA involved in the case, and told Vittorio that Sabol had received a twenty-year sentence, making it impossible for him to be out on work release. He told Vittorio that Sabol was cooperating with the government and that the cell phones that Sabol gave to Vittorio, McManus, and Giampa were tapped. The taped conversations from January 25 to March 2 corroborated Vittorio and Michael's testimony. It is clear that the parties involved in this intrigue had different motives. Vittorio wanted to protect his confederates and himself; Davis wanted to hurt Sabol; Michael wanted to please Maria by helping her brother with his personal problems, and he also wanted to protect his childhood friend. Davis contends that this disproves a conspiracy. We disagree. If they all agreed to interfere with a pending judicial proceeding, they are guilty of conspiracy. That is the difference between motive and intent. A conspiracy requires agreement between at least two people to the illegal object of the conspiracy, though other _________________________________________________________________ It is unclear to what extent this 1942 decision survives Aguilar, since much of the conduct alleged in Perlstein probably would fail Aguilar's nexus test, which requires that an obstructive act be likely to interfere with a grand jury rather than simply likely to interfere with an investigation. More importantly, however, Perlstein concerned a situation in which a jury could find that the defendants contemplated a federal investigation, and the defendants admitted that they knew of the grand jury investigation once it began. See Perlstein, 126 F.2d at 795. Perlstein does not change the requirement that there has to be some proof that the conspirators knew of or anticipated a grand jury investigation. 16 participants need not be indicted. See United States v. Delpit, 94 F.3d 1134, 1150 (8th Cir. 1996); United States v. Krasovich, 819 F.2d 253, 255 (9th Cir. 1987). The critical flaw in the government's case is that there is no evidence in the record that any of Davis's alleged coconspirators had the necessary awareness of a pending or threatened judicial proceeding. In United States v. Molt, 615 F.2d 141 (3d Cir. 1980), we reversed a conspiracy conviction because, while there was overwhelming evidence that the defendant violated the substantive law, there was insufficient evidence of his alleged coconspirators' knowledge. [W]hen knowledge is an essential element of the underlying substantive offense, it must be proven that all co-conspirators possess the requisite knowledge. Id. at 146. That is, a person cannot conspire with himself; at least two conspirators must have sufficient knowledge in order for there to be a conspiracy. Molt's requirement is not met here. The government relied on Davis's status as a police officer to argue that he was aware of the pendency of a judicial proceeding. We have already rejected that conclusion, and none of the other alleged coconspirators were police officers. Two actually testified: Vittorio and Michael. Both testified for the government, though Michael was something of a hostile witness, and neither testified about his knowledge of a pending or foreseen judicial proceeding. While Vittorio was clearly a wrongdoer, and Michael and Maria no doubt knew that Davis's actions were not legitimate, we cannotfind any evidence that would allow a reasonable jury to conclude that they conspired to obstruct a judicial proceeding. Cf. Schramm, 75 F.3d at 160 (a defendant could not be convicted of conspiracy to commit mail fraud where there was no evidence that the defendant knew of the mail fraud, though he knew of many other illegal acts by his alleged coconspirators). Therefore, Davis's conspiracy conviction must also be reversed. C. Use of a Telephone in Furtherance of an Unlawful Act Counts 5-11 charged Davis with use of a telephone in aid of racketeering in violation of 18 U.S.C. S 1952, which provides in relevant part that 17 [w]hoever . . . uses any facility in interstate or foreign commerce, with intent to . . . promote, manage, carry on, or facilitate the promotion, management, establishment, or carrying on of any unlawful activity, and thereafter performs or attempts to perform [any of the acts specified commits an offense against the United States]. The unlawful activity charged is a violation of New York Penal Law S 200.25, receiving reward for official misconduct: A public servant is guilty of receiving reward for official misconduct in the second degree when he solicits, accepts or agrees to accept any benefit from another person for having violated his duty as a public servant. Under New York law, benefit is defined to include any gain or advantage to the beneficiary and includes any gain or advantage to a third person pursuant to the desire or consent of the beneficiary. N.Y. Penal LawS 10.00(17) (McKinney 1988), and the court so instructed the jury. The law does not require an agreement between the two parties, as the law against bribery does; it only requires a past violation of duty and a solicitation or acceptance of a benefit for the violation. The critical issue is whether Davis, a New York police officer at the relevant times, solicited a benefit within the meaning of the statute. The government's theory was that any harm to Sabol benefited Davis, whether in the form of Sabol's return to prison or Sabol's murder. Davis made a phone call to Pelatti's residence on February 18, 1994, that suggested that he perceived Sabol's presence as impeding his attempt to reconcile with Pelatti, and the government argues that his hope of ending Sabol's newfound freedom was a sufficient benefit. Although the New York Court of Appeals has not construed Penal Law S 200.25, the extant case law suggests that the government's theory of benefit goes too far. In People v. Hyde, 141 N.Y.S. 1089 (App. Div. 1913), the defendant, who had authority to deposit city money in banks, asked a bank manager to extend a loan to a friend of his, in return for which the defendant promised that he 18 would increase the amount of city funds on deposit at the manager's bank. He was charged with receiving a bribe. The court concluded that he could not be convicted of that crime because there was no showing of any personal advantage to him. The Hyde court rejected a prosecution theory similar to that proffered in this case, which is that the defendant's request for something is proof enough that getting it would be a benefit to him: The People . . . contend[ ] that the mere fact that Robin, for the Northern Bank, acceded to defendant's request that that bank should make the loan desired by the Carnegie Trust Company, of itself constituted a bribe and was manifestly a personal advantage and thing of value to defendant, and so the court charged as matter of law. It is quite clear that this position is untenable. It is not to be disputed that . . . what is commonly known by the collective word bribe, is something more than the personal satisfaction arising from the gratification of a wish. There must be something more flowing to the person who asks the favor--something of value to him, not necessarily of pecuniary or intrinsic value, but value in the sense of a personal advantage of some sort. The word advantage must be given its commonly accepted and natural meaning of something accruing to the benefit of the person receiving it. . . . . [A bribe] must consist of something real, substantial and of value to the receiver, as distinguished from something imaginary, illusive, or amounting to nothing more than the gratification of a wish or hope on his part. Id. at 1093 (emphasis added). Hyde is still commonly cited in prosecutions under section 200.25 and related laws. The most recent relevant case is People v. Feerick, 671 N.Y.S.2d 13 (App. Div. 1998). The majority sustained convictions under section 200.25 where the defendants, who were police officers, had committed various abuses of authority in their search for a lost police radio. The majority concluded that the return of the radio was a specific, personal benefit to these defendants as well as a benefit to 19 the Police Department. Id. at 21-22. The radio was being used by drug dealers in the area both to taunt the police and to monitor their activity, causing the officers embarrassment and jeopardy. See id. at 22. The case produced a vigorous dissent, which argued that the radio was only tenuously connected to the officers and that the enjoyment of its return was an insufficient benefit under the statute. The government argues that the majority opinion in Feerick supports its theory because retrieving the radio offered psychic benefits to the officers--the satisfaction of getting the radio back. Similarly, it argues, telling Vittorio about Sabol offered Davis the psychic benefit of harming Sabol. But Feerick did not turn on the defendants' nonpecuniary motives for seeking the radio; under the statute, a public servant is guilty if he solicits an item with de minimis market value but great personal value. The question is whether we can find anything sufficiently welldefined here that we might identify as a benefit. Other cases emphasize that a benefit must be definite in some way, although it need not be tangible. In People v. Dolan, 576 N.Y.S.2d 901 (App. Div. 1991), the defendant, a police officer, was accused of attempted bribery and attempted bribe receiving for threatening to stop transporting prisoners of a separate police jurisdiction to the County Jail unless the Sheriff of the other jurisdiction agreed to limit investigations by his department in the defendant's jurisdiction. The prosecution argued that the benefit sought by the defendant was a lessening of the possibility of discovery of alleged drug use by defendant and his friends. Id. at 904. The court rejected this theory and dismissed the charge. The court found that the benefit was not real, substantial and of value, but was rather imaginary, illusive or amounting to nothing more than the gratification of a wish or hope. Id. (citing Hyde). The Dolan court also dismissed a charge that the defendant received a benefit from agreeing to refrain from prosecuting a woman. The alleged benefit was that, in return for his forbearance, she would become a confidential police informant. The prosecution argued that thebenefit was that the defendant got a personal relationship with the 20 informant so that she would give him information about undercover Sheriff's operations relating to drug use by him and his friends. The court found that such a benefit would be highly speculative and consist only of a remote wish or an illusive hope on his part. Id. In People v. Esposito, 554 N.Y.S.2d 16 (App. Div. 1990), the chief of the Metro North Railroad Police conducted an unauthorized criminal record check on a company employee, in violation of his duty as a public servant. The alleged benefit was the utility to his employer of knowing relevant information, but the court found that this was too ill-defined to fall within the statutory prohibition. Likewise, in People v. Cavan, 376 N.Y.S.2d 65 (Sup. Ct. 1975), the defendant was charged with bribery when, on his arrest, he offered to assist the police in catching drug dealers in return for leniency. The court held that the benefit must not be so remote, abstract, or theoretical as to create speculation as to its ultimate value to the receiver. In the case at bar, it is doubtful if a vague offer to turn State's evidence, without anything further, constitutes such a benefit in the statutory sense. Id. at 67. In People v. Adams, 382 N.Y.S.2d 879 (County Ct. 1976), the defendant, a legislator, was part of a committee studying off-track betting. He prevailed upon an employee of a firm that had made a formal presentation to the committee to ghost-write a final report for the committee. The court found that the defendant had not received a benefit within the meaning of the penal law: The gist of the crime of bribery is the wrong done to the people by corruption in the public service. Thus, the public servant who agrees to and does manipulate events, not to benefit himself or a third party, but for the personal satisfaction of commanding obedience, is said to receive no bribe. Id. at 881 (citations omitted) (emphasis added). The court found that the supposed benefit was too nebulous to support a charge of receiving reward for official misconduct, 21 in that little credit would redound to him for the committee's report and there was no evidence that he benefited in any direct material way. We believe that the benefit here is too gossamer to fall within section 200.23. The government's theory would convert all violations of duty that involve at least one other person into violations of this statute. Under that approach, if an officer harasses a citizen, he or she receives the pleasure of having harassed the citizen, and that benefit comes (however unwillingly) from the citizen. If an officer declines to arrest someone when an arrest should occur, that person receives a benefit, and the benefit would be pursuant to [the officer's] desire and consent, within the prohibition of the statute. (The statute does not require any particular relationship between the officer and the person benefited, so long as the benefit accrues pursuant to the officer's desire and consent.) Essentially, this theory converts Davis's violation of his duty into a benefit by virtue of his desire to violate his duty and his hope for satisfaction from doing so. Where the alleged benefit consists of an intangible course of conduct, we think that it must be sufficiently specific to constitute a clearly defined and direct advantage to the defendant, or to a third party in whom he has some interest. Compare Dolan, 576 N.Y.S.2d at 404 (alleged benefit of lessened possibility of discovery of the defendant's other misconduct was insufficiently specific to fall within the statute), with People v. Hochberg, 404 N.Y.S.2d 161, 167 (App. Div. 1978) (a person's agreement not to run against the defendant in a primary election was a sufficiently direct benefit to constitute personal advantage to the defendant). It was the government's own theory that Davis wanted Sabol out of his life and did not care how, whether the mechanism was: (1) that Sabol's cooperation failed to produce results so that Sabol would return to prison; (2) that Sabol would be charged with violating his parole; or (3) that Sabol would be killed. Davis had no specific plan. We recognize that New York does not require a tangible benefit in order to find a violation of section 200.25, but we believe that the claimed benefit in this case is so intangible and speculative as to fall outside the reach of the statute. 22 The government has, however, a narrower theory, which it also argued to the jury: Davis wanted Vittorio to give him a gun in return for his damning information. Although the issue is close, we think that this is too tenuous a ground on which to uphold Davis's conviction. The link between the gun and the violation of duty is far more attenuated than what the New York courts seem willing to accept. In Feerick, for example, the only way for the officers to get what they wanted was to get the radio, while here receiving the gun was an incremental step in a possible plan to shoot Sabol, one of the least likely ways in which Davis could be rid of Sabol. The request was not part of an actual attempted murder, and it remained entirely hypothetical. Moreover, Davis's request for a gun was not necessarily tied to his violation of duty, nor was it in any way tied to his status as a police officer. If Vittorio had already known about Sabol's status, Davis could just as readily have asked for the gun, and Vittorio would have had as much reason to give it to him to take care of Sabol. In this instance, Davis acted like an obsessed person, not a corrupt police officer. Thus, we conclude that Davis's convictions for violating S 1952 must be set aside. D. Witness Tampering
Davis was also charged with witness tampering in violation of 18 U.S.C. S 1512(b): Whoever knowingly uses intimidation or physical force, threatens, or corruptly persuades another person, or attempts to do so, or engages in misleading conduct toward another person, with intent to . . . hinder, delay, or prevent the communication to a law enforcement officer or judge of the United States of information relating to the commission or possible commission of a Federal offense . . . shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. Unlike S 1503, S 1512 does not require an official proceeding to be pending or imminent at the time of the offense. A reasonable belief that the named witness will 23 communicate information to a law enforcement officer is enough to create liability under the statute. See United States v. Kozak, 438 F.2d 1062, 1066 (3d Cir. 1971). As discussed above, a reasonable jury clearly could have found that Davis believed that Sabol was communicating with the authorities. To be criminally liable, the defendant must know that his conduct has the natural and probable effect of interfering with the witness's communication, whether or not it succeeds. See United States v. Kenny, 973 F.2d 339, 344 (4th Cir. 1992). Davis indicated that he wanted Vittorio to stop dealing with Sabol and warned Vittorio that Sabol was setting him up. He also hoped that Vittorio would kill Sabol. The government argues that the natural, foreseeable, and probable consequence of Davis's acts was that Sabol would be killed or otherwise prevented from gaining and conveying information. Although we find the government's theory extremely broad, we conclude that Davis's conduct in this case falls within the statutory meaning of corrupt persuasion. Simply interfering with the flow of information to the government is not enough to constitute witness tampering. Suppose that Vittorio became suspicious of Sabol on his own and stopped talking to him, thus decreasing the amount of information Sabol could communicate to the government. By the government's theory, this would apparently constitute witness tampering by Vittorio. Or hypothesize that Michael tried to dissuade Vittorio from his criminal ways, using as one of his arguments the proposition that the government had infiltrated the Giampa Crew. By the government's theory, this would apparently constitute witness tampering by Michael. Indeed, a lawyer's instruction to a client not to speak to potential government witnesses, including government investigators, would also apparently constitute witness tampering by this theory, except that the statute excludes lawful, bona fide legal services in connection with or anticipation of an official proceeding. See 18 U.S.C. S 1515(c). A defendant's husband or mother, however, would not fall within this safe harbor if he or she advised a defendant to keep silent when approached by potential witnesses. 24 Our rejection of the government's broad theory has a basis in the statute. Because there is no allegation that Davis used misleading conduct,4 intimidation, physical force, or threats, we limit our inquiry to whether he engaged in corrupt persuasion with the relevant intent.
The Ninth Circuit has held that lying to a witness is not corrupt persuasion, though appealing to a witness to avoid testifying truthfully in order to protect one's career would be. See United States v. Aguilar, 21 F.3d 1475, 1485-86 (9th Cir. 1994) (en banc), rev'd on other grounds, 515 U.S. 593 (1995). United States v. Poindexter, 951 F.2d 369 (D.C. Cir. 1991), gives more guidance on the meaning of corrupt persuasion. Poindexter interpreted 18 U.S.C.S 1505, which prohibits obstructing proceedings before congressional committees. Poindexter was charged with obstruction of justice for lying to Congress, which the government argued was corrupt persuasion. The majority held that the term could not be extended to encompass simple lying to a congressional committee. As the court explained, corruptly has two possible meanings, transitive and intransitive. The transitive meaning would involve persuading another by means of corruption or bribery, while the intransitive would involve persuading wickedly or immorally, that is, with a bad motive. Poindexter endorsed the transitive meaning in order to avoid what it perceived as a potentially unconstitutional vagueness, and also because the other terms in the statute were transitive (by threats, by force, etc.). It further found that corrupt persuasion could not be cabined simply by saying that the term covered influencing another to act `immorally' or `improperly,'  as that simply substitutes one indefinite term for another. _________________________________________________________________ 4. Several courts have held that asking a witness to tell what he knows to be a lie is not misleading conduct because there is nothing misleading about a request to lie. See, e.g., United States v. Kulczyk, 931 F.2d 542, 546 (9th Cir. 1991); United States v. King, 762 F.2d 232 (2d Cir. 1985). The government has not identified any way in which Davis's conduct was misleading. Indeed, on the government's own theory he told the truth as he perceived it: Sabol was an informant. If asking for a lie is not misleading to the target, surely telling the truth is not. 25 The Poindexter court determined that corrupt persuasion is  `corrupting' another person by influencing him to violate his legal duty, id. at 379, and that thecore of the statutory prohibition of corrupt persuasion was aimed at a person who, for the purpose of influencing an inquiry, influences another person (through bribery or otherwise) to violate a legal duty, id. at 385. See also United States v. Morrison, 98 F.3d 619, 630 (D.C. Cir. 1996) (influencing a witness to violate her legal duty to testify truthfully constituted corrupt persuasion under S 1512(b)). We approved of Poindexter's reasoning in theS 1512 context in United States v. Farrell, 126 F.3d 484 (3d Cir. 1997). Farrell was convicted of witness tampering for attempting to dissuade a coconspirator from providing information to federal investigators about Farrell's involvement in a conspiracy. We reversed his conviction: Without any definitional assistance, we find the phrase corruptly persuades to be ambiguous. We agree with Farrell that the phrase cannot mean simply persuades with the intent to hinder communication to law enforcement because such an interpretation would render the word corruptly meaningless. Farrell, 126 F.3d at 487. While we were confident that bribing someone to withhold information or persuading someone to provide false information would be corrupt persuasion, we declined to define the term more abstractly. See id. at 488. Farrell concluded that the statute did not cover a noncoercive attempt to persuade a coconspirator who had a Fifth Amendment right not to disclose information about the conspiracy to refrain, in accordance with that right, from volunteering information to investigators. See id. at 488.5 The government argues that Farrell is distinguishable because the defendant in that case was acting in furtherance of his own interest in avoiding a coconspirator's disclosure of a crime, while here Davis was a malicious _________________________________________________________________ 5. We declined, however, to resolve whether discouraging the testimony of a potential witness who did not possess a Fifth Amendment privilege of his or her own would violate S 1512. See Farrell, 126 F.3d at 489 n.3. 26 interloper. While we agree that Davis may have violated S 1512(b), see infra, we caution that Davis's malicious purpose to expose an informant is insufficient under Farrell to justify a conviction: We read the inclusion of corruptly in S 1512(b) as necessarily implying that an individual can persuade another not to disclose information to a law enforcement official with the intent of hindering an investigation without violating the statute, i.e., without doing so corruptly. Thus, more culpability is required for a statutory violation than that involved in the act of attempting to discourage disclosure in order to hinder an investigation. Id. at 489. Davis may be properly convicted under S 1512(b) because there was testimony that he suggested that Vittorio should kill Sabol and asked Vittorio for a gun so that Davis himself could kill Sabol. By suggesting that Vittorio should do something about Sabol or get Davis a gun, Davis urged Vittorio to violate his legal duty not to kill Sabol or aid in Sabol's death. This conduct would constitute corrupt persuasion under the statute. The fact that Davis never had direct contact with Sabol is irrelevant, because all that is required under S 1512(b) is that a defendant corruptly persuade another person with the requisite intent. That person need not be the witness. Moreover, Vittorio's testimony that he was never persuaded to kill Sabol does not exonerate Davis. If Davis intended to corruptly persuade, his attempt violates the statute.6 _________________________________________________________________ 6. Although Davis does not raise the issue, we note that the District Court's instruction on corrupt persuasion does not track Farrell. The Court instructed the jury that [t]he word`corruptly' means having improper motive or purpose of obstructing justice. SA at 1426. Farrell and Poindexter suggest that this instruction provides insufficient guidance to the jury, as anyone with the intent to interfere with an investigation has improper motives. On remand, the Court should clarify that corrupt persuasion involves more than an improper motive, and includes inducements to violence. 27