Opinion ID: 529953
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Admissions Against the United States

Text: 129 Furst sought to introduce a February, 1986, administrative complaint of the Commodities Futures Trading Corporation (CFTC) which had alleged that FCCB/FFCM had made fraudulent misrepresentations together with a subsequent federal grand jury indictment of FCCB/FFCM. He presented both the complaint and the indictment as adoptive admissions of the United States but the district court admitted neither the complaint nor the indictment. We need not address Furst's rather resourceful argument on this point, as even if, which we doubt, the district court erroneously excluded this evidence, the exclusion was clearly harmless. 130 The complaint and indictment were offered to undermine the credibility of the FCCB/FFCM statements. As we indicated above, the FCCB/FFCM statements themselves were irrelevant to Furst's conviction under counts V, VI, and VII except to the extent they indicated the $700,000.00 loss and Furst's knowledge of that loss. Similarly, under counts X and XI the admission of the FCCB/FFCM records was harmless error. 28 Having concluded that it was highly probable that the FCCB/FFCM records did not contribute to the jury's judgment of conviction, it follows that if the exclusion of the evidence tending to undermine those records was erroneous, it also was harmless error. 131 In addition, even had the jury relied on the FCCB/FFCM statements, we would continue to view the exclusion of the administrative complaint and indictment as harmless. As the district court noted, Furst had succeeded in introducing other evidence of the government investigations of FCCB/FFCM. See appellant's app. at 634-44, 688-91. The same allegations which were the subject of the administrative complaint and indictment were elicited in the form of testimony, as the subject was discussed in the cross examination of Burns, see Trial Transcript of Jan. 10, 1989, at 24-26, 28-31, 40, 46-47, and in the cross examination of Aderhold, see Trial Transcript of Jan. 11, 1989, at 91-93. Furthermore, the large losses attributable to the FCCB/FFCM investment were known to the jury and it is our sense from the record that anything regarding FCCB/FFCM must have seemed suspect to the jury. 132 Consequently, the error, if any, in excluding evidence attacking the credibility of the records was harmless.