Opinion ID: 787192
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 6

Heading: Amendment and variance

Text: 75 Defendants claim that the district court was only able to deny their dismissal motions by constructively amending the indictment. They point to the court's statement, in denying these motions, that it seems to the Court that the indictment alleges that what the Defendants are accused of doing is having conducted the affairs of the City through a pattern of racketeering activity. Defendants also claim that post-trial, the district court erroneously concluded that the indictment could have alleged that the City was an innocent, unwitting participant in the criminal enterprise. This, defendants contend, conflicts with how they understood the indictment — that the City was a culpable participant in the RICO enterprise — and hence constituted a constructive amendment of the indictment. 76 An amendment of the indictment occurs when the charging terms of the indictment are altered, either literally or in effect, by the prosecutor or the court after the grand jury has returned the indictment. United States v. Dubon-Otero, 292 F.3d 1 (1st Cir.2002). Amending the indictment is considered prejudicial per se and thus demands reversal. Id. at 4. The government argues that regardless of the alleged disparity between the indictment and the trial judge's characterization thereof, there was no constructive amendment where the court instructed the jury on the theory as charged. Indeed, the court specifically instructed, without objection from either party, that the Government must prove that the Defendant[s] knowingly and willfully joined the conspiracy with knowledge of its unlawful purpose and with the intent that the purpose would be accomplished. 77 We find defendants' claimed understanding of the illicit-purpose RICO enterprise charged in the indictment to be both inaccurate and disingenuous. The indictment does not compel a reading that the City itself (or its constituent agencies) had to be found criminally culpable, as we explain in more detail supra. Defendants allude to United States v. Weissman, 899 F.2d 1111, 1115 (11th Cir.1990), where the Eleventh Circuit held that the district court's jury charge in effect altered an essential element of the crime charged in the indictment. Here, the charge was taken largely from the indictment. No intimations by the court recast the essential elements of RICO outlined in the indictment. At no point, pre-trial or post-trial, did the district court transform the charged association-in-fact enterprise into a legal-purpose or legal-entity enterprise. The court's descriptions of the enterprise were in accord with the breadth of the enterprise charged in the indictment and the breadth the Supreme Court has assigned to RICO overall. 78 Alternatively, defendants contend that disparities between the indictment and the evidence resulted in a prejudicial variance. A variance arises when the proof at trial depicts a scenario that differs materially from the scenario limned in the indictment. United States v. Villarman-Oviedo, 325 F.3d 1, 12 (1st Cir.2003) (internal quotation marks omitted). A variance requires reversal only when it is both material and prejudicial, for example, if the variance works a substantial interference with the defendant's right to be informed of the charges laid at his doorstep. Id. (internal quotations marks omitted). 79 First, we reiterate that the jury's acquittals on the substantive counts and negative decisions on the racketeering acts listed under Count Two do not make the evidence underlying those counts and acts irrelevant to the RICO conspiracy count. Second, we repeat that the evidence as a whole, viewed in the light most favorable to the verdict, is sufficient as to the RICO conspiracy convictions for all three defendants. Accordingly, defendants' reliance on United States v. Morales, 185 F.3d 74 (2d Cir.1999) (reversing RICO convictions where evidence established that defendants had all been incarcerated early in the period of racketeering activity alleged in the indictment), is misplaced. The evidence at trial, covering acts that occurred from 1991 to 1999 as charged in the indictment, tracked and satisfied the RICO elements and factual allegations contained in the indictment.