Opinion ID: 510217
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Lazar

Text: 139 (a) Misjoinder. Under Fed.R.Crim.P. 8(b), [t]wo or more defendants may be charged in the same indictment ... if they are alleged to have participated in the same act or transaction or in the same series of acts or transactions constituting an offense or offenses. Although Rule 8(b) limits a prosecutor's power to charge multiple defendants in a single proceeding, that power is probably at its greatest when RICO conspiracy charges are brought. As Judge Sofaer has observed: 140 The mere allegation of a conspiracy presumptively satisfies Rule 8(b), since the allegation implies that the defendants named have engaged in the same series of acts or transactions constituting an offense. The presence of a substantive RICO count under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1962(c), and of a RICO conspiracy count under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1962(d), further broadens the government's power to charge multiple defendants together. A RICO charge under Sec. 1962(c) necessarily incorporates allegations that each of the defendants named was associated with or employed by the same enterprise, and participated in the enterprise by engaging in at least two acts of racketeering related to the enterprise. In short, by loosening the statutory requirements for what constitutes joint criminal activity, Congress limited the force of Rule 8(b) in such situations. 141 United States v. Castellano, 610 F.Supp. 1359, 1396 (S.D.N.Y.1985). We have similarly noted that a construction of Rule 8(b) that required a closer relationship between transactions than that necessary to establish a 'pattern of racketeering activity' under RICO might possibly prohibit joinder in circumstances where Congress clearly envisioned a single trial. United States v. Weisman, 624 F.2d 1118, 1129 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 449 U.S. 871, 101 S.Ct. 209, 66 L.Ed.2d 91 (1980); accord United States v. Teitler, 802 F.2d 606, 616 (2d Cir.1986). In evaluating the defendants' claims of misjoinder under Rule 8(b), then, our task is limited simply to determining whether the indictment properly alleged their participation in a RICO conspiracy. 142 Lazar claims that he was misjoined because the indictment failed to allege facts sufficient to establish his membership in the single RICO conspiracy charged in the indictment. Specifically, he contends that nothing in the indictment connects him with either Friedman or Kaplan and that allegations of his bribery on behalf of Datacom and Miller & Rothman did not suffice to support an inference of conspiratorial agreement among Lazar and his codefendants. As explained in more detail in Part B(1)(b) immediately infra, a RICO conspiracy is by definition broader than an ordinary conspiracy to commit a discrete crime. Each member of a RICO conspiracy need only conspire to participate in the affairs of the alleged enterprise through two predicate crimes. Unrelated crimes by others participating in the affairs of the enterprise are thus part of the RICO conspiracy. Accordingly, the indictment properly alleged Lazar's membership in an overall conspiracy to operate the PVB as a racketeering enterprise. 143 (b) Proof of a Single Conspiracy. In an extension of his misjoinder argument, Lazar asserts that his RICO conviction should be reversed because the evidence at trial demonstrated the existence of multiple conspiracies instead of the single RICO conspiracy charged in the indictment. He argues that the government presented no evidence of any conspiratorial agreement between Lazar and the defendants added in the fourth superseding indictment, Friedman and Kaplan. According to Lazar, the government proved some eight conspiracies, with Lazar and the PVB on the one hand and the added defendants and the PVB in a variety of schemes on the other. Lazar asserts that the government's evidence of multiple conspiracies created a material variance. These contentions are also without merit. 144 Whether the evidence in a case establishes single or multiple conspiracies is a question of fact to be resolved by a properly instructed jury. E.g., United States v. Nersesian, 824 F.2d 1294, 1302 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 355, 357, 98 L.Ed.2d 382 (1987), --- U.S. ----, 108 S.Ct. 1018, 98 L.Ed.2d 983 (1988). Although Judge Knapp gave the jury an instruction on multiple conspiracies, Lazar contends that the instruction was inadequate and failed even to submit [the issue] intelligibly to the jury. Because Lazar waived this claim by failing to object in the district court, see supra Discussion Part A(1)(b), we review the multiple-conspiracies charge for plain error. 145 The charge, which is set out in the margin, 5 correctly stated that the jury could not convict unless it found that the defendant was a member of the conspiracy described in the indictment. See, e.g., United States v. DiTomasso, 817 F.2d 201, 211 & n. 11 (2d Cir.1987). The apparent objection to the charge is that it lacked language specifically referring to the possibility that the jury might find conspiracies other than, or in addition to, the one alleged in the indictment. Whether or not inclusion of such language is preferable, its omission hardly amounts to plain error going to the very essence of the case. United States v. Calfon, 607 F.2d 29, 31 (2d Cir.1979) (per curiam) (quoting United States v. Fontenot, 483 F.2d 315, 322 (5th Cir.1973)), cert. denied, 444 U.S. 1085, 100 S.Ct. 1044, 62 L.Ed.2d 771 (1980). Judge Knapp's instruction plainly stated that Lazar could be convicted only of the conspiracy charged in the indictment and that he had to be acquitted if he was guilty of membership in a conspiracy other than the one charged. A jury following that instruction could not have convicted Lazar of some other conspiracy. 146 The only remaining question is whether the evidence was sufficient to support the jury's conclusion that the government had proven Lazar's membership in the single RICO conspiracy charged in the indictment. Proof of a single conspiracy requires evidence that the alleged coconspirators agreed on a 'common purpose' that sufficed to render their activities 'a single enterprise.'  United States v. Heinemann, 801 F.2d 86, 92 (2d Cir.1986) (quoting Kotteakos v. United States, 328 U.S. 750, 769, 66 S.Ct. 1239, 1250, 90 L.Ed. 1557 (1946)), cert. denied, 479 U.S. 1094, 107 S.Ct. 1308, 94 L.Ed.2d 163 (1987). At the same time, however, a single conspiracy is not transposed into a multiple one simply by lapse of time, change in membership, or a shifting emphasis on its locale of operations. Id. (quoting United States v. Cambindo Valencia, 609 F.2d 603, 625 (2d Cir.1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 940, 100 S.Ct. 2163, 64 L.Ed.2d 795 (1980)). Moreover, there is no requirement that each member of a conspiracy conspire directly with every other member of the conspiracy. This is especially true with respect to a RICO conspiracy. As the Fifth Circuit has explained: 147 The gravamen of a RICO conspiracy charge is that each [defendant] agreed to participate, directly and indirectly, in the affairs of the enterprise by commiting two or more predicate crimes. Under RICO it is irrelevant whether each defendant participated in the enterprise's affairs through different, even unrelated crimes, so long as we may reasonably infer that each crime was intended to further the enterprise's affairs. 148 United States v. Stratton, 649 F.2d 1066, 1074 (5th Cir. Unit A July 1981) (citation omitted) (emphasis added) (quoting United States v. Elliott, 571 F.2d 880, 902 (5th Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 953, 99 S.Ct. 349, 58 L.Ed.2d 344 (1978)). A RICO conspiracy is thus by definition broader than an ordinary conspiracy to commit a discrete crime such as bribery. So long as the alleged RICO co-conspirators have agreed to participate in the affairs of the same enterprise, the mere fact that they do not conspire directly with each other does not convert the single agreement to conduct the affairs of an enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity into multiple conspiracies. United States v. Persico, 621 F.Supp. 842, 856 (S.D.N.Y.1985). 149 We have no difficulty in concluding that the evidence supported the jury's finding of a single RICO conspiracy. Here, the RICO enterprise was the PVB, a municipal agency rife with corruption. Faced with abundant evidence that Lazar had paid bribes on behalf of two firms--Datacom and Miller & Rothman--the jury could easily have found that he knew that bribery was an important, if not essential, tool in ensuring success in obtaining contracts from the PVB. The jury could then have concluded that Lazar knew that he was not simply participating in isolated bribery conspiracies but rather in the broader conspiracy charged in the indictment, a conspiracy to operate the PVB for private gain through a pattern of racketeering activity. 150 Lazar's multiple-conspiracies claim rests heavily on his lack of direct contact with either Kaplan or Friedman, and on the evidence that he and Friedman were if anything[,] ... competitors of sorts. This observation, however, misses the point. As already noted, each member of a conspiracy need not directly conspire with every other member. If anything indeed, the arguably competitive relationship between Lazar and Friedman actually supports the jury's finding that each had participated in the affairs of the PVB. Specifically, the fact that Delario, at Kaplan's suggestion, decided to employ Friedman in Lazar's former role as Datacom's bribe conduit supports the view that Friedman had succeeded Lazar in fulfilling a single role in an ongoing conspiracy to operate the PVB for private gain. Finally, Delario's expressed hope that Lindenauer would be more comfortable with Friedman than he had been with Lazar suggests that Delario and others shared the view that Friedman and Lazar had successively filled a single job in a continuing enterprise. Accordingly, we find no merit in Lazar's multiple-conspiracies claim. 151 (c) Prejudicial Spillover. Lazar nevertheless asserts that he was prejudiced by the admission of a great deal of evidence that he contends would have been inadmissible against him in a properly severed trial. Although he makes no reference to Fed.R.Crim.P. 14, we construe this argument as a claim that Judge Knapp erred in refusing to sever his trial under Rule 14. We conclude, however, that the claim so construed has no merit. 152 A defendant raising a claim of prejudicial spillover bears an extremely heavy burden. Indeed, a motion to sever under Rule 14 is committed to the discretion of the trial court and is virtually unreviewable. United States v. Stirling, 571 F.2d 708, 733 (2d Cir.) (quoting 8 J. Moore, Moore's Federal Practice p 14.02, at 14-3 (2d ed.1977)), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 824, 99 S.Ct. 93, 58 L.Ed.2d 116 (1978). To show an abuse of this discretion, it will not suffice simply to establish that a defendant would have had a better chance of obtaining an acquittal at a separate trial. E.g., id.; United States v. DeSapio, 435 F.2d 272, 280 (2d Cir.1970), cert. denied, 402 U.S. 999, 91 S.Ct. 2170, 29 L.Ed.2d 166 (1971). Rather, the defendant must show that he or she suffered prejudice so substantial as to amount to a miscarriage of justice. United States v. Bari, 750 F.2d 1169, 1177 (2d Cir.1984), cert. denied, 472 U.S. 1019, 105 S.Ct. 3482, 87 L.Ed.2d 617 (1985). 153 Lazar has clearly failed to make a colorable showing that he has suffered such substantial prejudice. As already noted, the evidence was sufficient to establish that each of the defendants had participated in a single RICO conspiracy. Lazar was thus a fully implicated conspirator, and most of the evidence of which he complains would have been admissible against him in a separate trial as acts of co-conspirators in the furtherance of a conspiracy. Id. at 1178; see also United States v. Nersesian, 824 F.2d at 1304 (in trial lasting five months, government entitled to present the entire range of evidence of the conspiracy against each of sixteen defendants). Lazar's contrary contention, that much of the evidence at trial would have been inadmissible in a properly severed trial, is based on the already-rejected premise that he and his co-defendants were not co-conspirators. In any event, Lazar's acquittal of the racketeering act involving his alleged bribery of Shafran demonstrates that the jury individualized its consideration of the evidence against each defendant.