Opinion ID: 366306
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The I.R.S. Case

Text: 16 In what will hereinafter be referred to as the I.R.S. case, defendant was convicted of the electronic interception of oral communications in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2511(1)(b)(iv)(A) and of conspiracy to commit that offense in contravention of 18 U.S.C. § 371. 17 18 U.S.C. § 2511(1)(b)(iv)(A) was enacted as part of Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Pub.L.No.90-351, 82 Stat. 197. It provides: 18 Except as otherwise specifically provided in this chapter any person who 19 (b) willfully uses, endeavors to use, or procures any other person to use or endeavor to use any electronic, mechanical, or other device to intercept any oral communication when 20 (iv) such use or endeavor to use (A) takes place on the premises of any business or other commercial establishment the operations of which affect interstate or foreign commerce . . . 21 shall be fined not more than $10,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. 22 The offense includes four essential elements that the Government was required to allege and prove: that an interception was effected through the use of an electronic or mechanical device, that it was done willfully, that it was an interception of an oral communication, and that the interception occurred on the premises of a business the operation of which affected interstate commerce. The term oral communication is defined in 18 U.S.C. § 2510(2) as any oral communication uttered by a person exhibiting an expectation that such communication is not subject to interception under circumstances justifying such expectation.A. The Indictment 23 Duncan begins his attack on these convictions by challenging the indictment. The indictment consisted of two counts, the first alleging the conspiracy and the second setting forth the substantive offense in a paraphrase of the statute. 1 Our concern at this point is with the latter. 2 It provided in essence that between September 1, 1971 and January 31, 1973, defendant willfully used a radio transmitter to intercept oral communications between certain individuals then present in a third floor office in the Northwestern Bank Building and that the operations of that bank affected interstate commerce. 24 Rule 7(c)(1) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure provides an indictment shall be a plain, concise and definite written statement of the essential facts constituting the offense charged. Fed.R.Crim.P. 7(c)(1). The basic requirement mandates that each essential element of the offense be alleged together with sufficient additional facts to allow the indictment to be used as proof in bar of a subsequent prosecution for the same offense. Moreover, the facts alleged should be sufficiently detailed to apprise the defendant of the charge against him so that the may prepare his defense. This latter function, however, may often be satisfied through the use of a bill of particulars or discovery. 3 25 Defendant challenges the second count of the indictment for failure to allege an essential element of the offense, that a justifiable expectation of privacy be exhibited by the participants to the intercepted conversations. Use of the term oral communications and citation to the statute involved 4 sufficiently apprised defendant of this element. United States v. Carroll, 332 F.Supp. 1299 (D.D.C.1971). The Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure have abandoned the excessive technicality demanded of an indictment by the common law. While perhaps suited to an age when the typical punishment for many crimes was death and some amelioration of those rigors, albeit indirect, was necessary, technicality of this sort is no longer justified. See Medalie, Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure, 4 Law. Guild Rev., June-July 1944, at 1, 3. We note that defendant's principal defense at trial went to this element. Clearly, he was informed of the charges against him. 26 Defendant also asserts that in the context of an indictment covering a seventeen month period use of the language certain individuals is too imprecise to inform him of the charges for which he was called to answer. The identity of the conversant whose communications are intercepted is not an element of the offense of electronic eavesdropping. Indeed, his identity is only pertinent insofar as it relates to the speaker's expectation of privacy in his conversation and, as just explained, that element of the offense was sufficiently alleged. To the extent defendant is suggesting that the indictment did not apprise him that he was charged with electronically eavesdropping on agents of the Internal Revenue Service, we find the claim patently without merit. While defendant was denied a bill of particulars, the investigative file of the United States Attorney's office was opened for his inspection. The apprisal function of an indictment may be satisfied in this manner. See United States v. Schembari, 484 F.2d 931, 935 (4th Cir. 1973). Moreover, the substantive offense in issue here was charged in the second count of a two count indictment, the first of which alleged a conspiracy to commit the substantive offense and which explained in detail whose conversations were intercepted and exactly how it was done. 5 27 B. Privacy Expectations of the IRS Agents: Proof and Instructions 28 Defendant assigns a cluster of errors related to the trial court's handling of the issue whether the IRS agents exhibited a justifiable expectation that their conversations were not subject to interception. Some of these relate to the admission and exclusion of evidence, some to the instructions given the jury, some to the refusal to give requested instructions, and some to the sufficiency of the evidence to support a jury finding against the defendant on this issue. We treat these together because of their interrelatedness. 29 Viewed in the light most favorable to the Government, United States v. Sherman, 421 F.2d 198 (4th Cir. 1970) (per curiam), we conclude that the evidence was amply sufficient to support the jury's verdict against the defendant on this element of the offense. The mere fact that the agents came to the bank for the avowed purpose of conducting a confidential investigation would be a sufficient basis to find that they had and exhibited the expectation. Defendant's basic challenge is to the other aspect of the element, the justifiability of the expectation. Here too, there was ample evidence to support a jury finding. The agents were supplied with keys not only to the office, but to the filing cabinet within, an obvious assurance that their privacy was to be respected. Additionally, the agents testified that they gave no one permission to monitor their conversation and that they allowed no one to stand outside their frequently opened door on a regular basis. The eavesdrop tapes revealed language by the agents that a jury could readily infer they would not have used in public or around strangers, and conversations concerning matters related to the investigation that obviously were not for public consumption. 30 Duncan's main argument however was not with the sufficiency of the evidence favorable to the Government on the issue, but with the failure of the trial court to give him the benefit through jury instructions of various theories that he contends were relevant to show that the agents could not have had any justifiable expectation of privacy. The first of these theories was based upon evidence that the agents suspected that their conversations might possibly be monitored, though no direct indications of this possibility were manifested. On this evidence the trial court's position was that while actual knowledge might have this effect, mere suspicion of the possibility of interception would not. The jury was so instructed. 6 We believe that the trial judge properly applied the law defining the statutory offense to the evidence in this case. Certainly the law does not contemplate that the expectation required here shall be one held with perfect certitude that it is being respected at all times. At some point along the path of developing suspicion it must surely be possible for an originally justified expectation to become unjustified, but just as surely that point is not reached when a first glimmer of generalized suspicion that something Could or Might be amiss is aroused. Such was the burden of the instructions given here, and on the actual evidence here adduced of possible suspicion subjectively felt by these agents, they accurately applied these principles. 7 31 Electronic eavesdropping is by its nature difficult to detect. The capacity of modern electronics to invade the traditional sanctuaries for the maintenance of individuality and humanity was a principal concern of Congress when § 2511 was enacted. See note 12 Infra. If by merely creating a generalized suspicion that a victim's communications were possibly being intercepted, while at the same time avoiding detection, an electronic eavesdropper could bootstrap his activity from the proscribed to the permitted, the congressional purpose would be frustrated. 8 32 Defendant offers four other theories why the agents' expectation that they were not being monitored could not have been justifiable: because the owner of the premises, Duncan, as president of the bank, consented to the interception; because of the history of hostility between the bank and the I.R.S.; because the agents were strangers on the premises; and because the voices of the agents could be heard outside the office in which they worked. He complains that the district court's evidentiary rulings and instructions deprived him of the benefit of these theories to his prejudice. 33 Defendant's consent theory is predicated on dictum in a footnote to Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 89 S.Ct. 961, 22 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969): Those who converse and are overheard when the owner is not present also have a valid objection (to surreptitious interception and recording of their conversations) Unless the owner of the premises has consented to the surveillance. Id. at 179 n.11, 89 S.Ct. at 970 n.11 (emphasis added). 9 However helpful to defendant a reading of this cryptic dictum may seem when lifted out of context, in context it simply has not the expansive implications for which he contends. Alderman was a standing case, posing centrally the issue whether the owner of premises has a constitutionally protectible privacy interest in the conversation of others surreptitiously intercepted on those premises. Alderman held that he does. The quoted dictum was an aside pointing out that so also did a visitor on the premises have a protectible privacy interest in his own conversations except as that might have been lost through application of the third party consent doctrine developed in traditional tangible object search cases. Under that doctrine a search or interception victim may be deemed to have assumed the risk that a third party may permit a search or interception by the police (or by others otherwise prohibited) of premises or objects over which the target and the third party share control or access. Application of the doctrine thus depends on the existence of circumstances making it reasonable for the searcher or interceptor to assume that the target has no privacy expectation in respect of the particular premises or object. See, e. g., United States v. Block, 590 F.2d 535, 539-40 (4th Cir. 1978). In whatever way third party consent doctrine may transpose to the context of a premises owner's consent to electronic surveillance of the conversations of visitors on his premises by Others than himself, it simply cannot be transposed to the situation where, as here, the consenter and the interceptor are one and the same. Any attempt to apply third party consent doctrine to the facts of this case simply returns us to the justifiable expectation of privacy analysis written into the eavesdropping statute. Alderman does not stand for the flat proposition apparently contended for by defendant that every visitor on the premises of another assumes the risk of electronic surveillance by the owner or others while there. See United States v. Rizzo, 583 F.2d 907 (7th Cir. 1978); Simpson v. Simpson, 490 F.2d 803, 808-09 (5th Cir. 1974). To interpret the eavesdropping statute in this way would put its application completely at the mercy of the owner or controller of premises covered by the statute. This cannot accord with congressional intent. 34 In one of his more novel contentions, defendant next asserts that the agents' expectation of privacy could not be justifiable because of the history of hostility between the I.R.S. and the bank. In support of this theory, defendant introduced testimony that a photocopy of a refund check won by the bank through litigation with the I.R.S. hung on the wall of the office of Edwin Duncan, Sr., father of the defendant and at the time of the alleged criminal activity chairman of the board of Northwestern Financial Corporation, parent company of the bank. When defendant sought to introduce evidence that the agents' requests for bank documents met with resistance, thereby hoping further to establish an atmosphere of hostility, the trial court refused the proof and instructed that it would not matter whether the conversations intercepted had taken place in the camp of one's arch enemy. The trial judge also refused to instruct the jury on the hostility theory. Defendant asserts this was error, relying on a number of cases that have held that statements made by a prisoner in police custody may not be considered justifiably private. Whatever the precise scope of that doctrine, it simply will not transpose in logic to the situation presented here. The significant fact in the cases involving statements uttered while in police custody is not the hostility between officer and suspect; it is the fact that the speaker was in police custody. Those cases simply announce a societal decision that one may not reasonably expect his utterances to be private while he is being held in police custody for violation of the law. See note 7 Supra. Here again, defendant contends for a principle that would permit the bootstrapping of proscribed activity into permitted activity by unilateral action of the person charged, here by the simple expedient of fomenting or creating the appearances of hostility. The district court properly concluded that this was an impermissible interpretation of the statute and so declined to give an instruction having that effect. 35 Relying on the case of United States v. Pui Kan Lam, 483 F.2d 1202 (2d Cir. 1973), defendant next contends that the agents were strangers at the bank and therefore could not justifiably have expected privacy. Again, the principle invoked is inapposite to the facts of this case. In Pui Kan Lam, by arrangement with the police an apartment resident admitted to his apartment four persons strangers to him who were suspected of involvement in drug dealings with a former occupant. While in the apartment, these persons' conversations were overheard by the police using electronic means. Over objections that the interception violated their justifiable privacy expectations, the conversations were held admissible in evidence. While one who enters the apartment of a person he does not know may well have no justifiable reason to expect that anything he might say while in that apartment would be private, the I.R.S. agents in the case at bar were speaking in an office that had been provided for them and which they had regularly occupied as primary tenants for a year or more. The Pui Kan Lam case provides no support to defendant's stranger on the premises theory. 36 Defendant's final theory that the agents could not justifiably expect privacy is that the walls of the office were so thin that ordinary conversation could be heard through them and that the agents frequently left the door to the tiny, unventilated office open and their voices could easily be heard in the hall. While the trial court allowed all the proffered evidence on their point to be admitted, it did refuse a requested instruction on the point. We conclude that the requested instruction, which is set forth in its entirety in the margin, 10 would have been much more favorable to the defendant than the law or the facts in evidence justified and that the trial judge did not therefore err in refusing to give it. 37 That conversations in a business office may be overheard through the open door of that office does not necessarily preclude those conversations from being oral communications protected from interception by the statute. United States v. McIntyre, 582 F.2d 1221 (9th Cir. 1978). All the facts and circumstances must be evaluated to determine whether a justifiable expectation that a person's conversations are not subject to interception is exhibited. S.Rep.No.1097, Supra note 9, at 2178. A particularized rather than an abstract inquiry is required in specific adjudication of the issue. We conclude that the jury was adequately instructed and that there was sufficient evidence upon which they could find that the I.R.S. agents did have a justifiable expectation of privacy, notwithstanding there was evidence that on some occasions their conversations within the bugged office might have been overheard without aid of the electronic device. 38 Defendant's arguments on this issue come eventually to, or very near to, the proposition that the mere existence of the technology of electronic interception of speech coupled with general knowledge of its pervasiveness makes impossible any justifiable expectation of privacy against these devices in contemporary society. The very enactment by Congress of the statute in issue indicates that Congress did not accept this dismal assessment. So to interpret the statute would in practical effect eviscerate it by denying the more hopeful contrary premise on which it is based. We decline to do that. C. The Interstate Commerce Nexus 39 Defendant next contends that the evidence was insufficient to show the requisite nexus between the electronic eavesdropping charged to him and interstate commerce. Recently, in United States v. Burroughs, 564 F.2d 1111 (4th Cir. 1977), we noted that the interception of . . . oral communications under § 2511(1)(b)(i)-(iv) specifically require(s) a showing of an effect upon interstate commerce to establish a violation of the statute. Id. at 1113 (emphasis omitted). From this, defendant argues that the Government was required to prove that the interception of the oral communications of the I.R.S. agents itself affected interstate commerce. 40 While this is the basic thrust of defendant's contentions, the details are more elaborate, as are the Government's counter contentions. As noted, defendant was charged with a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2511(1)(b)(iv)(A) which prohibits the willful interception of oral communications on the premises of a business whose operations affect interstate commerce. Defendant initially contends that that provision was intended to reach only the electronic interception of trade secrets. This is initially argued as a matter of congressional intent, and the proposition is then reiterated as a matter of constitutional necessity. Conceding that the interception of trade secrets would constitute a sufficient effect on interstate commerce, defendant asserts that only by such a construction can subsection (iv)(A) be kept within the reach of Congress' power over commerce. 41 The Government advances several arguments against the contention that the statute was intended to be so limited, and argues that the statute, not so limited, may constitutionally be applied to the defendant's conduct on any of four grounds: the operations of the bank affected interstate commerce; the interception was of the oral communications of federal agents and Congress may act to protect the employees of the federal government; the interception was accomplished by the use of a radio transmitter and Congress may regulate even intrastate radio broadcasts; and the espionage took bank employees away from their regular duties thus directly burdening interstate commerce. 42 We address first the question of the statute's intended reach. While one of the congressional objectives in enacting Title III of the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act and § 2511(1)(b)(iv) in particular was the prevention of industrial espionage by electronic surveillance, S.Rep.No.1097, Supra note 9, at 2181, we believe that had Congress intended to limit subsection (iv) to that objective it would have done so expressly. That this was clearly one objective of Congress does not mean that there were not others. The plain unambiguous language of the statute reaches far beyond the limited objective urged by Duncan and we cannot by interpretation ascribe to it this quite restricted meaning. 43 Turning to the constitutional contentions, we find congressional authority to enact § 2511(1)(b)(iv) sufficiently grounded in Congress' general power under the Commerce Clause rationally to classify for regulation certain activities found by it to affect interstate commerce and to devise appropriate means for the regulation. 11 44 While Congress ordinarily leaves the question whether certain intrastate activities have the prohibited effect on interstate commerce to the courts or to the administrative agency charged with the enforcement of the particular statute involved, on occasion Congress itself determines that a particular activity has the requisite effect. E. g., Perez v. United States,402 U.S. 146, 152, 91 S.Ct. 1357, 28 L.Ed.2d 686 (1971); United States v. Darby, 312 U.S. 100, 120-21, 61 S.Ct. 451, 85 L.Ed. 609 (1941); See Heart of Atlanta Motel, Inc. v. United States, 379 U.S. 241, 258-59, 85 S.Ct. 348, 13 L.Ed.2d 258 (1964). In such a situation the function of the federal courts is limited to determining whether the activities in question are in the class sought to be regulated, to determine if Congress acted rationally in deciding that it could regulate that class and to assess whether the method of regulation chosen was appropriate to the end sought to be achieved. Id. When the class of activities is properly regulated, the court does not have the authority to exclude from the regulation individual activities that may not in themselves have the requisite effect. Perez v. United States, 402 U.S. at 154, 91 S.Ct. 1357. 45 In enacting Title III, Congress sought to prohibit electronic eavesdropping to the full extent of its constitutional authority to do so. See S.Rep.No.1097, Supra note 9, at 2180. In the process it made a determination that the fruits of electronic surveillance were being used by persons whose activities affected interstate commerce. Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968, Pub.L.No.90-351, Title III, § 801(a), 82 Stat. 197, 211. Congress had before it evidence that business plans were being stolen, that labor-management relations were being disrupted, that trade secrets were being betrayed. 12 The means chosen to deal with these problems was to prohibit all electronic espionage on the premises of businesses whose operations affected interstate commerce. We cannot say that this determination was irrational or that the means chosen were inappropriate. This left only the question whether in fact the activities of Northwestern Bank affected interstate commerce and this was found by the jury against the defendant under appropriate instructions, not here challenged, and upon ample evidence. 46 Defendant then resumes his attack on the statute's application to him by contending for a narrow definition of the word premises as it is used in § 2511(1)(b)(iv). He would construe it to refer only to those portions of the building actually being used by the business whose operations affect interstate commerce. He then argues that the third floor of the bank building where the I.R.S. office was located does not come within that definition. Contrary to defendant's contention, at least some of the evidence indicated that portions of the third floor were used for bank business. One of the agents testified that the office of the bank employee assigned to obtain any documents they requested was located across the hall from their office during the initial portion of their stay. The room in which the bank's board of directors met also seems to have been on that floor. While space commercially leased to an attorney or accountant for his use in a private business might be thought to have lost its character as part of the premises of the bank for purposes of § 2511(1)(b)(iv), 13 areas in which the bank has conveyed no enforceable property interest should not be so considered. Here the bank provided a portion of its building for the agents' temporary use. They occupied the space as mere guests; at most, in technical terms, as tenants at sufferance. For purposes of the definition in issue such space must be considered to be part of the bank premises during the period in issue. Any other construction would in practical effect deprive any temporary guest occupant of premises otherwise covered by the statute of its protection. 47 Still in the realm of the intended reach of the statute, Duncan complains that the district court instructed that Congress intended to prohibit All electronic eavesdropping. We note initially that defendant did not object to this instruction at the time of the charge. While defendant correctly notes that he requested several instructions that are inconsistent with the one given, and renewed his request after the charge was given, in these circumstances that was not sufficient. The function of the requirement that objection to jury instructions be made immediately following the charge is to allow the trial judge to rectify any errors he may have made. Rejected instructions relied on to fulfill this function must fairly serve the purpose. The instructions requested by defendant that he relies upon dealt with his  overhear defense and are quoted in note 10 Supra. As already noted, it was not error to refuse to give the instruction for the purpose requested. In the context requested, the rejected instruction went more to the issue of the existence of a justifiable expectation of privacy than to the issue on which it is now urged as an effective objection to the instruction given. The requested instruction simply did not notify the judge of the asserted error here complained of. 48 In any event, the jury was properly instructed that they had to find the requisite elements of the charged offense before they could find Duncan guilty. Thus, while the trial court's instruction that Congress had intended to proscribe All eavesdropping may have been overly broad 14 the charge as a whole was sufficient. D. Statute of Limitations Defense 49 The indictment charged a conspiracy from on or about September 1, 1971 to January 31, 1973. The five year statute of limitations, applicable to violations of § 2511, allowed conviction only if the conspiracy still existed after August 12, 1972, that being five years prior to the date of indictment. Defendant argued at trial that the evidence showed he lost all interest in the eavesdropping and thus withdrew from the conspiracy before August 12, 1972. He now asserts that a portion of the jury instruction undermined this defense. 50 Among the overt acts listed in the conspiracy indictment was one charging that on or about February 1, 1973 Jerry Duncan told Ed Duncan that the eavesdropping equipment was still in his, Jerry's, office. In withdrawing this act from the jury's consideration, it having occurred if at all after the end of the time that the conspiracy was alleged to have existed, the trial court gave the following instruction. 51 As you were advised following the close of the Government's evidence, the indictment and evidence indicate that the alleged conspiracy terminated when agents of the Internal Revenue Service vacated the Northwestern Bank Building on or about January 15, 1973. 52 Despite defendant's contentions, we do not read this instruction to assert that Duncan himself did not withdraw from the conspiracy before August 12. In fact, the jury was expressly instructed that defendant contended he withdrew from the conspiracy prior to August 12 and that before they could find Duncan guilty of conspiracy they would have to find that he was a member of the conspiracy when one of the overt acts was performed between August 12 and January 15. Were we disposed to read the instruction in the manner for which defendant contends, however, we would decline to do so. Again, he failed to object when the charge was given and the error now asserted is not in the category of plain error. E. Discovery 53 Duncan was not provided with the grand jury testimony of several of the I.R.S. agents in which they mentioned their suspicion that their conversations were being monitored until just prior to the agents' testimony at trial. The testimony was provided in compliance with the Jenck's Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500, but defendant contends that it was also discoverable under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), and thus should have been provided sooner. Brady requires production of any material that would be exculpatory. Under our view of the evidence of suspicion, as related above, this testimony would not have been exculpatory. At no point did the agents testify that they knew they were being monitored. In any event, the information was provided for defendant's use in ample time to get it before the jury. For both reasons, we consider any error in this matter to have been harmless. 54 Defendant complains that the open file policy followed by the office of the United States Attorney for the Middle District of North Carolina was ineffectual. The policy makes accessible to a defendant the entire file of the prosecution. It does not, however, allow copying of the documents in that file. Rule 16 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure does allow copying of documents and other materials that are discoverable under its provisions. To the extent that the open file policy functions as a substitute for compliance with Rule 16, rather than as a supplement to Rule 16 discovery, it is inadequate. 55 Defendant was not allowed to make copies of the tapes of the I.R.S. agents. If dated, the tapes would establish critical time periods of the bugging. Some tapes revealed background noise to the agents' conversation. Defendant contends he was effectively denied timely access to this evidence critically relevant to his overhear, suspicion, and statute of limitations defenses. While these tapes were subject to Fed.R.Crim.P. 16, we do not consider that the inadequacy of the open file policy to disclose them constituted reversible error. Defense counsel were allowed to listen to the tapes. Their authenticity is not questioned and, in any event, could have been established without regard to their contents. There was more than sufficient evidence, aside from the tapes, to show that on occasion sounds passed into and out of the bugged office. Similarly, there was other evidence showing that the bugging continued well into a period not barred by the statute of limitations. If all defendant wanted was the dates of the tapes, they were not dated. The dates during which the agents were at the bank were provided to defendant. While the agents dated the conversations for the use of the United States Attorney, that information was not discoverable. Fed.R.Crim.P. 16(a)(2). For these reasons, we consider that any error here was harmless. F. Other Errors 56 Defendant complains that the commission of an I.R.S. agent which would have shown that he was not employed by that agency until August 21, 1972 so that his conversations had to be monitored within the period covered by the statute of limitations was not produced until the Government's case in chief in violation of Rule 16. Again, if error, this was harmless. Its marginal significance is indicated by the fact that the statute of limitations defense focused on defendant's withdrawal from the conspiracy prior to August 12, 1972, not on the termination of the interception prior to that date. 57 Duncan asserts that the work papers of the I.R.S. agents were discoverable under Fed.R.Crim.P. 16(a)(1)(C), but were not produced. 15 While we have doubts about the discoverability of these documents in light of I.R.C. § 6103, we need not decide that here. All defendant could have gleaned from these documents was evidence of hostility and perhaps of suspicion. In view of our conclusion that as offered by defendant, these theories of defense were not available under the circumstances of this case, any error here was harmless. 58 Finally, defendant complains of the admission of certain testimony of John Absher, an alleged co-conspirator and the person who the undisputed evidence shows actually planted the listening device in the ceiling of the I.R.S. office. Defendant claims it was prejudicial error to allow Absher to testify that he had become totally mentally disabled as a result of his concern over the illegal act which he had committed at defendant's direction . . . . . Brief for Appellant at 43. In fact, Absher only testified that he suffered mental anguish from worry over having violated the law. The details of his mental condition were in fact explored at length by defendant's counsel on cross-examination. Absher's testimony was not impermissibly prejudicial, See Fed.R.Evid. 403, when considered in the context in which it was given.