Opinion ID: 610805
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Money Orders

Text: 36 Prior to remand, the record was unclear as to how the government inevitably would have discovered all the various money orders admitted against Eng. Eng I, 971 F.2d at 863. The illegal search of Eng's safe revealed records of money orders reflecting payments for: state and federal taxes, parking and building violations, life insurance, tuition for the New York Military Academy, telephone bills and automobiles. At trial, the government did not argue that the records of money orders actually seized from the safe were admissible. The government offered as evidence both the deposit records from the banks where the money orders were deposited by the entities receiving payment and copies of the money orders revealed by those records. The deposit records and money orders were obtained via post-search subpoenas. The district court found that the deposit records and the money orders established the same fact that was shown by the illegally seized money order records--that Eng used money orders to pay his expenses. 37 In determining whether each of the money orders used by Eng for payment of expenses inevitably would have been discovered, the same question arises: whether Interdonato would have served the subpoenas necessary to obtain the deposit records of the banks where the money orders were deposited. With respect to each piece of evidence, the district court made the following particularized findings: the money orders payable to the IRS and the New York State Department of Taxation inevitably would have been discovered because of the nature of these debts and the nature of the investigation; and Interdonato inevitably would have discovered the payments to Equitable Life, NYNEX and the New York Military Academy and payments for automobile expenses because the agent had knowledge prior to the search of these obligations and expenses and because these expenses are both routine sources of information and targets of investigation in expenditures cases. Eng II, 819 F.Supp. at 1224. The district court also found that the money orders used to pay Eng's parking and building violations should have been suppressed because Interdonato had no knowledge prior to the search that Eng incurred these liabilities and because it was not inevitable that an expenditures investigation would reveal those kinds of payments. However, the district court found the admission of this evidence to be harmless. See id. at 1224-25. 38 We agree with the district court's finding that Interdonato would have subpoenaed the banks that received Eng's payments for taxes, life insurance, tuition, phone bills and automobiles because each of these expenses was known to Interdonato prior to the search. See id. at 1222-23 (detailing evidence supporting Interdonato's knowledge of these expenses prior to the search). Given (1) that Interdonato knew from a confidential informant that Eng paid his expenses by using money orders; (2) that Interdonato had access to Eng's credit card records and personal checking accounts prior to the search; (3) that expenditures investigations require the agent to delve into the taxpayer's bank accounts and property ownership, thereby routinely obtaining information about vehicles, tax payments, utility payments and insurance payments; (4) that Interdonato only had commenced his tax investigation of Eng a short time before the illegal search; and (5) that we already have found that Interdonato actively was pursuing his tax investigation of Eng prior to the illegal search, we conclude that Interdonato would have issued the required subpoenas and inevitably would have discovered the money orders. With respect to the money orders for the parking and building violations, we agree with the district court that they inevitably would not have been discovered but that the admission of this evidence was harmless. 39