Opinion ID: 1085611
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Mazzella Stipulation

Text: Defendants’ Sixth Amendment challenge to stipulated testimony from FBI Financial Analyst Joan Mazzella, who was ill and unable to testify, was not raised below. Here, however, we do not review even for plain error because the stipulation effectively waived defendants’ right of confrontation. See United States v. Plitman, 194 F.3d 59, 64 (2d Cir. 1999) (recognizing that “defense counsel may waive a defendant’s Sixth Amendment right to confrontation where the decision is one of trial tactics or strategy that might be considered sound”). Mazzella’s testimony related to her conversion of voluminous bank records into summary spreadsheets. Defendants claim that the spreadsheets contain errors about which Mazzella should have been cross-examined, making counsel’s stipulation unsound. We are not persuaded. Defendants fail to show that the errors could not have been effectively 14 exposed through other witnesses and arguments. Thus, even if we were not to find waiver, we would identify no plain error.6