Opinion ID: 805640
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Excluded Defense Witnesses

Text: At the hearing, Gordon argued that the court should have allowed testimony from Gordon’s former attorney, Clay Culotta, who Gordon says would have testified that Gordon could not access his bank accounts for purposes of filing taxes because Fifth Third Bank refused to release any information from Gordon’s bank accounts pursuant to a hold placed by the IRS. This testimony was offered to rebut the Government’s contention that Gordon was capable of determining his tax liability. Gordon did not call Culotta as a witness at the trial. Accordingly, there is no decision of the district court to review and, thus, no abuse of discretion.
Joe Schaeffer, an IRS agent, was involved in the 2003 audit of Commonwealth that culminated in the lien against Gordon. At the trial, Gordon sought to elicit testimony from Schaeffer that Commonwealth paid payroll taxes. The district court ruled that Schaeffer’s testimony regarding the validity of the lien was irrelevant. At the hearing on Gordon’s new trial motion, Gordon suggested that Schaeffer’s testimony would have served to reduce his sentence and to rebut the 24 assertion during the Government’s closing argument that Gordon had not paid taxes in a decade. The district court did not abuse its discretion in determining that Schaeffer’s testimony was irrelevant.