Opinion ID: 149697
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Struckman's Motions to Dismiss

Text: After the evidentiary hearing on the motions to dismiss, the district court issued an 83-page order denying the motions. The district court first rejected Struckman's argument that the court did not have personal jurisdiction over him because of the manner in which he was brought from Panama, relying on the Ker/Frisbie doctrine. That doctrine provides generally that the manner by which a defendant is brought to trial does not affect the government's ability to try him. United States v. Matta-Ballesteros, 71 F.3d 754, 762 (9th Cir.1995) (citing Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436, 444, 7 S.Ct. 225, 30 L.Ed. 421 (1886) and Frisbie v. Collins, 342 U.S. 519, 522, 72 S.Ct. 509, 96 L.Ed. 541 (1952)), cert. denied, 519 U.S. 1118, 117 S.Ct. 965, 136 L.Ed.2d 850 (1997). Struckman maintained that Panama had actually extradited, not deported him, and that the extradition did not comply with the Extradition Treaty between Panama and the United States, in which case the Ker/Frisbie doctrine would not apply. As to Struckman's motion to dismiss the indictment on grounds of misconduct in the investigation and in responding to discovery, the district court declared that the government had indeed committed serious Brady/Giglio violations. [4] First, as to the informant Ted, the district court found that information regarding the identity of the informant submitted by Hardaway and Chinn right before trial was remarkably different from their previous statements when it comes to details. Disbelieving the agents' ultimate submissions, the court concluded that: [T]he sheer volume of discrepancies in the testimony of the agents who claim to have handled the informant, the degree of irregularities in the record concerning the alleged informant, as well as the uncontested testimony of [Bonnie Moritz and Jennifer Wininger] that Gary Moritz could not have been the informant, lead the court to find that there was no single source of information for all the information attributed to Ted, and that the source of all that information could not have been Gary Moritz. . . . . While in isolation all these discrepancies could very well be attributed to sloppy record keeping, faulty memories, simple misstatements or minor omissions, in the aggregate, they add to nothing more than a house of cards built to support the illusion of the existence of [Ted]. Regarding the Bowden information, the district court similarly found that the government had been considerably less than forthcoming. There was a secret deal between Hardaway and Dave Bowden, the district court found, pursuant to which [n]ot only was Bowden not prosecuted[on tax-related charges], but in return for his testimony in the Laura Struckman trial, and in the upcoming trial of David Struckman,. . . Hardaway prevented a proper audit of Dave Bowden by the civil branch of the IRS. Also, the district court concluded that [w]hile it may be a coincidence that the box of documents Bowden gave to SA Hardaway [was] simply kept out of the knowledge of the prosecutors, it is more likely that SA Hardaway was trying to maintain those records separate from the investigatory file in this case. Because the government ha[d] yet to produce the documents Bowden took and copied from defendant's cars, the court went on to declare that given the pattern of misconduct in the case, . . . the government should not be allowed to introduce[ ] those documents at trial. Despite its strong condemnation of the government and its finding of Brady/Giglio violations, the district court rejected Struckman's motion to dismiss on Brady/Giglio grounds. Instead, the court excluded evidence attributed to Ted, precluded Bowden from appearing as a witness at trial, excluded all evidence Bowden had taken from Struckman's car, and required the government to assure that the evidence produced at trial was not derived from suppressed evidence. The district court did not make any finding as to whether the prosecutorsas opposed to the IRS investigators  engaged in affirmative misconduct. Struckman proceeded to trial. O'Brien, Hardaway, and Chinn did not testify. Struckman was convicted of one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States under 18 U.S.C. § 371 and three counts of income tax evasion under 26 U.S.C. § 7201. He was sentenced to 70 months imprisonment and ordered to pay more than $2.9 million in restitution. The trial court never made further inquiry into the actual sources of the information attributed to Ted, and the government never revealed them. Struckman now appeals the district court's denial of his motions to dismiss the indictment.