Opinion ID: 743614
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Alleged subornation of perjury by witness Ress

Text: 135 Ress testified that, prior to trial, she had reviewed a number of tapes and transcripts of conversations between and among the co-conspirators and authenticated that the transcripts accurately reflected the conversations at the time in question and corresponded with the voices on the tapes. She testified that she was familiar with the voices of all of Defendants (except for Aguilera and Iturralde). Several of the tapes included Ameneiro's voice. 136 While the jury was in deliberations, counsel for Ameneiro filed a motion for a mistrial. The motion, which was not accompanied by an affidavit from Ress and was based solely on the attorney's account of a meeting he allegedly had with Ress after all the evidence had been presented, claimed that Ress had told Ameneiro's counsel the following: 137 a. She advised [counsel for Ameneiro] that she had reviewed approximately 500 transcripts in preparation for her trial testimony. 138 b. She advised further that on a number of the transcripts she had signed her name at the bottom. On 5 or 6 of those transcripts which reflected a conversation involving Robert Ameneiro she only signed her name as an authentication of the voice of the other participant. She did not intend to and advised the Assistant U.S. Attorney, Patrick Layng, that she was not authenticating that transcript as being a transcript of the voice of Robert Ameneiro. 139 c. She further advised that any transcripts that were not signed by her were not authenticated by her as to any of the persons who are listed as speakers on the transcripts. 140 d. She further stated that she would be willing to testify to these matters in court because it was clear to her that she wished the truth to come out and that certain misrepresentations had been made regarding which transcripts she authenticated and which voices she authenticated on those transcripts. 141 (R. 596 (emphasis added).) The motion for mistrial thus characterized the presentation of Ress's testimony in which she stated that she had authenticated all of the tapes she listened to as another example of inappropriate evidence or evidence that has been misrepresented to be something other than what it actually is[.] Judge Hart declined to hold an evidentiary hearing on this matter and denied the motion, ruling that defense counsel had ample opportunity during trial to cross-examine Ress concerning her identification of the tapes and transcripts. Defendants argue that, based on Ress's alleged statements to Ameneiro's counsel that she did not intend to authenticate Ameneiro's voice on 5 or 6 of the transcripts, the failure of the prosecution to reveal this alleged information constituted a further indication of prosecutorial misconduct. 12 142 We note initially that, since the motion for mistrial was not accompanied by a sworn affidavit from Ress, and contained nothing more than Ameneiro's counsel's summary of what Ress allegedly told him, the district court was certainly entitled to view the allegations contained in the motion with skepticism. In United States v. Kamel, 965 F.2d 484 (7th Cir.1992), two co-defendants were convicted on charges arising from an arson at a store they co-owned. One defendant moved for a new trial on the basis that his co-defendant had allegedly accepted full responsibility for the fire and was prepared to exonerate him. 965 F.2d at 490. We held that the district court properly refused to grant a new trial, in part on the basis that there is no affidavit in the record from [the co-defendant] of his confession[.] 965 F.2d at 491. Similarly, in United States v. Pointer, 17 F.3d 1070 (7th Cir.1994), the defendant sought a new trial on the basis of a letter allegedly written to him from a witness who had testified at the grand jury proceedings against him which purported to recant that testimony. We noted that, since [h]er letter was not a sworn affidavit, there was grave doubt about the credibility of the alleged recantation. 17 F.3d at 1074. Here, the failure to provide an affidavit from Ress specifying which portions (if any) of her trial testimony she allegedly claimed was false leaves us with similar grave doubt that there was any substance to the claims in the motion for mistrial. 143 Moreover, even assuming that the allegations contained in the motion are true, they do not demonstrate that Ress's trial testimony was false. Ress testified that she had authenticated roughly 500 tapes and transcripts, and the motion merely makes a vague reference to 5 or 6 tapes and transcripts which she was not authenticating. We have noted, supra, that some 200 of the tapes introduced in evidence went unplayed at trial, and Defendants have failed to point to anything in the record demonstrating or even suggesting that any of the 5 or 6 tapes were among those presented to the jury. 13 We have already noted that, to prevail on a claim that the government suborned perjury, the defendants must show that the government's case contained false testimony, that the government knew or should have known about it, and that there is a likelihood that the false testimony affected the judgment of the jury. Saadeh, 61 F.3d at 523. Since Defendants have failed to show that Ress's testimony was false in the first place, or that the government knew it was false, they offer no basis for us to conclude that there was any subornation of perjury with respect to Ress's testimony. 14 144