Opinion ID: 271897
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Language in the Indictment Charging Both Receiving and Accepting Wagers.

Text: 22 All five counts against each of the defendants charged them with having been engaged in the business of accepting wagers and in receiving wagers for and on behalf of a person engaged in the business of accepting wagers.    Appellants urge, as they did below, that the Government should have been required to elect between charging appellants as receivers or as acceptors of wagers. 23 The statutes differentiate between an acceptor of wagers, who is the banker or principal in a wagering operation, and receivers of wagers, who takes bets as runners or agents for acceptors, H.R. Rep. No. 586, 82nd Cong. 1st Sess. 56 (1951); Sen.Rep. No. 781, 82nd Cong. 1st Sess. 114 (1951) and courts have held fatal a variance between an indictment charging one form of betting activity, and proof establishing another. United States v. Pepe, 198 F.Supp. 226 (D.Del. 1961), aff'd per curiam, 339 F.2d 264 (3d Cir. 1964). However, the same court which affirmed Pepe later held that it was not grounds for reversal to charge both accepting and receiving where the evidence indicated the presence of both activities and where no request for an election had been made at trial. United States v. Manos, 340 F.2d 534 (3d Cir. 1965). But cf. United States v. Nicholas, 224 F.Supp. 310 (W.D.Pa.1963). 24 We hold that the indictment was not defective for charging both activities in the conjunctive, even though the defendants requested an election at trial. Charging alternative ways of violating a statute in the conjunctive is permissible, and a conviction under such an indictment will be sustained if the evidence indicates that the statute was violated in any of the ways charged. Smith v. United States, 234 F.2d 385 (5th Cir. 1956). This principle applies here. Both the acceptor and the receiver are required to register under § 4412 and to pay the occupational tax imposed by § 4411. The acceptor is required to pay the excise tax under § 4401, and the Regulations make clear that a receiver also is liable under § 4401, until he discloses the name of his principal. Reg. § 44.4401-2(a) (2). In short, accepting and receiving without registering and paying the taxes imposed by these sections amount, in effect, to different ways of violating the same statutes. 25