Opinion ID: 1463584
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Existence of the RICO Enterprise

Text: The indictment alleged that from 1985 through January 2003 a number of associated individuals participated in and conducted the affairs of a RICO enterprise by, inter alia, distributing crack and powder cocaine and committing robberies and murders in furtherance of their drug distribution operations. RICO defines the term enterprise to include any . . . group of individuals associated in fact. 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4). The existence of a RICO enterprise may be proved by evidence of an ongoing organization, formal or informal, and by evidence that the various associates function as a continuing unit. United States v. Turkette, 452 U.S. 576, 583, 101 S.Ct. 2524, 69 L.Ed.2d 246 (1981). `[A]n association-in-fact is oftentimes more readily proven by what it does, rather than by abstract analysis of its structure.' United States v. Jones, 482 F.3d 60, 69-70 (2d Cir.2006) (quoting United States v. Coonan, 938 F.2d 1553, 1559 (2d Cir.1991), cert. denied, 503 U.S. 941, 112 S.Ct. 1486, 117 L.Ed.2d 628 (1992) (emphasis in Coonan )), cert. denied, 549 U.S. 1231 (2007). An `individuals associated in fact' enterprise, 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4), may continue to exist even though it undergoes changes in membership. Eppolito, 543 F.3d at 49; see, e.g., Coonan, 938 F.2d at 1560-61. Although Payne contends that the evidence at trial merely showed a group of neighborhood friends who may have given each other sporadic assistance (Payne brief on appeal at 60), that characterization plainly does not view the evidence in the light most favorable to the government. As described in Part I.A. above, there was testimony by Thomas and Hatcher that there were more than a dozen individuals distributing narcotics in the East New York section of Brooklyn; although there was no highly structured organization, Thomas and Hatcher testified that these individuals were members of a family or street family who made money together, i.e., they would sell drugs together, protect[] each other, and take care of each other by providing funds for family members who were broke or in jail. The family was protective of its territory, allowing family members to sell drugs at family spots, coordinating family members' selling hours if they used the same spot and otherwise avoiding conflicts with one another, excluding nonmembers of the family from those spots, and using violence against rivals who attempted to possess or repossess family spots. Thomas and Hatcher, by their own accounts at trial, were members of the family from the mid-1980s until they were arrested in connection with this case in 2002 and began to cooperate with the government. The evidence permitted the inference that Hatcher was a member of the family throughout that period even though he was in prison during most of the 1990s. While he was in prison, Hunter paid Hatcher's wife and father some $200,000; and Hatcher (who was always a person [Thomas] considered a boss (Tr. 1499)) kept track of what was going on in family territory through periodic reports from Hunter ( see id. at 687-90). When family members were released from prison, other family members promptly saw to it that they were supplied with money and guns. Thus, the evidence to establish the existence of a group of drug dealers who were associated in fact was abundant. There was also ample testimony that Payne became a member of the family in 1995 and fulfilled various family needs thereafter. At first he was a lieutenant for Thomas, packaging cocaine, keeping the workers supplied, collecting the proceeds of the sales, and occasionally making the purchases from Thomas's suppliers. Although Payne lost his lieutenant position in 1996, the evidence easily permitted the jury to infer that he remained a member of the family, as Thomas testified that Payne was there to provide whatever assistance was needed. Indeed, Hunter, as Thomas's drug-selling partner, considered Payne's post-lieutenancy services so integral to their operations that he tried in 1996 to persuade Thomas that the partnership's profits should be split three ways, to include Payne. In 1997, when Thomas confided to Hunter and Payne that Clemons had slept with Thomas's girlfriend, Payne participated in the ambush of Clemons and shot him to death. When Hatcher was released from prison in 1998 and arrived in Manhattan, Hunter and Payne picked him up, and Payne was introduced to Hatcher as a new shooter in the family; thereafter, Payne and Hatcher became robbing budd[ies]. When Thomas and Hatcher decided to rob and kill Newton in 2000, Hatcher enlisted Payne. In 2000, Thomas, Hatcher, and Payne agreed that Payne would distribute drugs at the Thomas-Hatcher partnership spot during the nighttime hours when Thomas and Hatcher were not operating; Payne would not have been allowed to sell there had he not been a member of the family ( see, e.g., id. at 1436, 1630). And when Payne obtained narcotics by robbing other drug dealers, he gave half of the stolen drugs to Hatcher. In sum, Payne's contention that the evidence was insufficient to permit inferences that the RICO enterprise alleged in the indictment existed, and that he participated in it, borders on the frivolous.