Opinion ID: 802339
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: facts

Text: Centered around RICO counts that are substantially similar to the ones we held to be validly pleaded the last time this case was before us, see Bergrin, 650 F.3d at 261-63 (summarizing the RICO charges), the Indictment accuses Bergrin of misusing his law practice to traffic drugs, facilitate prostitution, tamper with witnesses, and evade taxes. Three different instances of witness tampering, all of which are alleged in the RICO violation charged in Count 1, are relevant to this appeal. Specifically, Bergrin is charged with 3 After the government took its appeal with respect to the evidentiary decisions pertaining to the Kemo Murder Counts, the Court severed the majority of the Indictment’s remaining substantive counts and ordered that they be tried before the rest of the charges. The government appealed that ruling, too, see infra note 20, and we consolidated the government’s two appeals for disposition. 4 instigating Kemo’s murder, plotting to kill witnesses in connection with the legal defense of an individual named Vicente Esteves (the “Esteves Plot”), and plotting to kill a witness who planned to testify against a client named Richard Pozo (the “Pozo Plot”). 4 Counts 2 through 4 of the Indictment also plead RICO violations relating to some or all of those three instances of witness tampering, 5 while the Indictment’s remaining counts charge Bergrin with other substantive or conspiracy offenses that rest on many of the allegations set forth in the RICO counts.
4 Although the three witness-tampering plots are all alleged in Count 1, only the Kemo murder and the Esteves Plot are charged as predicate racketeering acts. The Pozo Plot, by contrast, is listed as one of the “methods and means” through which Bergrin’s firm engaged in racketeering. 5 Count 2 charges Bergrin with participating in a RICO conspiracy and alleges that the Kemo murder, the Esteves Plot, and the Pozo Plot were overt acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. Counts 3 and 4 charge violent crimes in aid of racketeering offenses for Bergrin’s involvement in the Kemo murder and the Esteves Plot, respectively. See 18 U.S.C. § 1959(a) (providing for criminal sanction where “[one] murders, kidnaps, maims, assaults with a dangerous weapon, commits assault resulting in serious bodily injury upon, or threatens to commit a crime of violence against any individual in violation of the laws of any State or the United States, or attempts or conspires so to do” in connection with a racketeering activity). 5 The Kemo Murder Counts were the subject of the trial that ultimately led to the present appeal, and, as charged, they carry a mandatory life sentence. 6 See 18 U.S.C. § 1512(a)(3)(A) (tampering with a witness by killing is punishable as “provided in sections 1111 and 1112”); id. § 1512(k) (“Whoever conspires to commit any offense under this section shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense the commission of which was the object of the conspiracy.”); id. § 1111(b) (“Whoever is guilty of murder in the first degree shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for life.”). At the trial on those counts, the government introduced evidence that Kemo’s murder arose out of Bergrin’s representation of William Baskerville. Baskerville was an associate in a drug-trafficking organization run by Hakeem Curry and was arrested on federal drug charges in November 2003 for drug sales he made to Kemo. Baskerville told Bergrin that he suspected Kemo to be the likely source of the government’s evidence against him. Bergrin, in turn, telephoned Curry and told him that Kemo was the confidential witness against Baskerville. 6 The violent crimes in aid of racketeering offense pertaining to the Kemo murder, see supra note 5, also carries a mandatory life sentence, see 18 U.S.C. § 1959(a)(1) (violent crimes in aid of racketeering that result in murder are punished “by death or life imprisonment, or a fine …, or both”); United States v. Carson, 455 F.3d 336, 385 n.44 (D.C. Cir. 2006) (reaching the “common sense conclusion” that, despite the language employed, the violent crimes in aid of racketeering statute “does not permit a fine to be levied in lieu of imprisonment or death”). 6 Anthony Young, a member of Curry’s organization and the government’s key witness at the trial of the Kemo Murder Counts, 7 was with Curry during that conversation and overheard Bergrin say that “Kamo” was the confidential witness against Baskerville. Young realized, however, that Bergrin was referring to Kemo. According to Young, Bergrin met with him and other Curry organization members approximately one week after Baskerville’s arrest. At that meeting, Bergrin told the group that “if Kemo testif[ied] against [Baskerville], [Baskerville] w[ould] never see the streets again” (Joint App. at 2528), but that he could “get [Baskerville] out if Kemo d[id]n’t testify” (id. at 2529). Bergrin twice reiterated “No Kemo, no case” and emphasized that the group should not “let that kid testify against [Baskerville].” (Id.) Members of Curry’s organization thereafter discussed how to find and kill Kemo, and, in March of 2004, Young found Kemo and shot him to death. 7 Young was not the only witness who offered testimony incriminating Bergrin in Kemo’s murder. Alberto Castro, a drug dealer, testified that Bergrin offered him $10,000 to murder Kemo, and two former confidants of Bergrin’s testified that Bergrin implied his complicity in the events that led to Kemo’s death. (See Joint App. at 3409 (testimony that Bergrin expressed his worry that “Baskerville would implicate him in the Kemo case”); id. at 3781 (testimony that Bergrin stated he had “met with Baskerville’s people at the office,” “told them the name of the [witness],” and that they had “killed [the witness] three months later”).) 7
The government also sought to prove Kemo’s murder using evidence of the Pozo Plot and the Esteves Plot, which the District Court ultimately precluded after considering evidentiary proffers. The government’s first effort to rely on those other murder plots developed pretrial when, after we ruled that the RICO counts had been wrongly dismissed and remanded the case, Bergrin filed a motion under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 14 to sever the Kemo Murder Counts from the Indictment. 8 Bergrin argued that a trial on every offense in the Indictment would be unfairly prejudicial. The government disagreed, contending that severing the Kemo Murder Counts “would be a waste of judicial resources, … would present increased danger for witnesses, and that regardless of the severance plan … all or most of the evidence of the related crimes would be admissible at … [any] of the severed trials.” (Id. at 57-58.) It proffered, in that regard, that it would seek to prove the Kemo Murder Counts in part by relying on evidence of the Pozo Plot and the Esteves Plot under Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b). 9 8 We refer to the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure simply as “Criminal Rules.” Criminal Rule 14(a) provides that a “court may order separate trials of counts, sever the defendants’ trials, or provide any other relief that justice requires” when joinder “appears to prejudice a defendant or the government.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 14(a). 9 We refer to the Federal Rules of Evidence simply as “Rules.” Rule 404(b), as we discuss further infra, provides 8
Pozo, the government asserted, was a “large scale drug trafficker who distributed multi-hundred kilogram shipments of cocaine he received in New Jersey via Texas.” (D.N.J. ECF no. 09-369, doc. no. 304-1, at 13.) 10 In February 2004, he was charged in the Western District of Texas for his role in that drug distribution scheme, and he hired Bergrin to represent him. Bergrin determined that Pozo’s co-defendant, Pedro Ramos, was cooperating with the government against Pozo. He told Pozo that Ramos was an informant, asked him if he knew where Ramos lived, and told him that, if “we could get to [Ramos] and take him out, Pozo’s headache (his drug charges) would go away.” (D.N.J. ECF no. 09-369, doc. no. 302, at 1 (internal quotation marks omitted).) Pozo responded, “Are you nuts? I am not involved in murdering people,” and later retained new counsel. (Id. (internal quotation marks omitted).)
that although “[e]vidence of a crime, wrong, or other act” is inadmissible to prove a person acted “in accordance with [his or her] character,” Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(1), it may be admitted for “another purpose, such as proving motive, opportunity, intent, preparation, plan, knowledge, identity, absence of mistake, or lack of accident,” Fed. R. Evid. 404(b)(2). 10 Our references to documents on the District Court’s docket cite to the pagination contained in the ECF-generated header on each page. 9 Esteves, too, was a former client of Bergrin’s who “operated a large scale drug trafficking business based in New Jersey.” (D.N.J. ECF no. 09-369, doc. no. 304-1, at 23.) He was prepared to testify that, when he met with Bergrin in May 2008, after being charged in the Superior Court of New Jersey with drug trafficking, Bergrin told him that “the only way to beat the case was if [Esteves] took care of the witnesses” on a list of those Bergrin believed were cooperating with the government. (Id.) During that conversation, Bergrin also told Esteves that he “hate[d] rats and … would kill a rat himself,” that “this was not the first time he ha[d] done this,” and that, “if there are no witnesses, there is no case.” (Id.) An informant named Oscar Cordova, whom Bergrin believed was a hitman, subsequently recorded Bergrin instructing him to kill a witness on that list. (Id.; see Joint App. at 225-28 (describing the plot).) In that conversation, Bergrin stated, “we gotta make it look like a robbery. It cannot under any circumstances look like a hit. … We have to make it look like a home invasion robbery.” (D.N.J. ECF no. 09-369, doc. no. 304-5, at 3.)