Opinion ID: 622756
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Pattern of Racketeering Activity

Text: Coppola contends that the evidence was insufficient to demonstrate that the two proved racketeering acts were sufficiently related to each other and the charged enterprise to satisfy the pattern element of racketeering. See, e.g., United States v. Basciano, 599 F.3d 184, 202 (2d Cir.2010) (discussing horizontal and vertical relatedness required to demonstrate pattern). Specifically, he argues that his reason for obtaining fraudulent identification documents was personal, i.e., to evade prosecution for murder, and unrelated to the enterprise or the charged extortion or fraud of Local 1235. This argument merits little discussion. The pattern element serves to prevent application of the racketeering statute to perpetrators of isolated or sporadic criminal acts. United States v. Payne, 591 F.3d 46, 64 (2d Cir.2010) (internal quotation marks omitted). The Supreme Court, however, has described the pattern concept as fairly flexible, so that it can be demonstrated by reference to a range of different ordering principles or relationships between predicates. H.J., Inc. v. Nw. Bell Tel. Co., 492 U.S. 229, 238-39, 109 S.Ct. 2893, 106 L.Ed.2d 195 (1989). At the highest level of generality, both vertical and horizontal relatedness can be established simply by connecting diverse predicate acts to an enterprise `whose business is racketeering activity,' such as an organized crime family. United States v. Basciano, 599 F.3d at 202 (quoting United States v. Indelicato, 865 F.2d 1370, 1383 (2d Cir.1989) ( en banc )). Narrower patterns of racketeering may be defined and proved by reference to other unifying principles, including temporal proximity of the predicates, their common goals, similarity of methods, or repetitions. See id. Here, even if Coppola could have secured fraudulent identification documents without regard to his membership in the Genovese family and without the assistance of Genovese confederates, the evidence showed that he availed himself of the cover provided by fraudulent documents not only to avoid a murder prosecution, but also to pursue his lifetime occupation as part of organized crime. Sentencing Tr. at 32; see United States v. Burden, 600 F.3d 204, 217 (2d Cir.2010) (holding that predicate may be related to enterprise even when defendant could have committed act absent connection to enterprise). As the district court aptly observed, the elaborate scheme of identifications and phone cards and communications to stay a fugitive even as Mr. Coppola was a fully functioning captain of the Genovese familya member, at least, of the Genovese family, showed that none of that fugitivity had any impact on his illegal control of the union local over in New Jersey. Sentencing Tr. at 33. Indeed, Coppola's March 6, 2007 conversations with Edward Aulisi about the continued extortion of money from Local 1235 occurred within days of Coppola's conversations with his stepson Louis Rizzo concerning the procurement of fraudulent identification documents. [16] On this record, a jury could reasonably find a vertical relationship between Coppola's acquisition of fraudulent identification documents and the Genovese family enterprise because the fraudulent documents facilitat[ed] . . . the enterprise's continuation of its criminal activities. United States v. Payne, 591 F.3d at 64 (concluding that murder of potential informant furthered enterprise by reducing threat of disruption by law enforcement). Further, insofar as the fraudulent documents facilitated the ongoing extortion of Local 1235, and both predicates were connected to the Genovese family enterprise, the evidence also established the requisite horizontal relationship. United States v. Bruno, 383 F.3d 65 (2d Cir.2004), cited by Coppola, is not to the contrary. There, we held that no rational juror could find certain shootings related to the charged enterpriseagain, the Genovese familybecause substantial evidence showed that the shootings occurred in contravention of Genovese protocols and so damaged the defendant's standing within that enterprise that the leadership considered killing him in response. See id. at 84-85. In that context, we ruled that the shootings were simply personal matters. Id. at 85. No comparable evidence in this case indicates that Coppola maintained his fugitive status in defiance of the enterprise. To the contrary, the record shows that Coppola continued to earn money for the Genovese family while a fugitive and that the enterprise continued to reward Coppola for his efforts. Accordingly, there is no merit to Coppola's sufficiency challenge to the pattern element of the racketeering counts of conviction.