Opinion ID: 308791
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the liechtenstein documents

Text: 12 a) The Business Records Exception 13 The exhibits in question were produced toward the close of its case, by a Government witness, Dr. Peter Monauni, one of three Liechtenstein attorneys resident at Haupstrasse 22, Vaduz, Liechtenstein. Dr. Batliner had refused to come to the United States at the time of the trial to testify. Instead he sent Dr. Monauni who had been associated with him for ten years. Dr. Monauni's direct testimony bolstered the other evidence in the case as to CTE's true character. He knew it simply as a client of his firm; to his knowledge it conducted no business of any description at the law office headquarters except for the forwarding of mail and checks. 14 Monauni produced a CTE file containing Exhibits 1020-23 and 1025-29. The Government offered the documents under the business records exception to the hearsay rule, 28 U.S.C. Sec. 1732. 1 Essentially the statute provides that any writing or record, made as a memorandum of any act, transaction, occurrence or event, if made in the ordinary course of one's business and if it was the regular course of such business to make such record at the time or reasonably thereafter, is admissible as evidence of the act, transaction, occurrence or event. We agree with the appellants that the documents were not properly admissible under the statutory business record exception. The fact that Dr. Monauni did not personally keep the books and records would not render them inadmissible (United States v. New York Foreign Trade Zone Operators, Inc., 304 F.2d 792, 796 (2d Cir. 1962)), but someone who is sufficiently familiar with the business practice must testify that these records were made as part of that practice. United States v. Delgado, 459 F.2d 471, 472 n. 5 (2d Cir. 1972); Cullen v. United States, 408 F.2d 1178 (8th Cir. 1969); United States v. Dawson, 400 F.2d 194, 198-199 (2d Cir. 1968), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 1023, 89 S.Ct. 632, 21 L.Ed. 567 (1969). Dr. Monauni's testimony did not rise to this level of requisite knowledge. He not only did not keep the records, he did not even know from his own personal knowledge that they were kept in Batliner's office. He did not testify to the business practice of CTE or that it was the practice to keep the documents which were introduced. 15 Some of the Liechtenstein documents were letters from third parties who clearly were not working for CTE. They were not made in the regular course of the business of the company in whose files they were found . . . . Phillips v. United States, 356 F.2d 297, 307 (9th Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 384 U.S. 952, 86 S.Ct. 1573, 16 L.Ed.2d 548 (1966). The requirements of the Business Records Rule are not fulfilled by a showing that the addressee routinely kept a file of such correspondence. It must appear that the letter was written in the regular course of its author's business. See Johnson v. Lutz, 253 N.Y. 124, 170 N.E. 517 (1930). 16 While the records were not admissible as business records, we cannot agree with the appellants' contention that we cannot sustain their admission on the basis of some other exception to the hearsay rule. The rule stated by Wigmore is [a]n offer of a fact for an inadmissible purpose A is properly excluded, though the same fact would have been admissible for purpose B. 1 J. Wigmore, Evidence Sec. 17, at 320 (3d ed. 1940) (emphasis in original, footnote omitted). (See People v. Zackowitz, 254 N.Y. 192, 200, 172 N.E. 466 (1930)). 17 The Government now urges that these documents are admissible either as admissions by the defendants or as declarations by conspirators, which like the Business Records Rule are further recognized exceptions to the hearsay rule. Here there is no difference in the purpose for which the evidence is sought to be admitted on the alternative grounds. The purpose of admission under any such exception is to establish the truth of that which is contained in the declaration which otherwise would be hearsay. This distinguishes Shepard v. United States, 290 U.S. 96, 54 S.Ct. 22, 78 L.Ed. 196 (1933) and United States v. DeMasi, 445 F.2d 251 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 404 U.S. 882, 92 S.Ct. 211, 30 L.Ed.2d 164 (1971), relied upon by appellants. 18 Shepard was a case in which an army officer had been accused of murdering his wife by adding bichloride of mercury to her liquor. There was testimony that the sick wife made the statement Dr. Shepard has poisoned me. She also inquired if there was enough of the liquor left to have tests made. These statements were offered as dying declarations, an exception to the hearsay rule. Since there was a lack of evidence that the declarant spoke without hope of recovery, the statements were held by the Supreme Court to be not admissible for their truth as dying declarations. The Government argued alternatively that the statements were admissible for a different purpose, to wit, they were admissible to rebut evidence of defendant's witnesses that the victim had suicidal tendencies since the statements indicated a will to live. The alternative purpose was clearly untenable since no limiting instructions had been given to alert the jury to the different purpose for which the evidence was offered. Had the conviction been sustained the prejudice to the defendant from the admission of the accusation now urged as simply indicative of a will to live and no more, is obvious. As Mr. Justice Cardozo observed in characteristic language The reverberating clang of those accusatory words would drown all weaker sounds. Shepard v. United States, supra, 290 U.S. at 104, 54 S.Ct. at 25. 19 DeMasi is like unto Shepard. There the Government offered certain statements made by a decedent to two witnesses. The statements were offered for their truth as exceptions to the hearsay rule. On appeal this court found that the declarant was not a conspirator and his statements were inadmissible hearsay. The Government's alternate argument that the statements were admissible for another purpose, was rejected: The Government's alternate theory to justify the admissibility of the declaration, that the statement was relevant to prove the victim's state of mind, was not suggested at trial, and the court did not instruct the jury with reference to it; therefore we will not consider it. United States v. DeMasi, supra, 445 F.2d at 256 (emphasis added and footnote omitted). 20 The situation we encounter here is clearly distinguishable. The alternative theories proposed are equally exceptions to the hearsay rule. 2 The Government is asserting that the documents are admissible for the same purpose, to establish the truth of what they say. No different or other limiting instruction to a jury was necessary no matter what the theory of admission. The prejudice of the lack of such instruction, so clear in Shepard and DeMasi, is not at all present here. 21 b) Declarations of Co-Conspirators 22 If the documents were admissible as declarations of a conspirator, appellants argue that the trial court would have had to find that the defendant's participation in the conspiracy had been established by a fair preponderance of the evidence aliunde. United States v. Geaney, 417 F.2d 1116, 1120 (2d Cir. 1969), cert. denied, 397 U.S. 1028, 90 S.Ct. 1276, 25 L.Ed.2d 539 (1970); Levie, Hearsay and Conspiracy: A Reexamination of the Co-conspirators' Exception to the Hearsay Rule, 52 Mich.L.Rev. 1159, 1176-78 (1954); Developments in the Law-Criminal Conspiracy, 72 Harv.L.Rev. 922, 987 (1959). 23 Since the documents were not offered as declarations of conspirators there was no occasion for Judge Croake to find on the record that each of the defendants was a member of the conspiracy. We believe that the evidence submitted by the Government prior to the admission of the disputed documents fully supported such a finding. The testimony of the representatives of the 42 American manufacturers clearly established by a fair preponderance of the evidence, the test here applicable, that Braverman and Rosenstein had jointly contacted all of their American clients requesting that commission checks theretofore payable to either Foremost or McInerney be made payable to CTE. Moreover, representatives of Ideal Toy, North Shore Sportswear, Genesco, Leeds Travelwear, Burlington Industries, Tobin-Hamilton, National Togs, Blue Bell, Inc., Prince Gardner Wallets, Adler Company, and My Toy Company testified that Rosenstein, Braverman or their employees advised them that CTE was Braverman's and Rosenstein's company. 3 The testimony of PX employees that despite the 1960 change to CTE, the same personnel continued to represent Foremost and McInerney and that Batliner, Buehler and CTE were unknown to them, was further proof that CTE was a shell devised by the defendants to siphon off commissions. In addition to all of this, some of the documents which will be discussed later in this opinion were admissible in any event as admissions. The fact that some of these exhibits might have been admitted after the co-conspirator documents is not material since it is well established that the determination as to whether the prosecution has laid the foundation for the admission of the co-conspirator's statements can be made at the close of the Government's case. United States v. Geaney, supra, 417 F.2d at 1120; United States v. Sansone, 231 F.2d 887 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 351 U.S. 987, 76 S.Ct. 1055, 100 L.Ed. 1500 (1956).