Opinion ID: 396887
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Heading: the detroit information.

Text: 4 The first question is whether this material falls within the compass of United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976), and, if so, which of the three Agurs' categories applies. We find that all of the Detroit information, the FBI 302's and the grand jury testimony was exculpatory material within the scope of Agurs. 1 It involved the discovery, after trial, of information which had been known to the prosecution but unknown to the defense. Id. at 103, 96 S.Ct. at 2397. It seems clear, however, that the first two Brady  situations, as defined in Agurs, do not apply. We reject the appellants' insistent and repeated claims that the Detroit material shows that Ciulla perjured himself and that the Government knew or should have known it. Id. at 103, 96 S.Ct. at 2397. Nor do we think that there was a specific pretrial request for the material. Id. at 104, 96 S.Ct. at 2397-98. Contrary to appellants' assertions we find no support in the record for the claim that either the magistrate or the district court ordered the material, or any part of it, disclosed to defendants prior to trial. 5 The motions for exculpatory evidence, although lengthy and comprehensive, were not directed to any particular source; they were basically detailed boiler plate requests for any and all exculpatory evidence. We are, therefore, confronted with the general request situation, the third category discussed in Agurs. See United States v. DiCarlo, 575 F.2d 952, 958-60 (1st Cir.), cert. denied, 439 U.S. 834, 99 S.Ct. 115, 58 L.Ed.2d 129 (1978); United States ex rel. Moore v. Brierton, 560 F.2d 288, 292 (7th Cir. 1977), cert. denied, 434 U.S. 1088, 98 S.Ct. 1285, 55 L.Ed.2d 794 (1978). We do not think that the fact that the United States Attorney prosecuting this case asked an attorney on the Detroit Strike Force whether there was any exculpatory material in the Detroit files and received a negative reply avoids the impact of Agurs. The prosecutor in charge of this case had a positive duty to review the files himself or have them checked by someone thoroughly familiar with the case. Nor do we think that Agurs is avoided because the Detroit grand jury testimony of Ciulla was turned over to the court during the trial for an in camera inspection. The Brady motions were made prior to trial and the judge should have been apprised of the existence of the testimony before trial so he could have examined it, if he wished. Although it probably made no difference in this case, there may be cases in which a pretrial in camera inspection of alleged Brady material would expedite matters considerably. 6 We now evaluate the Detroit material in the context of the entire record to determine if the omitted material creates a reasonable doubt that did not otherwise exist. United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. at 112, 96 S.Ct. at 2401-02; United States v. Imbruglia, 617 F.2d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 1980). The 302's 7 Appellants first contend that Ciulla's statement, made prior to his formal interviews, that he would not provide information about his organized crime connection in the Boston-New England area is materially exculpatory because it undercuts the Government's theory that Winter was an organized crime figure in the Boston-New England region. According to the FBI preliminary report, Ciulla would not talk about the Boston La Cosa Nostra (LCN) for three reasons. First, he would be killed if he talked. Secondly, even if placed in Federal protective custody, his family would be exposed to retaliation and thirdly, he was not associated close enough to provide information that would result in convicting any one person. We note that the first two reasons, which imply significant knowledge, contradicts the third, which asserts ignorance. However that may be, the fact is that there was no testimony in the case by Ciulla, or anyone else, that Winter was a member of the organized crime syndicate in New England. Indeed, at defendants' request the district court ruled at the start of the trial that it would not allow (a)ny reference to mafia, Cosa Nostra, or organized crime by that name. Nor did Ciulla refer to Winter in the Detroit 302's. Although it is conceivable that the jury would infer that only an organized crime figure would retain a person such as Ciulla to fix horse races, we agree with the district court that it was extremely unlikely that the defendants would have tried to impeach Ciulla by showing that Winter was a member of organized crime in the Boston-New England area. And even if they did, Ciulla could have said that he changed his mind since making the statement, which he did, if Winter was in fact, as appellants suggest, an organized crime figure in New England. We find that Ciulla's preliminary statement to the FBI in Detroit falls far short of being material under the applicable Agurs standard. 8 In addition to describing in detail race fixing in the Detroit area, Ciulla also told the FBI that in 1974 his biggest score was made at the Pocono Downs racetrack in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Appellants contend that the 302 information relative to Pocono Downs contradicts his court testimony about fixing races there. We find no significant contradictions. In the FBI statement Ciulla said he fixed sixty races, one to two a day, during the 1974 racing season. Ciulla's trial testimony focused on only four races: the ninth race on August 12, the sixth race on August 18, the fourth race on August 20 and the third race on September 8. This leaves at least fifty-six other races in which the appellants were not implicated. Ciulla testified that he went to Pocono Downs for two reasons: to try to get Spread The Word into a claiming race, which was not accomplished, and because Robert Owen 2 told him that he could fix as many races a day as he wanted. When Ciulla called Winter to tell him that the ninth race was fixed, he testified that he also told Winter that he realized that because it was Pocono Downs, the outside betting activity would be limited. It is not inconceivable that Ciulla and Owen decided to keep the winnings for themselves on all but four of the sixty races that were fixed. 9 Ciulla's 302 statement arguably contradicts his courtroom testimony in only one respect. He told the FBI that three members of the Pittsburgh and Philadelphia mob, Occhipinti, Sciandra and Conancio, financed the Pocono Downs fixing. At the trial Ciulla described this trio as runners. Although this might have been explored on cross-examination, we note that, according to Ciulla, the DeMetris acted as runners in the race at Garden State on February 8, 1975, in which Spread The Word was entered. It is not implausible that the financiers also acted as runners. 10 It is important to point out that the Pocono Downs evidence only implicated Winter and Martorano. The DeMetris were not involved at all and the motions of Price and Goldenberg for judgments of acquittal as to Counts Thirty-Seven and Thirty-Nine, interstate travel involving Pocono Downs, were granted. Nothing in the FBI statement contradicts Ciulla's testimony that he called Winter and Martorano after each of the four races was fixed and told them what horse to bet. Nothing in the 302 contradicts Ciulla's testimony that Winter told him to beat up a trainer, Ewalt, for using his bribe money to bet on the fixed race and to beat up a jockey, Gallop, for not holding his horse which finished second in the third race on September 8. We do not think that the statements given to the FBI about Pocono Downs reached the Agurs' level of materiality. 11 Price and Goldenberg argue strenuously that the 302's and the grand jury testimony show that Ciulla had Las Vegas contacts through the people who were financing the Detroit fixing and, therefore, Price and Goldenberg were not needed for outside betting as he testified at trial. But neither the 302's nor the grand jury testimony show that Ciulla himself knew individuals in Las Vegas who would play the role that he testified Price and Goldenberg did in placing bets on fixed races with bookies throughout the country. Before the Detroit grand jury, Ciulla testified that his financiers were Niki Russo, Anthony Tassone and his son, Jimmy Tassone. He told the grand jury that they were the ones who would take care of the extensive outside betting in Las Vegas. This does not show that Ciulla himself had the Las Vegas contacts. We agree with the district court that the impeachment weight of this evidence was slight. We do not doubt that, in the words of appellants, in the hands of skilled counsel at trial, (this would have) opened up a rich vein of detail. But the vein would not have led to the mother lode; it would have petered out to nothing. 12 Finally and definitely least, we discuss the claim that Ciulla's statements in the 302's and to the grand jury about how he suckered greedy businessmen out of front money contradicts his cross-examination testimony that he had not been a tout at any time in this experience. We note first that the testimony is contradictory. Ciulla first denied flatly that he had been a tout, but the last question and answer in this line could be construed as an admission to being one: 13 Q. Well, you say fixed races. I'm asking you if you were ever a tout? 14
15 In his FBI statement and grand jury testimony, Ciulla explained that he would approach three or four businessmen, tell them he was fixing a race and if they would put a certain amount of money up front, he would give them the winning combinations on the race. The combinations furnished, however, were not the winning ones; Ciulla suckered the businessmen out of their front money. We think it significant that Ciulla himself never used the word tout; that is the FBI description given to this operation. None of the dictionary definitions of tout encompasses the deliberate giving of false information about races. We don't know and do not decide whether Ciulla was a tout. It is abundantly clear that he was a crook, but the jury knew that. We do not think that this additional confirmation of Ciulla's dishonesty would have made any difference in the jury's credibility assessment of his testimony. 16 We agree with the district court that an evidentiary hearing was not necessary. We shudder to think of how much time these imaginative and ingenious attorneys would have spent mining the rich vein of detail dug out from the 302's to no avail. 17