Opinion ID: 786706
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Initiation of the Prosecution

Text: 102 A plaintiff in a malicious prosecution case must prove that the defendant initiated the criminal proceeding. As we have stated before, reporting a crime to law enforcement and giving testimony does not constitute the initiation of a criminal prosecution. See Rohman v. New York City Transit Auth., 215 F.3d 208, 217 (2d Cir.2000). More is required. Specifically, the complainant must have played an `active role in the prosecution, such as giving advice and encouragement or importuning the authorities to act.' Id. (quoting DeFilippo v. County of Nassau, 183 A.D.2d 695, 583 N.Y.S.2d 283, 284 (2d Dep't 1992)). 103 The jury in the trial below was instructed as follows with respect to the initiation element: 104 One who merely responds to requests for information [from law enforcement] does not initiate or continue a prosecution. There must be some affirmative acting by way of advice, encouragement or pressure in the initiation, or causing the initiation, or the prosecution or in affirmatively encouraging its continuation after it has been initiated. 105 These instructions were consistent with New York law. However, the trial court further instructed the jury as follows: 106 If you find that Mr. Carriere knowingly gave false information about Mr. Rothstein to an FBI agent or prosecutor that a reasonable person would realize would cause them to prosecute Mr. Rothstein, then you should find that Mr. Carriere is responsible for the prosecution and that this first element is proved. 107 These instructions were incorrect. It is true that a jury may rely upon false statements to law enforcement in determining that a person initiated a prosecution, but it may not do so to the exclusion of other evidence on the issue. Particularly where, as here, the criminal charge is the culmination of a lengthy investigation involving various sources of evidence, the mere fact that a witness provided false information to the government does not warrant a conclusion that the witness initiated the prosecution where the rest of the evidence suggests otherwise. See Brown v. Sears Roebuck and Co., 297 A.D.2d 205, 746 N.Y.S.2d 141, 146 (1st Dep't 2002) (While it is true that a defendant may be said to have initiated a criminal proceeding by providing false evidence to the police or withholding evidence that might affect the determination by the police to make an arrest, the record in this case conclusively demonstrates that the allegedly false evidence provided by Sankar did not contribute to the determination to arrest plaintiff.) (internal citations omitted). 108 The district court's charge essentially directed the jury to find that Carriere initiated the criminal case against Rothstein if it found that Carriere lied to the FBI on March 18, 1994. Had the jury been instructed to consider all the evidence on the issue, the only rational conclusion it could have reached from the evidence at trial is that Carriere did not initiate the prosecution. 109 As discussed above, the investigation that resulted in Rothstein's indictment began in 1990, when Agent Whitaker found obscene materials in a Tallahassee video store. The subsequent searches of Multi-Media's Indiana offices and of the Brooklyn building shared by Star and Bizarre uncovered significant circumstantial evidence linking Rothstein to Bizarre, causing the FBI to target Rothstein before Carriere began to cooperate. Indeed, the prosecutor testified unequivocally and without contradiction that the idea of prosecuting anybody didn't come from Mark Carriere. Moreover, although Carriere no doubt sought to benefit from cooperating with the government, there is simply no evidence that he played an active role in the prosecution, or encouraged or importuned the prosecutor to act against Rothstein. 110 We emphasize the significance of the duration and complexity of the criminal investigation, and of the prosecutor's uncontroverted testimony that the decision to seek an indictment of Rothstein was initiated by the Department of Justice, not Carriere or any other witness. In these circumstances, Rothstein's effort to prove the initiation element of his claim failed as a matter of law. 111