Opinion ID: 767698
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Jablonski Testimony

Text: 17 All three counts of the indictment alleged violations of 18 U.S.C. 1014, which prohibits knowingly making any false statement . . . for the purpose of influencing in any way the action of. . . any institution the accounts of which are insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. Carboni urges that the district court erred by allowing the government to ask leading questions to elicit Jablonski's testimony that Carboni knew about pre-billing, especially because Jablonski gave the only direct evidence on this issue. 18 Federal Rule of Evidence 611(c) provides that leading questions should not be used on the direct examination of a witness except as may be necessary to develop the witness' testimony. Ordinarily, we review the district court's determination to allow leading questions for abuse of discretion. See United States v. Salameh, 152 F.3d 88, 127-28 (2d Cir. 1998). However, the government argues for a plain error standard of review because Carboni objected to only one of the government's questions as leading and did so belatedly. Carboni responds that his one objection was made to the entire line of leading questions. We need not resolve this issue because the district court did not abuse its discretion. Defense counsel objected to the government's questions only after they had elicited significant information concerning Carboni's knowledge of pre-billing and its effect on the borrowing base certificates. More important, the government posed the question to which Carboni objected only after it repeatedly attempted to elicit the same information through non-leading questions. The AUSA first asked, What was discussed at the meetings? When Jablonski responded that they discussed production and shipments, the AUSA asked whether Jablonski referred to anticipated shipments. Jablonski responded, yes, but then returned to the issue of production. The AUSA then asked, What else did you discuss? Only after Jablonski returned to the same point, what impact this had for your monthly results and your year-to-date results, did the AUSA ask the objected-to leading question. At this point, leading questions arguably were necessary to develop the witness' testimony, so the district court did not abuse its discretion by allowing them. Salameh, 152 F.3d at 128 (quoting Fed. R. Evid. 611(c)). 19 Even if the district court's decision to allow leading questions had been erroneous, the resulting error would have been harmless, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 52(a), because overwhelming evidence apart from Jablonski's testimony proved Carboni's guilty intent. Denise Treglia, the clerical worker who created the pre-billed invoices and maintained them in a folder in her desk, testified that Bill Hale took the folder of pre-billed invoices into weekly meetings with Giannitti and Carboni. Virginia Burka, Cableco's bookkeeper, suggested that Carboni was responsible for creating the pre-billed invoices because he was the person who was responsible for all of the issuing of what was to be billed. Burka also testified that Carboni reviewed the borrowing base certificates. Mike Mayfield, NACC's president, testified that Carboni directed him to move NACC inventory from NACC's books and sell it to Cableco although the materials didn't actually leave the NACC facility and were eventually consumed by NACC. Finally, the timing of the inventory transfer and of certain substantial pre-billings was suspicious in itself. Carboni caused raw materials to be transferred from NACC's inventory to Cableco's inventory shortly after Lord refused a request from him to borrow based on NACC's inventory. Then, within two days of the second invoice evidencing the phony transfers, Cableco took a $ 120,000 advance, 50% of the asserted value of the inventory. Similarly, Cableco pre-billed two large invoices totalling over $ 130,000 on December 15, 1993, and drew down on its line of credit by $ 125,000 the next day.