Opinion ID: 745324
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The District Court's Refusal to Issue a Multiple Conspiracy Charge

Text: 24 Flanagan argues that the district court's refusal to grant defense counsel's request for a multiple conspiracy charge requires that Flanagan be granted a new trial. In order to obtain a reversal on these grounds, a defendant must show both that there was evidence of separate networks operating independently of each other and that he suffered substantial prejudice resulting from the failure to give the requested charge. United States v. Maldonado-Rivera, 922 F.2d 934, 962-63 (2d Cir.1990) (internal quotation marks omitted), cert. denied, 501 U.S. 1211, 111 S.Ct. 2811, 115 L.Ed.2d 984 (1991). We conclude that Flanagan has not suffered substantial prejudice, and we therefore reject appellant's claim without needing to reevaluate the evidence suggesting the existence of a single conspiracy linking Flanagan to O'Brien, Brody, and Friedman. 25 A showing of substantial prejudice requires the defendant to prove that the evidence in support of the conspiracy or conspiracies in which he did not participate prejudiced the case against him with respect to the conspiracy to which he was a party. See United States v. Johansen, 56 F.3d 347, 351 (2d Cir.1995). It is generally more difficult to make such a showing where, as here, the trial was a short trial involving a single defendant. See United States v. Harris, 8 F.3d 943, 947 (2d Cir.1993) (The spill over effect is most pronounced when there is a lengthy trial of numerous defendants ... [The defendant] was tried alone in a four day trial, which seriously undermines any possible claim of substantial prejudice.). More importantly, in the instant case the evidence introduced regarding trading by O'Brien, Brody, and Friedman involved substantially the same conduct as that proven against Flanagan, and therefore did not cause Flanagan to suffer substantial prejudice. See United States v. Alessi, 638 F.2d 466, 475 (2d Cir.1980) (refusing to find substantial prejudice based upon introduction of evidence of co-conspirators' conduct where the respective crimes were not markedly different and where [t]he evidence against the various defendants was largely repetitive, describing transactions in which each defendant did essentially the same thing as his co-defendants had done). Accordingly, we reject Flanagan's request for a new trial based on the district court's refusal to give a multiple conspiracy charge.