Opinion ID: 725217
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: the substantive statutes alleged to have been violated;

Text: 16 (5) the overt acts alleged to have been committed in furtherance of the conspiracies, or any other descriptions of the conspiracies charged which indicate their nature and scope. 17 United States v. MacDougall, 790 F.2d 1135, 1144 (4th Cir.1986). The district court followed this test and concluded that Nelson was involved in separate and distinct conspiracies. Nelson maintains the district court misapplied the MacDougall factors because the South Carolina indictment charges crimes that were a sub-part of his overall scheme to distribute cocaine to multiple locations throughout the southeast. 18 Nelson argues that the overlapping time periods of the two alleged conspiracies coupled with his using the same courier (Williams) to deliver cocaine and crack cocaine from the same source city--Miami --supports his single conspiracy theory. Nelson's cursory presentation of the Savannah conspiracy and the alleged South Carolina conspiracy as a single continuous conspiracy is misleading because the South Carolina conspiracy fails to encompass the entirety of the Savannah conspiracy, and the South Carolina indictment does not charge Nelson a second time for identical criminal conduct. Thus, for the reasons that follow we conclude Nelson was involved in separate conspiracies to violate the narcotics laws. 19 The Savannah indictment establishes that the Savannah conspiracy began no later than March 1, 1984, and lasted until and including September 26, 1989. Conversely, the South Carolina indictment charges the South Carolina conspiracy began in at least 1988 and continued until September 19, 1995. The South Carolina conspiracy began approximately four years after the beginning of the Savannah conspiracy and ended almost six years later. For the most part, the conspiracies occurred over distinct and identifiable time periods. 20 The fact that the two conspiracies temporarily overlap during 1988 and 1989 is insignificant. The South Carolina indictment charges Nelson with six overt acts of receiving approximately $664,000 in drug proceeds from drug distributions in South Carolina during the months of March, May, June, and September 1988, and in May and June of 1989. Nelson, however, was not charged with participating in any overt acts in Savannah in 1988. And the one substantive act constituting his participation in the Savannah conspiracy to which he did plead guilty occurred on August 9, 1989. Thus, the dates of the overt acts attest to the fact that Nelson participated in the Savannah and South Carolina conspiracies at specifically identifiable and distinct times. 21 The locations in which each conspiracy occurred also differ. The Savannah indictment identified Nelson as having engaged in drug trafficking activities in Chatham County within the Southern District of Georgia, Fulton, Clayton and Dekalb Counties within the Northern District of Georgia, the Southern District of Florida, and elsewhere.... Joint Appendix at 16. The pending South Carolina indictment, on the other hand, charges Nelson with conspiring to ship drugs and money into and out of Bamberg, Barnwell, and Orangeburg Counties, South Carolina. The South Carolina indictment charges no conduct in Savannah. Thus, the locations in which each conspiracy occurred are geographically distinct. 22 Nonetheless Nelson contends that the phrase and elsewhere in the Savannah indictment encompassed his alleged criminal acts in South Carolina. We disagree. The phrase is a term of construction used frequently in indictments. Its use in the Savannah indictment accounted for and referenced all conduct known and unknown to the Government specifically relating to the Savannah conspiracy. The phrase and elsewhere does not serve to contemplate all of Nelson's alleged past and future criminal activity in South Carolina. 23 As to named co-conspirators, the persons identified in the South Carolina conspiracy are persons not even named in the Savannah conspiracy. Nelson's name is the only one to appear in both indictments. 24 Nonetheless, Nelson argues that he used the same courier, Williams, to deliver cocaine to his Savannah and South Carolina distributors. Despite the fact that the same courier occasionally facilitated drug transactions and collected drug money in both Savannah and South Carolina on the same route, the individuals with whom the courier dealt--the principals, the substantive players, the contacts and the buyers--were different in each state and changed over the time periods. The mere use of the same courier to deliver drugs to completely different persons on the same trip along the eastern seaboard does not manifest one conspiracy. 25 The separateness of the conspiracies is underscored further by the fact that the substantive statutes alleged to have been violated in South Carolina differ from those to which Nelson pled guilty in Savannah. In South Carolina, Nelson is charged with money laundering in addition to the conspiracy charge and conspiring to possess and to distribute marijuana, cocaine and cocaine base. In Savannah, Nelson was charged with only conspiring to distribute cocaine and cocaine base. He was not charged with money laundering. Additionally, none of the co-defendants' substantive offenses as charged in the Savannah indictment are related to, or identical to those with which Nelson is charged in South Carolina. 26 Finally, in Savannah, Nelson's overt act consisted of a phone call he made to Thompson to discuss payment of a cocaine shipment. In South Carolina, Nelson is alleged to have received approximately $2,000,000 for providing his South Carolina distributors with 138 kilograms of cocaine between the years 1988 and 1995. None of the specific deliveries constituting the 138 kilograms sold in South Carolina nor the money collected from those sales was referenced in the Savannah indictment. 27 By comparing evidence from Nelson's Savannah conviction with grand jury testimony from the pending case, and by following MacDougall, it is apparent that there were two separate agreements among distinct groups of participants to commit separate and independent violations of the narcotics laws. The alleged similarities, which Nelson cites, do not affirmatively constitute a sufficient overlapping of key actors, methods, and goals. United States v. Leavis, 853 F.2d 215, 218 (4th Cir.1988). Therefore, it was not clear error for the district court to have found that Nelson participated in multiple conspiracies and that the pending South Carolina conspiracy charge is a different conspiracy offense than that to which Nelson pled guilty in 1992.