Opinion ID: 472660
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: proitte

Text: 18 Defendant-appellant Valentine Frank Proitte was charged by indictment filed July 10, 1984 with conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. Secs. 841(a)(1), 846 (Count 1), and possession with intent to distribute marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(a)(1) and 18 U.S.C. Sec. 2 (Count 2). He was charged under the name Walter Marrero. On October 3, 1984, Proitte pleaded guilty under his true name to both counts pursuant to a plea agreement with the government. In return for Proitte's guilty plea, the government agreed that it would not file any charges against the Defendant based on conduct known to the government. It was also agreed that Proitte would not be cooperating, debriefing, interviewing, or provid[ing] any other form of testimony. 19 On February 26, 1985, Proitte was charged in a second superseding indictment with two additional counts: (1) False Statement in a Currency Transaction Report (CTR) in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1001 (Count 5); and (2) Interstate Travel in Aid of Racketeering in violation of 18 U.S.C. Secs. 1952, 2 (Count 11). On April 22, 1985, Proitte filed a motion to dismiss the counts against him in the second superseding indictment claiming a violation of the October 3, 1984 plea agreement. This motion was heard on May 20-21, 1985 and denied. Proitte renewed the motion at hearings on August 16 and 21, 1985. The district court denied this motion as well. The jury found Proitte guilty of both counts in the second superseding indictment. 20 Proitte contends on appeal that the counts alleged in the second superseding indictment violated the plea agreement. We disagree. The district court found: (1) the plea agreement provided that the government would not prosecute Proitte based on conduct actually known to it on October 3, 1984; (2) the government did not have actual knowledge on October 3, 1984 that Proitte engaged in the acts constituting the bases for the two superseding indictment counts. These findings were not clearly erroneous. 21 Although a plea bargain is a matter of criminal jurisprudence, such an agreement is contractual in nature and must be measured by contract law standards. United States v. Read, 778 F.2d 1437, 1441 (9th Cir.1985); see also United States v. Ouan, 789 F.2d 711, 713-14 (9th Cir.1986). Thus, any dispute over the terms of the agreement will be determined by objective standards. Read, 778 F.2d at 1441. To determine whether a plea agreement was violated, we first determine what the parties to the plea bargain reasonably understood to be the terms of the agreement. Id. (quoting United States v. Arnett, 628 F.2d 1162, 1169 (9th Cir.1979). What the parties agreed to is a question of fact to be resolved by the district court. Id. (quoting United States v. Krasn, 614 F.2d 1229, 1233 (9th Cir.1980)). Accordingly, the district court's findings as to the terms of a plea agreement are reviewed only for clear error. Id. 22 The bargain included a commitment by the government that it would not file any charges against the Defendant based on conduct known to the government. Proitte does not argue that the government had actual knowledge on October 3 that he committed the crimes charged in the superseding indictment. He argues instead that the government had sufficient information [prior to October 3] to lead them to the belief that the criminal activity alleged in the Second Superseding Indictment had occurred and that the appellant had participated in it. 23 The terms of the agreement are clear. They do not support Proitte's constructive knowledge argument. The words conduct known to the government cannot fairly be construed as conduct that reasonably could have been known. Based on the plain language of the agreement, the district court did not clearly err in finding that the parties reasonably understood the terms of the agreement to be that Proitte would not be prosecuted for criminal activity actually known to the government on October 3, 1984. 24 The district court also did not clearly err in finding that the conduct charged in the superseding indictment was not known to the government on October 3, 1984. 25 Count 5 of the second superseding indictment charged Proitte with making a false statement in a CTR. According to the superseding indictment, on October 28, 1983 Proitte identified himself as Christopher Bowles in a CTR. The superseding indictment also alleges that Proitte presented a fictitious Arizona driver's license in the name of Christopher Bowles to bank cashier Susan Duffy in order to obtain a $24,000 cashier's check for the fictitious company Rico Excavating. 26 The government knew on October 3, 1984 that a $24,000 cashier's check had been used to purchase an airplane used in the smuggling operation. It did not know until the bank first produced the CTR on October 5, 1984, however, that a false name may have been used on this document. Until the CTR became available, the government did not know that the person purchasing the check had used a false name. The government became suspicious that Proitte might be involved with the CTR on October 5, 1984 when it learned the name Christopher Bowles had been used on the document. Proitte had used that name as an alias and had presented identification in that name in the past. However, the government did not have actual knowledge that Proitte had purchased the cashier's check until October 19, 1984. On that day, Susan Duffy, the teller who handled the October 28, 1983 transaction, tentatively identified a photograph of Proitte as the person who had purchased the check. 27 Although the name Rico Excavating appeared as the name of the purchaser on the cashier's check and the government knew prior to October 3, 1984 that Proitte had used the name John Rico as an alias, these facts do not demonstrate that the government had actual knowledge that Proitte purchased the check. The government did not have actual knowledge that Proitte was the actual purchaser of the check until Susan Duffy identified Proitte as Bowles on October 19, 1984. 28 Count 11 of the second superseding indictment charges Proitte with Interstate Travel in Aid of Racketeering. Count 11 alleges that Proitte and co-defendant Francesca Campbell travelled from Arizona to South Carolina on February 22, 1984 for the purpose of delivering 1,100 pounds of marijuana. The superseding indictment further alleges that Proitte and Campbell received $846,000 in payment for the drug, and that Campbell and another individual transported the money back to Ryan Field, Arizona. 29 The government did not have actual knowledge on October 3, 1984 that Proitte had transported 1,100 pounds of marijuana to South Carolina in February of 1984 as charged in the superseding indictment. The government knew the following facts on October 3, 1984: (1) On February 24, 1984, Francesca Campbell and another individual arrived at Ryan Field, Arizona from Spartanburg, South Carolina with $846,000 in their possession; (2) a phone call had been made from Campbell's Spartanburg hotel room to a Ft. Mill, South Carolina hotel room registered in the name of Walter Marrero; (3) Proitte has used the name Marrero in the past; and (4) there had been phone calls from the Marrero hotel room to co-defendant Sutton's residence in Tucson. Although these facts may be sufficient to establish a conspiratorial connection between Proitte, Campbell, and Sutton, Proitte was not charged with conspiracy in the second superseding indictment. He was charged with interstate transportation in aid of racketeering, i.e., transporting marijuana from Arizona to South Carolina in furtherance of the smuggling operation. 30 The government did not have actual knowledge that Proitte had transported the marijuana until December 6, 1984. On that day, Douglas Riddinger, Proitte's fellow inmate during a prior detention, told a government agent that Proitte had admitted to him that he had transported marijuana to South Carolina in February, 1984. 31 Proitte's claim that the government learned in February, 1984 from another government witness, Alan Kaniss, that Proitte had transported marijuana to South Carolina is not supported by the record. In February, 1984, Kaniss told federal officers that Sutton had negotiated with Marrero to transport a 550 pound load of marijuana to South Carolina. The government did not know if the proposed shipment of 550 pounds of marijuana had been carried out. The government did not learn until April, 1985, that a shipment of 550 pounds of marijuana had gone to the northwestern part of the United States. The shipment of 550 pounds of marijuana referred to by Kaniss was not the 1,100 pound South Carolina transaction that formed the basis of the new charges against Proitte. 32 Prior to October 3, 1984, the government did not have actual knowledge that Proitte had committed the violations charged in the superseding indictment because of his use of eight aliases. It was not until after October 3, 1984 that the government had actual knowledge of the facts forming the basis of the specific charges in Counts 5 and 11. Accordingly, the filing of the charges in the second superseding indictment did not violate the October 3, 1984 agreement.