Opinion ID: 760471
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Persico's Firearms Charge

Text: 30 Persico challenges his conviction for violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c), using and carrying a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence (here, the conspiracy to murder members of the Orena faction), on the ground that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to show that he used or carried a firearm, or that he aided or abetted the use or carrying of a firearm. Applying the usual standards for considering the sufficiency of the evidence, see United States v. Canady, 126 F.3d 352, 356 (2d Cir.1997) (rejecting a sufficiency challenge to an 18 U.S.C. § 924(c)(1) conviction), we conclude that Persico's claim cannot succeed. 31 The cooperating witness Mazza testified as follows: 32 Q. Did you see any guns? 33 A. There was just one gun. When we were all leaving, Teddy Persico showed me a little pistol, a .22 that he carried in his pocket, a tiny one. 34 Q. Did he say anything about it? 35
36 In addition, Mazza testified that Persico's wife came out of Persico's house and gave him and Sessa a bag containing a MAC-10 machine-gun and a silencer. Mazza and Sessa testified that they had a co-conspirator test the machine-gun in the woods of Staten Island. 37 Persico endeavors to relate his insufficiency claim to the use and carry prongs of section 924(c)(1). In this Circuit, the carry prong is satisfied if the evidence establishes that, during and in relation to the underlying crime, the defendant either (1) had physical possession of the firearm, or (2) moved the firearm from one place to another. See Canady, 126 F.3d at 358. We have held that conspiracy to commit crimes of violence is a sufficient predicate crime of violence for the purposes of 18 U.S.C. § 924(c). See United States v. Elder, 88 F.3d 127, 129 (2d Cir.1996). Defendants convicted of aiding and abetting are liable as principals. See 18 U.S.C. § 2(a). 38 Persico relies chiefly on Bailey v. United States, 516 U.S. 137, 116 S.Ct. 501, 133 L.Ed.2d 472 (1995), in which the Supreme Court held that the use prong of the statute is not satisfied by the inert presence of a firearm, without more, id. at 149, 116 S.Ct. at 508. He argues that even if the jury believed the trial testimony, the evidence did not show that Persico actively employed a firearm by brandishing, displaying, bartering, striking with, and, most obviously, firing or attempting to fire a firearm. Id. at 148, 116 S.Ct. 501. Furthermore, on the aiding-and-abetting count relating to the MAC-10 and silencer, Persico argues that United States v. Pipola, 83 F.3d 556 (2d Cir.1996), requires reversing his section 924(c) conviction. In Pipola, a case decided in light of Bailey, we reaffirmed our earlier holding in United States v. Medina, 32 F.3d 40 (2d Cir.1994), that a defendant charged with aiding and abetting the violation of section 924(c) must be shown to have known of the underlying crime, to have had an interest in furthering it, and consciously to have assisted others in the use or carrying of weapons in the underlying crime. See Pipola, 83 F.3d at 562-65. Persico argues that, like the defendant in Medina, he lacked the specific intent to bring about the use of a firearm in connection with a violent crime. 39 These two arguments fail to counter the weight of contrary case law and common sense. Most important, Persico's argument on appeal ignores the carry prong of the statute. Bailey recognized that [t]he 'carry' prong of § 924(c)(1) ... brings some offenders who would not satisfy the 'use' prong within the reach of the statute. 516 U.S. at 150, 116 S.Ct. at 509. 40 The fact that the Government argued for use in the District Court and for carrying in this Court is not significant. See United States v. Giraldo, 80 F.3d 667, 674-76 (2d Cir.1996) (when indictment charges defendants with both using and carrying weapon, conviction proper if evidence supports either use or carrying). Furthermore, the Supreme Court has more recently ruled that carrying, for purposes of section 924(c), broadly includes the possession of a firearm in a trunk or a glove compartment, even if not readily accessible. See Muscarello v. United States, 524 U.S. 125, ---- - ----, 118 S.Ct. 1911, 1916-19, 141 L.Ed.2d 111 (1998). 41 Persico's argument seems to assume that because the murder of Amato was never accomplished and because Persico never actually used the .22 pistol that he showed to Ambrosino, there was no nexus between the possession of the guns and any crimes of violence. This argument ignores this Court's holding in Elder, 88 F.3d at 129, that conspiracy to murder provides the underlying violent felony required for conviction under section 924(c). The jury could reasonably find that the conspiracy to murder began with the outbreak of the Persico/Orena war and did not end until the arrests of the principals. The fact that Persico himself was not convicted of murder and may not have use[d] a firearm in furtherance of the conspiracy is irrelevant. Persico's carry[ing] of the .22 and the MAC-10 during this period of murder and violence, in which plans to kill were constantly hatched, consummated, or discarded, was sufficiently during and in relation to the furtherance of the conspiracy. 42 Moreover, for the purposes of aiding and abetting, there is ample evidence that Persico was aware of the murder conspiracy and interested in its goals, both the killing of Orena faction members and the ascendancy of the Persico faction. Sessa testified that he told Persico that the plan to kill Amato had repeatedly been unsuccessful, and that a silencer would be helpful in completing the task. Persico then provided (at least) the silencer. From this statement, combined with Mazza's and Sessa's testimony about the MAC-10, a reasonable trier of fact could easily infer specific intent to aid and abet the carrying of a firearm in connection with the contemplated crime. The testing of the machine-gun and silencer by Sessa and Ambrosino surely constituted active employment, i.e., use of a firearm during and connection with a crime of violence--if not murder, at least conspiracy to murder or attempted murder. 43 For all these reasons, we reject Persico's challenge to his section 924(c) conviction.