Court Opinion

ID: 9931033
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2024-02-08 14:00:50.782068+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:18:56.930436
License: Public Domain

USCA11 Case: 22-11175    Document: 51-1      Date Filed: 02/08/2024   Page: 1 of 13

                                                            [PUBLISH]
                                    In the
                 United States Court of Appeals
                         For the Eleventh Circuit
                             _________________

                                 No. 22-11175
                           ____________________

        UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                                                       Plaintiﬀ-Appellee,
        versus
        JOSEPH A. SANFILIPPO,

                                                    Defendant-Appellant.

                           ____________________

                  Appeal from the United States District Court
                      for the Southern District of Florida
                     D.C. Docket No. 0:21-cr-60006-RKA-1
                           ____________________
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        2                          Opinion of the Court                     22-11175

        Before JORDAN, LAGOA, and MARCUS, Circuit Judges.
        LAGOA, Circuit Judge:
                Joseph Sanfilippo appeals his conviction for wire fraud pur-
        suant to a guilty plea and contends that the district court erred in
        denying his motion to dismiss the indictment against him because
        it was issued after the expiration of the federal statute of limitations
        under 18 U.S.C. § 3282. Sanfilippo argues that the district court
        misinterpreted § 3282(a), and thus incorrectly concluded that the
        government indicted him within the statute of limitations. We
        conclude, however, after careful review and with the benefit of oral
        argument, that we cannot resolve this issue, as Sanfilippo entered
        an unconditional guilty plea to one of eight counts in the indict-
        ment and, under our precedent, waived his ability to appeal the
        district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment. Be-
        cause Sanfilippo waived any challenge to the timeliness of his in-
        dictment by entering a knowing, voluntary, and unconditional
        plea, we dismiss Sanfilippo’s appeal.
            I.     FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL BACKGROUND1
               Sanfilippo met the victim, a wealthy widow, in 2008 or 2009,
        and the pair had a long-distance relationship that lasted for a few
        years. In 2013, Sanfilippo informed the victim that he was moving
        to South Florida, and the couple’s relationship rekindled once he
        did. In 2015, Sanfilippo convinced the victim that she should invest

        1 Sanfilippo stipulated to the following facts in the factual proffer submitted

        with his plea agreement.
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        22-11175               Opinion of the Court                         3

        in Cayman Shipping and Distribution, LLC (“Cayman Shipping”),
        which allegedly bought excess inventory from companies like
        Walgreens and CVS and shipped it to South America for resale.
        Sanfilippo told the victim that he knew the president of Cayman
        Shipping, who would only accept investment money directly from
        him. So, in late October and early November 2015, the victim
        wrote four checks, payable to Sanfilippo, for a total of $100,000. In
        return for her investments, Sanfilippo gave the victim a fraudulent
        promissory note. Sanfilippo deposited these checks into one of two
        personal bank accounts, and almost immediately thereafter with-
        drew the money in increments of less than $10,000. In April 2017,
        the victim hired an attorney, who unsuccessfully tried to contact
        Cayman Shipping seeking return of the victim’s investment.
        Agents later learned that Cayman Shipping did not exist, nor did
        the person Sanfilippo said was the president.
               For a large part of 2020, grand jury sessions were suspended
        in the Southern District of Florida due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
        See S.D. Fla. Admin. Order 2020-22 (suspending all grand jury ses-
        sions as of March 26, 2020); S.D. Fla. Admin. Order 2020-76 (provid-
        ing that two grand jury sessions per week were to resume on No-
        vember 16, 2020). As a result, by late 2020, the government still
        had not brought its case. Under federal law, however, “[e]xcept as
        otherwise expressly provided by law, no person shall be prose-
        cuted, tried, or punished for any offense, not capital, unless the in-
        dictment is found or the information is instituted within five years
        next after such offense shall have been committed.” 18 U.S.C.
        § 3282(a).
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        4                     Opinion of the Court                22-11175

               Unable to bring an indictment, the government instead filed
        an eight-count information in the Southern District on October 23,
        2020. Because the government alleged that Sanfilippo committed
        four acts of wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343 between Oc-
        tober 28, 2015, and November 2, 2015, and four acts of structuring
        in violation of 31 U.S.C. § 5324 between October 29, 2015, and No-
        vember 4, 2015, the information was filed within the five-year pe-
        riod provided by § 3282(a). The parties agree that Sanfilippo could
        be prosecuted by information only if he waived prosecution by in-
        dictment “in open court and after being advised of the nature of the
        charge and of [his] rights.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 7(b); see U.S. Const.
        amend. V (“No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or oth-
        erwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a
        Grand Jury. . . .”). But Sanfilippo did not provide such a waiver.
                After grand jury sessions resumed, the government indicted
        Sanfilippo on the same eight counts on January 14, 2021. The gov-
        ernment then moved under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure
        48(a) to dismiss the information without prejudice, which the dis-
        trict court granted on February 26, 2021. Sanfilippo then moved to
        dismiss the indictment, arguing that it was “filed after the Statute
        of Limitations had expired” for all eight counts.
                The district court denied Sanfilippo’s motion. The district
        court first concluded that an information is “instituted” when it is
        filed, and thus the government acted timely under § 3282(a), even
        though Sanfilippo had not waived his right to prosecution by in-
        dictment. The district court then turned to 18 U.S.C. § 3288.
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        22-11175               Opinion of the Court                         5

        When an information charging a felony is dismissed after the stat-
        ute of limitations expires, § 3288 provides, with some exceptions, a
        six-month window in which the government can indict the defend-
        ant. See § 3288. While the government cannot invoke this provi-
        sion when the reason for the dismissal “was the failure to file the
        indictment or information within the period prescribed by the ap-
        plicable statute of limitations, or some other reason that would bar
        a new prosecution,” id., Sanfilippo did not argue that either applied
        in his case. Even if he had, the district court concluded that “any
        reliance on these exceptions would have been futile.” Therefore,
        the district court concluded that the indictment was timely, and,
        after rejecting other arguments not relevant to this appeal, denied
        Sanfilippo’s motion to dismiss.
               Sanfilippo later agreed to plead guilty to one count of wire
        fraud. The written plea agreement does not contain a reservation
        of the right to appeal the district court’s denial of Sanfilippo’s mo-
        tion to dismiss. At the plea colloquy, Sanfilippo stated that he had
        discussed the plea agreement with his counsel and fully understood
        its terms, including the fact that the plea agreement “fully re-
        flect[ed] [his] agreement with the United States.” The district court
        summarized the terms of the plea agreement and alerted Sanfilippo
        to the last paragraph, which stipulated “that this plea agreement
        represents the entire agreement and understanding between you
        and the United States, and that there are no other secret or myste-
        rious agreements, promises, or guarantees that have been made to
        you in order to induce you to plead guilty in this case.” Sanfilippo
        confirmed that the plea agreement represented his entire
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        6                        Opinion of the Court                    22-11175

        understanding with the government and that he understood he
        was waiving certain rights by pleading guilty. Sanfilippo’s counsel
        indicated that Sanfilippo understood the rights that he was waiving
        in signing the agreement. Sanfilippo then pleaded guilty to Count
        Four, and the district court accepted his plea, adjudging him guilty.
                After Sanfilippo’s guilty plea was entered and the district
        court sought to end the hearing, the government interjected,
        “there is one other issue.” The government noted that United States
        v. B.G.G., another case that raised similar statute of limitations
        questions, was on appeal to this Court. If it turned out, based on
        this Court’s decision in B.G.G., that the government was “in error
        by filing an information within the statute of limitations,” the gov-
        ernment said that “Sanfilippo would be exonerated at that point,
        just as a matter of fundamental fairness.” In such a case, “what [the
        government] would probably do is allow [Sanfilippo] to withdraw
        his guilty plea, and then [the government] would have to dismiss
        the charges, because the statute of limitations had run.” Sanfilippo
        would be able to “file a motion to dismiss based on the statute of
        limitations again, in which case it would be granted at that point.”
        Both the district court and Sanfilippo agreed to this potential path.
               The district court subsequently sentenced Sanfilippo to 24
        months’ imprisonment with three years of supervised release and
        restitution in the amount of $300,000. 2 This appeal follows.

        2 The district court has since moved Sanfilippo’s self-surrender date to May

        2024.
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        22-11175                  Opinion of the Court                       7

                         II.      STANDARD OF REVIEW
                Whether a defendant waived the right to appeal a district
        court’s decision on a pretrial motion by entering a guilty plea is a
        question of law this Court reviews de novo. See United States v.
        Patti, 337 F.3d 1317, 1320 & n.4 (11th Cir. 2003).
                                    III.   ANALYSIS
                We have long held that a “defendant’s [unconditional] plea
        of guilty, made knowingly, voluntarily, and with the benefit of
        competent counsel, waives all non-jurisdictional defects in that de-
        fendant’s court proceedings.” United States v. Pierre, 120 F.3d 1153,
        1155 (11th Cir. 1997) (quoting United States v. Yunis, 723 F.2d 795,
        796 (11th Cir. 1984); see, e.g., Patti, 337 F.3d at 1320 (same)). And
        we have held that a statute of limitations defense is one of those
        non-jurisdictional defects. In United States v. Najjar, we rejected the
        argument that “in a criminal case, the statute of limitations is a ju-
        risdictional bar that cannot be waived in a plea agreement.” 283
        F.3d 1306, 1308 (11th Cir. 2002). Instead, we recognized that, “pur-
        suant to binding precedent, the statute of limitations is a matter of
        defense that must be asserted at trial by the defendant.” Id. (citing
        Capone v. Aderhold, 65 F.2d 130, 131 (5th Cir. 1933)). And in Musac-
        chio v. United States, 577 U.S. 237, 248 (2016), the Supreme Court
        held in a case involving § 3282(a)—the statute of limitations at issue
        here—that “[i]n keeping with § 3282(a)’s text, context, and history,
        we conclude that § 3282(a) provides a non-jurisdictional defense,
        not a jurisdictional limit.”
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        8                       Opinion of the Court                  22-11175

               Thus, if Sanfilippo wished to preserve appellate review of
        the district court’s denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment
        while pleading guilty, he could “do so only by entering a ‘condi-
        tional plea’ in accordance with Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(a)(2).” Pierre,
        120 F.3d at 1155.
               Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(a)(2) provides that
        “[w]ith the consent of the court and the government, a defendant
        may enter a conditional plea of guilty or nolo contendere, reserving
        in writing the right to have an appellate court review an adverse
        determination of a specified pretrial motion.” Thus, a “conditional
        plea must be in writing and must be consented to by the court and
        by the government.” Pierre, 120 F.3d at 1155. As for consent under
        the Rule, it “means express approval: direct assent requiring no in-
        ference or implication.” Id. at 1156. “[S]ilence or inaction by the
        government” will not cut it. Id.
                Sanfilippo’s plea fails to qualify as a conditional plea on both
        fronts. First, Sanfilippo’s plea agreement—the only written agree-
        ment we have in the record—does not show that Sanfilippo re-
        served his right to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to
        dismiss. Further, the written plea agreement confirms that “[t]his
        is the entire agreement and understanding between this Office and
        the defendant,” and that “[t]here are no other agreements, prom-
        ises, representations or understandings.” And during his plea col-
        loquy Sanfilippo said that this written agreement fully reflected his
        agreement with the government.
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        22-11175               Opinion of the Court                          9

                Second, there is no record evidence indicating that the dis-
        trict court and the government consented to Sanfilippo reserving
        his ability to appeal the district court’s motion to dismiss. Sanfil-
        ippo points us to the agreement reached at the end of his plea col-
        loquy. As we discussed above, the government said that if it turned
        out, based on this Court’s then-forthcoming decision in United
        States v. B.G.G., that it was “in error by filing an information within
        the statute of limitations,” then the government believed that “San-
        filippo would be exonerated at that point, just as a matter of funda-
        mental fairness.” Procedurally, the government said that “what [it]
        would probably do is allow him to withdraw his guilty plea, and
        then [the government] would have to dismiss the charges, because
        the statute of limitations had run.” Sanfilippo would be able to, in
        the government’s words, “file a motion to dismiss based on the
        statute of limitations again, in which case it would be granted at
        that point.” Sanfilippo agreed to this plan, as did the district court.
               We do not find evidence in this conversation of “direct as-
        sent” to a conditional plea from either the district court or the gov-
        ernment to permit Sanfilippo to appeal the district court’s denial of
        his motion to dismiss. Pierre, 120 F.3d at 1156. Instead, we inter-
        pret this discussion as an agreement that Sanfilippo’s plea would be
        withdrawn and the charges dismissed if this Court, in B.G.G.,
        agreed with Sanfilippo’s statute of limitations argument. For simi-
        lar reasons, the fact that the government agreed to stay Sanfilippo’s
        sentencing and then to stay Sanfilippo’s appeal while B.G.G. was
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        10                         Opinion of the Court                         22-11175

        pending in front of this Court is also not sufficient evidence of ex-
        press consent for Rule 11(a)(2) purposes. 3
               For these reasons, we conclude that Sanfilippo’s plea was
        not conditional under Rule 11(a)(2), and consequently, he waived
        his ability to appeal the district court’s denial of his motion to dis-
        miss. The district court’s decision is therefore “not reviewable,”
        and we “offer no opinion about the merits” of it. Patti, 337 F.3d at
        1323.

        3 In United States v. B.G.G., we did “not reach the issue of whether filing an

        information without a waiver of indictment institutes the prosecution, and
        tolls the statute of limitations, under sections 3282(a) and 3288.” 53 F.4th 1353,
        1361 n.3 (11th Cir. 2022). Instead, we concluded that the district court erred
        when it dismissed the information with prejudice but noted that if a “grand
        jury later indicts [the defendant], he can still raise a statute of limitations de-
        fense.” Id. at 1370. After remand, a grand jury indicted the defendant, and the
        defendant moved to dismiss the indictment on statute of limitations grounds.
        The district court in that case determined that the filing of an information,
        without a corresponding waiver of an indictment, within the five-year limita-
        tions period did not satisfy § 3282(a). See United States v. Gatz, No. 20-CR-
        80063, 2023 WL 8355363, at *4 (S.D. Fla. Dec. 1, 2023). The district court also
        concluded that the dismissal of a waiver-less information after the statute of
        limitations had expired did not entitle the government to a new six-month
        window under § 3288 in which it could indict the defendant. Id. at *8–*9. The
        district court therefore granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss the indict-
        ment. Id. at *13. If the government once again decides to appeal the district
        court’s order in B.G.G., and this Court agrees with the district court’s interpre-
        tation of §§ 3282(a) and 3288, then, under the terms of the government’s
        agreement with Sanfilippo before the district court, Sanfilippo would be enti-
        tled to withdraw his plea.
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        22-11175                   Opinion of the Court                                11

                                  IV.      CONCLUSION
               For the reasons stated, we conclude that Sanfilippo entered
        an unconditional guilty plea to one of eight counts in the indict-
        ment and thus waived his ability to appeal the district court’s denial
        of his motion to dismiss the indictment. Because Sanfilippo waived
        any challenge to the timeliness of his indictment by entering a
        knowing, voluntary, and unconditional plea, we dismiss Sanfil-
        ippo’s appeal. 4
                APPEAL DISMISSED.

        4 While in past cases we have afforded relief to defendants if they entered a

        guilty plea “only on the reasonable (but mistaken) belief” that they had pre-
        served the ability to challenge on appeal a district court’s pretrial decision,
        Pierre, 120 F.3d at 1156, here Sanfilippo did not argue that his plea was un-
        knowing and involuntary until oral argument. Under our precedent, his fail-
        ure to make this argument in his briefs precludes us from considering it. See,
        e.g., Hernandez v. Plastipak Packaging, Inc., 15 F.4th 1321, 1330 (11th Cir. 2021)
        (explaining that we “do not consider arguments raised for the first time at oral
        argument”); Holland v. Gee, 677 F.3d 1047, 1065–66 (11th Cir. 2012) (rejecting
        a party’s “last-minute attempt to raise [an] alternative argument” at “oral ar-
        gument”); Access Now, Inc. v. Sw. Airlines Co., 385 F.3d 1324, 1330 (11th Cir.
        2004) (“[T]he law is by now well settled in this Circuit that a legal claim or
        argument that has not been briefed before the court is deemed abandoned and
        its merits will not be addressed.”).
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        22-11175               JORDAN, J., Concurring                         1

        JORDAN, Circuit Judge, Concurring.
               I join Judge Lagoa’s opinion for the court in full. I write sep-
        arately to alert the parties that their agreement to allow Mr. Sanﬁl-
        ippo to withdraw his guilty plea if the Eleventh Circuit ultimately
        rules against the government on the statute of limitations issue—
        something the district court seemed to countenance—will require
        traversing some tricky jurisdictional terrain.
                A district court has limited jurisdiction under the U.S. Code
        (e.g., 18 U.S.C. § 3582(c)) and the Federal Rules of Criminal Proce-
        dure (e.g., Rule 35) to set aside or modify a federal defendant’s con-
        viction or sentence, and it does not possess inherent authority to
        take such action. See generally United States v. Diaz-Clark, 292 F.3d
        1310, 1315-198 (11th Cir. 2002). I am therefore not sure how it is
        that the parties believe that they will be able, months or years from
        now, to go back to the district court and request that Mr. Sanﬁlippo
        be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea in a closed case.
               There is, of course, the possibility of Mr. Sanﬁlippo seeking
        collateral relief from his conviction, but a motion to vacate has a
        one-year limitations period that runs from a number of possible
        trigger dates. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255(f ). Once this direct appeal is
        dismissed, Mr. Sanﬁlippo’s conviction will become ﬁnal when the
        time for seeking certiorari expires or when the Supreme Court de-
        nies certiorari. See Clay v. United States, 537 U.S. 522, 524-25 (2003);
        Drury v. United States, 507 F.3d 1225, 1296 (11th Cir. 2007). If Mr.
        Sanﬁlippo ﬁles a § 2255 motion after the one-year limitations period
        has expired, the government, in order to follow through on its
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        2                   JORDAN, J., Concurring             22-11175

        agreement with him, will have to expressly disclaim or waive any
        statute of limitations argument in its response.