Court Opinion

ID: 9774142
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 18:09:47.756651+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:32:02.765329
License: Public Domain

OPINION ON MOTION FOR REARGUMENT
On January 27, 2000, I filed an Opinion in which I dismissed Counts Two and Six of the indictment in this case. See United States v. DeLaurentis, No. 99-431, 2000 WL 64895, at *7 (D.N.J. Jan. 27, 2000). These Counts alleged violations of 18 U.S.C. § 666,1 which makes “bribe-taking” *473by local government officials a federal offense. In dismissing both Counts, I applied for the first time the Third Circuit’s decision in United States v. Zwick, 199 F.3d 672 (3d Cir.1999). On February 2, 2000,. the Government filed a motion for reargument, requesting that I reconsider my decision to dismiss Counts Two and Six of the indictment. See Notice of Mot. (filed Feb. 2, 2000). For the reasons set forth below, the Government’s motion for reconsideration is denied.
I. Discussion
I dismissed Counts Two and Six of the indictment on the ground that the Government had failed to establish a sufficient connection between the bribes that the Defendant, James V. DeLaurentis (“DeLaurentis”), allegedly accepted and the federal funds received by the Hammonton Police Department, where DeLaurentis served as the Supervising Detective. See DeLaurentis, 2000 WL 64895, at *1, *7. The Government alleges that DeLaurentis received bribes from the owner of the Choris Bar, a local Hammonton watering hole, in exchange for persuading the Hammonton Town Council not to strip the owner of his license to serve alcohol. See id.' at *2. During the time that DeLaurentis was allegedly receiving bribes, the Hammonton Police Department was the beneficiary of a three-year, $75,000 community-policing grant, given to the Hammonton Police Department for the purposes of hiring one additional police officer. See id. at *6. I interpreted the Third Circuit’s decision in Zwick to mean that the Government was required to show that the bribes received by DeLaurentis somehow implicated a substantive federal interest, concluded that the Government had not met this burden, and granted DeLauren-tis’s motion to dismiss Counts Two • and Six of the indictment. See id. at *5-7. The Government now seeks to introduce new evidence2 that it claims establishes a *474sufficient connection between the bribes accepted and the federal grant money received. Specifically, the Government contends that the police officer the Hammon-ton Police Department hired with the community-policing grant money it received has reported to the Choris Bar on four occasions on complaints of, among other things, “public urination,” “public intoxication,” and “a large group.” See Government’s Letter Br. at 4-5, Exs. H, I, J (received Feb. 2, 2000). The Government argues that if DeLaurentis had not accepted bribes from the owner of the Choris Bar, he would not have persuaded the Hammonton Town Council to allow the bar to retain its liquor license, the bar would have closed, and the federally funded police officer would not have had to report to the Choris Bar. See id. at 5-6. According to the Government, the bribes received by DeLaurentis implicate a substantive federal interest in “not allowing the agents of organizations receiving federal funds to waste, divert and dissipate those funds by taking bribes to permit crimes that the federal funds must be used to investigate.” Id. at 6. Unfortunately, the Government’s argument misses the mai*k.
The Third Circuit’s decision in Zwick requires that the Government demonstrate a more particularized federal interest than the one it asserts here. The holding in Zwick is predicated on the eon-eern that the constitutional balance of state and federal powers would be threatened without a requirement that a connection exist between bribes that are the subject of a prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 666 and the federal funds that are prerequisite to such a prosecution. See Zwick, 199 F.3d 672, 682-83, 686-87. The Third Circuit fashioned the “federal interest” test I applied in dismissing Counts Two and Six of the indictment to address this concern. See id., at 686-87. The Third Circuit also offered guidance as to how this test should be applied. The Court held that in circumstances where most of a local government’s budget is derived from federal funds, a federal interest will be implicated, “even if the purpose of those funds has no explicit relationship to the subject of the bribe.” Id., at 687-88. Absent this circumstance, however, something more is required. The bribe accepted must relate in some way to “a particular substantive federal interest.” Id.
The result in Zwick reveals that “a particular substantive federal interest” will be implicated where there is a relationship between the federal funds received and the bribe accepted. Hence, “a particular substantive federal interest” was not found to exist in Zwick because the local government in that case received federal funds for emergency snow removal and to prevent stream bank erosion while the defen*475dant accepted bribes from real estate developers in exchange for sewer access and land use permits. See id. The Third Circuit ruled that the uses to which the federal funds were put “bore no obvious connection” to the subject of the bribe, sewer access and land use permits. See id. at 687-88.
Similarly, a relationship is lacking in this case between the federal grant money the Hammonton Police Department received and the bribe DeLaurentis allegedly accepted. The Hammonton Police Department received federal funds to hire an additional police officer. DeLaurentis allegedly accepted a bribe for enabling the Choris Bar to retain its liquor license. There is little relation, if any, between the very general purposes for which the Ham-monton Police Department received the federal grant money and the subject of the bribe, the circumvention of New Jersey’s Alcohol Beverage laws.
This case would be different if the Ham-monton Police Department had been given federal funding to aid in the enforcement of state liquor laws or if the Hammonton Police Department, having received the money, dedicated some portion of it to that purpose. In such a circumstance,- there would be a relationship between the federal funds received and the bribe DeLaurentis allegedly accepted. See United States v. Frega, 933 F.Supp. 1536, 1542-43 (S.D.Cal.1996) (stating that if a state court system received federal funding to appoint counsel in death penalty habeas proceedings and a state court accepted a bribe in exchange for appointing a particular attorney, 18 U.S.C. § 666 would “clearly be implicated,” “even if the actual funds used to pay counsel were state funds”). In this ease, however, there is no evidence that “community policing” involves substantially different duties than those generally performed by police officers or that the police officer hired with federal funds provided anything other traditional police services. Allowing the Government to bring a prosecution under 18 U.S.C. § 666 on these facts or whenever a local government receives federal funds and “wastes,” “diverts,” or “dissipates” resources would threaten to upset the very constitutional balance between federal and state authority that the Third Circuit in Zwick was afraid of disturbing. See United States v. McCormack, 31 F.Supp.2d 176, 189 (D.Mass.1998).
In making its argument, the Government relies on a number of cases which are cited with approval in Zwick, however, the Government’s reliance on these cases is misplaced. In Salinas v. U.S., 522 U.S. 52, 118 S.Ct. 469, 474-75, 139 L.Ed.2d 352 (1997), the Supreme Court affirmed the conviction of a county sheriff where the federal government provided the county with funds to house federal prisoners and the sheriff accepted bribes from one of the prisoners so that the prisoner could have “contact” visits with his wife and girlfriends. In United States v. Santopietro, 166 F.3d 88, 93 (2d Cir.1999), the Second Circuit affirmed the conviction of the May- or of Waterbury, Connecticut, who accepted bribes from real estate developers in exchange for his influence over Waterbury agencies responsible for administering federal funding for urban development and renewal. In both cases, it was found that the bribes involved posed a “threat to the integrity and proper operation of the federal program.” Salinas, 522 U.S. 52, 118 S.Ct. at 475; Santopietro, 166 F.3d at 93. No such threat existed in this case. De-Laurentis’s acceptance of bribes from the owner of the Choris Bar did not threaten the integrity of the community-policing grant received by the Hammonton Police Department. Federal funds “were [not] corruptly administered” nor were federal funds ever in “in danger of being corruptly administered.” Frega, 933 F.Supp. at 1543. Rather, the funds were put to the proper use of beefing up law enforcement in Hammonton. The police officer funded with federal money reported to the Choris Bar as part of legitimate police activity. The fact that the bar may have operated *476because of the bribe DeLaurentis received creates what is at best a tangential and insufficient connection between the bribe DeLaurentis accepted and the federal funds the Hammonton Police Department received. No “particular substantive federal interest” is implicated by the bribe DeLaurentis allegedly received.
II. Conclusion
For the reasons set forth above, I hold that the Government has failed to demonstrate that “a particular substantive federal interest” is implicated by the alleged acceptance of a bribe by the Defendant, James V. DeLaurentis. In light of the Government’s inability to establish a relationship between the federal funds received by the Hammonton Police Department and the bribe allegedly accepted in this case, I conclude that I properly dismissed Counts Two and Six of the indictment in my Opinion & Order of January 27, 2000. Accordingly, I shall deny the Government’s motion for reargument. An appropriate order shall be entered by the Court.
ORDER
This matter having come before the Court on the motion of the Government for reargument of this Court’s January 27, 2000, Opinion & Order dismissing Counts Two and Six of the indictment, Robert J. Cleary, Esq., United States Attorney, and Mary A. Futcher, Esq., Assistant United States Attorney, appearing on behalf of the United States, Louis M. Barbone, Esq., Jacobs & Barbone, P.A., appearing on behalf of Defendant, James V. DeLau-rentis; and,
The Court having considered the submissions of the parties, for the reasons set forth in the OPINION filed concurrently with this ORDER;
IT IS, on this 10th day of February, 2000, hereby ORDERED that the motion of the United States for reargument is DENIED.

. This section provides, in pertinent part:
(a) Whoever, if the circumstances described in subsection (b) of this section exists—
*473(1) being an agent of an organization, or of a state, local, or Indian tribal government, or any agency thereof—
(A) embezzles, steals, obtains by fraud, or otherwise without authority knowingly converts to use of any person other than the rightful owner or intentionally misapplies, property that—
(i) is valued at $5,000 or more, and
(ii) is owned by, or is under the care, custody, or control of such organization, government, or agency; or
(B) corruptly solicits or demands for the benefit of any person, or accepts or agrees to accept, anything of value from any person, intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with any business, transaction, or series of transactions of such organization, government, or agency involving anything of value of $5,000 or more;
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
(b) The circumstance referred to in subsection (a) of this section is that the organization, government, or agency receives, in any one year period, benefits in excess of $10,-000 under a federal program involving a grant, contract, subsidy, loan, guarantee, insurance, or other form of Federal assistance.
18 U.S.C.A. § 666 (West Supp.1999).

. Although I consider this new .evidence in denying the Government’s motion on the merits, I note that it is generally improper to raise new evidence on a motion for reargument. A motion for reargument "is an extremely limited procedural vehicle,” Resorts Int’l, Inc. v. Greate Bay Hotel & Casino, Inc., 830 F.Supp. 826, 831 (D.N.J.1992) (Gerry, L), and relief requested on a. motion for reargument is granted "very sparingly,” Maldonado v. Lucca, 636 F.Supp. 621, 630 (D.N.J.1986) (Barry, J.). The critical factor a court must consider in deciding whether or not a motion for rear-gument should be granted is whether the court "overlooked” factual matters or decisions of law that might reasonably have resulted in a different conclusion had they been considered, Rouse v. Plantier, 997 F.Supp. 575, 578-79 (D.NJ.1998) (Orlofsky, J.); L. Civ. R. 7.1(g) (made applicable to criminal cases by Local Criminal Rule 1.1). I could not have overlooked factual matters that were not presented to me in the first instance.
That being said, the Government justifies its submission of new evidence on the ground that the Government did not have an opportunity to brief the Third Circuit's decision in Zwick before I rendered my decision concerning DeLaurentis’s motion to dismiss Counts Two and Six of the indictment. See Government's Letter Br. at 1-2 (received Feb. 2, *4742000). As I pointed out in my opinion, however, "DeLaurentis and the Government anticipated the discussion in Zwick with considerable prescience.” See DeLaurentis, 2000 WL 64895, at *4 n. 4. In fact, the Government discussed virtually all of the cases on which the Zwick opinion ultimately relied and argued that even under those cases, which require some connection to be established between federal funds received and bribes accepted, such a requirement was satisfied in this case. See Government’s Resp. to Def.’s Pre-Trial Mots, at 10-12 (received November 3, 1999). The Government made the right argument. It also had the opportunity to supply the relevant evidence. It failed to do so.
This is not the first time in this case that the Government has tried to use a motion for reargument as a means of having a second bite at the proverbial apple. Indeed, the Government seems to ascribe to the theory that "if at first you do not succeed, file, file again.” The Government is reminded that there must be some end to the litigation of every conceivable issue and that it may be the better part of valor to recognize when that time has come. More importantly, the Court will not countenance repeated attempts to expand the factual record on motions for reargument, especially where there is no indication that the "new evidence” presented was previously unavailable. The Government clearly had in its possession the "new evidence” it now seeks to introduce at the time the motion to dismiss Counts Two and Six of the Indictment was filed.