U.S. v. Mansoori
| Citation | 304 F.3d 635 |
| Decision Date | 29 August 2002 |
| Docket Number | No. 99-3570.,No. 99-1492.,No. 99-3623.,No. 99-3533.,No. 99-3569.,99-1492.,99-3533.,99-3569.,99-3570.,99-3623. |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Bahman MANSOORI, Mark Cox, Mohammad Mansoori, Kenneth Choice, and Terry Young, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (7th Circuit) |
Nina Goodman (argued), Department of Justice, Criminal Division, Appellate Section, Washington, DC, for plaintiff-appellee.
Marc M. Barnett (argued), Barnett & Nagel, Palos Hills, IL, for Mohammad Mansoori.
James H. Feldman, Jr. (argued), Ardmore, PA, Alan Ellis, Sausalito, CA, for Terry Young.
John A. Meyer (argued), Chicago, IL, for Mark Cox.
Robert A. Willis (argued), Chicago, IL, for Kenneth Choice.
Before BAUER, ROVNER, and DIANE P. WOOD, Circuit Judges.
Appellants Kenneth Choice, Mark Cox, Bahman Mansoori, Mohammad Mansoori, and Terry Young were collectively convicted of conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine, cocaine base and heroin. Cox and Young were also convicted of possession of cocaine with the intent to distribute; Mohammad Mansoori was convicted of engaging in monetary transactions involving funds derived from criminal activity; and Young was convicted of money laundering. We affirm the appellants' convictions but, based on certain errors at sentencing, vacate their sentences and remand for re-sentencing in conformity with this opinion.
On October 31, 1996, a drug transaction many months in the planning finally came to pass. Several members of the Chicago street gang, Traveling Vice Lords ("TVL"), who were engaged in narcotics trafficking had organized a drug deal that, unbeknownst to them, would be captured on recorded telephone conversations obtained through court-authorized wiretaps. On that date, TVL leader Terry Young had arranged for TVL member Timothy White to purchase a kilogram of cocaine for resale from Mark Clemons. Young's right-hand man, Kenneth Choice, was assigned to transfer the cocaine from White to another TVL member, Terry Bronson, who would keep it until Mark Cox came to pick it up for resale on the street. Once Bronson was in possession of the cocaine, the police began to follow his car. A chase ensued that finally ended with Bronson crashing his car into a garage and fleeing the scene of the accident without the cocaine, which the police officers seized. Arrests of the individuals who had participated in the narcotics trafficking ensued.
The evidence at trial revealed that each of the appellants participated in a conspiracy to distribute narcotics in a different capacity. Mohammad Mansoori was not a member of TVL, but along with his brother, Bahman, distributed drugs and guns to Young. Young, Cox, and Choice were all members of TVL. They used the gang to plan highly organized drug transactions that culminated in street-level sales of cocaine and heroin at locations controlled by the gang. Young, a high-ranking TVL member, was in charge of the drug sales. Young obtained drugs and guns from Mohammad and Bahman Mansoori and then distributed both (the drugs for resale, and the firearms for protection) among various members of the gang. He assigned other gang members to certain locations where they carried out their sales. Choice worked directly for Young within the gang, picking up and delivering drugs for various TVL members. Cox also worked directly under Young, managing a large area of drug distribution locations.
Both Mohammad Mansoori and Young purchased property with earnings from the drug enterprise. Mansoori made several large cash payments to contractors for a house he was having built in Highland Park. He had confessed to an accountant and an IRS agent that he did not receive any money from his legitimate enterprises. The police had also stopped Mansoori and seized about $11,000 in cash made from a suspected drug transaction. Young had purchased a house through a nominee purchaser, Lovell Nabors. Although Nabors signed a lease with purchase option for the house, he used Young's money to make the purchase and understood that the house was actually Young's. An IRS agent testified that he did not think that Young could have purchased the property with his legitimate sources of income.
The jury convicted appellants of all charges, and this appeal arises from the convictions and the lengthy sentences that the district court imposed pursuant to those convictions.
On four occasions in late 1996 and early 1997, then-Chief Judge Marvin Aspen of the Northern District of Illinois entered orders authorizing the government to monitor various telephone numbers which, the government believed, the defendants were using to conduct their narcotics business. The orders indicated that the conversations intercepted from these telephone numbers were expected to reveal:
(1) the identities of individuals possessing with intent to distribute and distributing controlled substances;
(2) the locations where the controlled substances were distributed and stored;
(3) the methods by which the controlled substances were distributed and drug proceeds are distributed;
(4) the dates, times and manner of the transportation, receipt, storage, distribution and delivery of the controlled substances and proceeds;
(5) the nature and scope of the conspiracy; and
(6) the identities and roles of unidentified conspirators.
Appellants' Joint Appendix ("App.") 228-29, 237-38, 245-46, 254. Each order also compelled the government to minimize (i.e., limit) the interception of conversations that did not relate to the government's investigation.
Monitoring of wire conversations must terminate immediately when it is determined that the conversation is unrelated to communications subject to interception under Chapter 119, Title 18, United States Code. Interception must be suspended immediately when it is determined through voice identification, physical surveillance, or otherwise, that none of the named interceptees or any of their confederates, when identified, are participants in the conversation unless it is determined during the portion of the conversation already overheard that the conversation is criminal in nature....
App. 232, 241, 248-49, 257; see 18 U.S.C. § 2518(5). Conversely, however, the orders also permitted the individual monitoring to spot check any minimized conversation to ensure that the participants had not turned their discussion to illicit matters within the scope of the investigation. ("If the conversation is minimized, the monitoring individual shall spot check to ensure that the conversation has not turned to criminal matters."). App. 232, 241, 249, 257-58.
Pursuant to these orders, the government intercepted more than 3,500 telephone conversations. In order to determine whether a given conversation fell within the scope of the intercept order or instead concerned matters unrelated to the investigation, the government would initially intercept the conversation for a period of two minutes. If the monitoring individual determined that the conversation was beyond the scope of authorized surveillance, the interception would cease at the end of the two-minute period in compliance with the minimization requirement of the wiretap orders.1 However, if that conversation lasted for more than another minute or so, the monitoring individual would re-intercept the conversation and perform a follow-up spot check to confirm that the conversation had not progressed into the scope of authorized surveillance. In practice, this meant that all telephone calls under two minutes in length were intercepted (whether relevant to the investigation or not) and that one or more two-minute segments of longer conversations were also intercepted, even when those conversations were irrelevant to the investigation. A summary prepared by the government indicates that of all the calls intercepted: 565 conversations were identified as criminal in nature and so were not minimized; 1,791 conversations were not pertinent to the investigation but were not minimized because they lasted no more than two minutes; and another 366 were not pertinent and exceeded two minutes in length, and of these nearly all (362) were minimized. R. 267 at 21.2
In advance of trial, the defendants moved to suppress all of the intercepted conversations, contending that the government had not complied with the minimization requirement and, as a result, had unnecessarily and inappropriately eavesdropped on a number of conversations that were beyond the scope of its investigation. Judge Lindberg denied the motion. Although the judge agreed that the government had intercepted a number of conversations, or portions of conversations, that were beyond the scope of the wiretap orders, he did not believe that the government's agents had listened to more of the conversations than necessary in order to determine that they were irrelevant:
[I]t is understandable that a fair amount of material not pertinent to the investigation wound up being intercepted in this investigation. Many of the conversations were under two minutes in length, and so did not require minimization. The individuals conversing often did so in an ambiguous, guarded, and possibly coded manner so that more of the conversations had to be intercepted to later sort out what in fact they were talking about. The Government had evidence that defendant Terry Young was the head of a major drug ring justifying more extensive interception. And the authorizing judge was supervising the electronic surveillance in an ongoing manner, receiving reports on it at ten day intervals.
R. 335 at 2. At trial, the government introduced approximately 300 of the tape...
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