United States v. Nasse

• Decision Date: 02 November 1970
• Docket Number: No. 16460-16464.,16460-16464.
• Citation: 432 F.2d 1293
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. George NASSE, Albert Tocco, Orland David, Robert David, Herman David and Joseph Iatarola, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

432 F.2d 1293 (1970)

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. George NASSE, Albert Tocco, Orland David, Robert David, Herman David and Joseph Iatarola, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 16460-16464.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit.

July 31, 1970.

Rehearings Denied November 2, 1970.

COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED

John Powers Crowley, Anna R. Lavin, George F. Callaghan, Arthur J. O'Donnell, Chicago, Ill., for defendants-appellants.

Thomas A. Foran, U. S. Atty., Robert J. Weber, Asst. U. S. Atty., Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellee; John Peter Lulinski, Michael B. Nash, Asst. U. S. Attys., of counsel.

Before FAIRCHILD and KERNER, Circuit Judges, and ESCHBACH, District Judge.¹

FAIRCHILD, Circuit Judge.

This case concerns transactions in which automobiles were stolen, their identifying numbers altered, spurious state title documents created, and the automobiles sold in different states.

The indictment contains 30 counts. Count 1 charges a conspiracy among thirteen defendants and others. Each other count charges one or more defendants with interstate transportation of a particular stolen automobile. Five pairs of counts each relate to one automobile, but each of the pair charges a separate transportation of that automobile.

Ten defendants were involved in the trial now under consideration. The charges against Cobb, Wright, and Abraham had been severed, and these men were government witnesses. Four of those tried were acquitted, Geidens on motion at the close of the evidence, and Peter Nasse, McGurk, and Nash, by the jury.

The verdicts as to the remaining six, now appellants, were as follows: Herman David had been charged in the conspiracy count and in one transaction count for each of the automobiles involved except one. He was found guilty on counts 1 through 20, 24, and 28; not guilty on counts 22 and 23. Herman's sons, Robert (Bob) and Orland (Joe), had been charged in the conspiracy count and transaction counts 2 through 16. They were found guilty on count 1 and counts 8 through 16, but not guilty on counts 2 through 7. Joseph Iatarola had been charged in the conspiracy count and five transaction counts. He was found guilty on count 1 and counts 25, 26, 27, and 30, and not guilty on count 29. Albert Tocco had been charged in the conspiracy count and count 21. He was found guilty on both. George Nasse had been charged only in the conspiracy count, and was found guilty.

Count 1 charged a conspiracy knowingly to transport stolen motor vehicles in interstate commerce, to receive, conceal, store, barter, sell and dispose of such stolen motor vehicles, and knowingly to transport counterfeit securities (the spurious state titles) in interstate commerce. The conspiracy was said to include stealing motor vehicles, stealing serial plates from other motor vehicles and attaching them to the stolen vehicles, altering the identification numbers on the frames of the stolen ones so as to agree, preparing counterfeit state titles for use in selling and retitling the vehicles, and transporting the stolen vehicles to other states for sale. The conspiracy was alleged to have existed from April, 1962 to November, 1965, when the indictment was returned.

The evidence fully established the pattern described, and Herman David as the central figure, supervising the transactions and creating the spurious titles.

Counts 2 through 7 relate to automobiles stolen in Illinois from April 14, 1962 to September 11, 1962. These cars have been referred to as the Nasse cars, since in each case George Nasse, of Youngstown, Ohio, obtained an Ohio title before selling the car. Counts 8 through 12 relate to automobiles stolen in Illinois from September 16, 1962 to December 20, 1962. These cars were sold in California, and have been referred to as the Scarcelli cars, from the name of the dealer who took them to that state.

Counts 13 through 16 relate to automobiles stolen in Illinois or Indiana from September 3, 1963 to November 29, 1963. These cars were sold in Missouri, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, and have been referred to as the Lasky cars (so named from a conspirator who was a witness). Count 17 relates to an automobile stolen in Illinois December 26, 1963 and sold in Indiana. It is referred to as the Wright car. Counts 18 & 25, 19, 20 & 30, 22 & 26, 23, 24 & 27, and 28 & 29 relate to cars stolen in Illinois from February 1, 1964 to February 1, 1965 and titled in other states. They have been referred to as the Iatarola cars. Count 21 refers to a car stolen June 5, 1964 in Indiana and sold in Illinois. It is referred to as the Tocco car.

Herman David concedes the sufficiency of the evidence, but contends on appeal that much of it was derived from unlawful search. There can be no real question of the sufficiency of the evidence as to each transaction count upon which any defendant was convicted. The defendants other than Herman make various claims, including the claim that the government failed to prove the conspiracy charged and that they were prejudiced by a joint trial of the other charges, and the consideration by the jury of the statements and acts of their co-defendants as co-conspirators.

1. THE CLAIM OF VARIANCE AS TO THE CONSPIRACY COUNT.

Defendants allege that the evidence showed no more than a number of separate conspiracies in which Herman was one of the conspirators. They rely on Kotteakos v. United States.²

Here, unlike Kotteakos, the defendants knew that illegal acts on the part of a chain of participants — thieves, counterfeiters, camouflagers, people to transport the stolen autos, and salesmen — were necessary to the total operation. As stated in Blumenthal v. United States.³

"The scheme was in fact the same scheme; the salesmen knew or must have known that others unknown to them were sharing in so large a project; and it hardly can be sufficient to relieve them that they did not know, when they joined the scheme, who those people were or exactly the parts they were playing in carrying out the common design and object of all. By their separate agreements, if such they were, they became parties to the larger common plan, joined together by their knowledge of its essential features and broad scope, though not of its exact limits, and by their common single goal.

* * * * * *

"All by reason of their knowledge of the plan\'s general scope, if not its exact limits, sought a common end, to aid in disposing of the whiskey. True, each salesman aided in selling only his part. But he knew the lot to be sold was larger and thus that he was aiding in a larger plan."⁴

It is true that the participants other than Herman (and perhaps his sons) changed from time to time. Some were shown to have been added and some withdrew, but the participation of some overlapped the participation of others. We deem it reasonable to consider the operations as those of a going concern, understood by all to be so, with changes in personnel, rather than as separate transactions or groups of transactions.

As stated in United States v. Varelli:⁵

"While the parties to the agreement must know of each other\'s existence, they need not know each other\'s identity nor need there be direct contact. The agreement may continue for a long period of time and include the performance of many transactions. New parties may join the agreement at any time while others may terminate their relationship. The parties are not always identical, but this does not mean that there are separate conspiracies.

See Developments in the Law — Criminal Conspiracy, 72 Harv. L.Rev. 920, 922-35 (1959).⁶

II. THE CLAIMS OF GEORGE NASSE.

(1) Nasse was not charged in any transaction count, and claims that the evidence was insufficient to show that he was a member of the conspiracy. It is the government theory that his conduct shows he had an agreement with other participants to receive and dispose of the stolen cars.

Nasse is a used car dealer in Youngstown, Ohio. In 1962 he sold a number of used cars at an auction in Pennsylvania. Six of them were the stolen cars involved in counts 2 through 7 and another was a stolen car not involved in any transaction count. Nasse obtained Ohio titles for each before selling it. In each instance he presented a spurious Illinois or Indiana title which named as owner some automobile dealer who in fact never owned a car of that description. The three Illinois titles were purportedly notarized by the same notary, but the signatures were not genuine and the real notary's notary public stamp had disappeared before these titles were notarized. Three of the four Indiana titles were purportedly notarized by the same notary and the fourth by a different one, but neither notary had ever been commissioned in Indiana.

The cars were a Thunderbird, stolen April 14 and titled by Nasse April 16; a Cadillac stolen May 4 and titled May 15; a Cadillac stolen May 16 or 17 and titled May 23; a Cadillac stolen August 8 and titled August 15; a Cadillac stolen September 7 and titled September 14; a Cadillac stolen September 11 and titled September 18; and a Cadillac stolen September 6 and titled September 18. Illinois titles were presented for the cars stolen April 14, May 4, and May 17; Indiana titles for those stolen August 8, September 7, September 11, and September 6. When ultimately recovered, each car bore a serial plate which had been removed from some other car, as did all the cars involved in the other transaction counts.

There was opinion testimony that the Indiana titles used by Nasse came from the same source as the Indiana titles used in re-titling the cars involved in counts 18 & 25, 19, 20 & 30, 24 & 27, and 28 & 29 (Iatarola) and in count 21 (Tocco). There was opinion testimony that false numbers on the cars stolen May 4 and 17 were made with the same stamp as those on cars involved in counts 8, 9, 10, 11, and 12 (Scarcelli). There was sufficient evidence linking the false titles with Herman.

Thus there was ample evidence that these seven...