U.S. v. Langford

• Citation: 23 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 188,647 F.3d 1309
• Decision Date: 05 August 2011
• Docket Number: No. 10–11076.,10–11076.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee,v.Larry P. LANGFORD, Defendant–Appellant.
• Court: United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit)

647 F.3d 1309

23 Fla. L. Weekly Fed. C 188

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff–Appellee,

v.Larry P. LANGFORD, Defendant–Appellant.

No. 10–11076.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

Aug. 5, 2011.

Ramona C. Albin, Michael Boysie Billingsley, Miles M. Hart, James Dennis Ingram, Tamarra Matthews Johnson, George A. Martin, Jr., Lloyd C. Peeples, III, James Edward Phillips, Scarlett M. Singleton, Joyce White Vance, U.S. Attys., Birmingham, AL, for Plaintiff–Appellee.Michael V. Rasmussen (Court–Appointed), Birmingham, AL, Defendant–Appellant.Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Alabama.Before MARCUS and ANDERSON, Circuit Judges, and MILLS,^* District Judge.MARCUS, Circuit Judge:

In this political corruption case, Larry P. Langford, formerly a Commissioner for Jefferson County, Alabama and Mayor of Birmingham, Alabama, appeals following his convictions for multiple counts of bribery, conspiracy, money laundering, mail and wire fraud, tax fraud, and criminal forfeiture. Langford broadly argues that: (1) the evidence was insufficient to support his convictions for mail and wire fraud; (2) the district court fatally erred in some of its evidentiary rulings; (3) the district court wrongfully charged the jury about the bribery statute; and, finally, (4) the district court mistakenly denied his post-voir-dire motion for a change of venue. After thorough review, we affirm.

I.

In November 2008, a federal grand jury sitting in the Northern District of Alabama returned a 101–count superseding indictment against Larry P. Langford, William B. Blount, and Albert W. LaPierre. Langford was charged in 61 of those counts, involving bribery, 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B) (Counts 1, 7, and 10–36); conspiracy, 18 U.S.C. § 371 (Count 6); money laundering, 18 U.S.C. § 1957 (Counts 3, 4, 5, and 9); mail fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1346, and 2 (Counts 64–68); wire fraud, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1343, 1346, and 2 (Counts 69–86); filing false personal income tax returns, 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1) (Counts 87–89); and criminal forfeiture (Count 99). The charges all arose out of the basic allegation that, while Langford was serving as an elected member of the Jefferson County Commission, and as the President of that body, he received more than $240,000 in cash, clothing, and jewelry from Blount (often through an intermediary, LaPierre), in exchange for ensuring that Blount's investment firm was awarded a series of profitable contracts with Jefferson County. Blount pled guilty to conspiracy and bribery charges, and LaPierre pled guilty to conspiracy and tax fraud charges. They both became government witnesses. Langford, however, went to trial.

Before trial, Langford moved for a change of venue from the Southern Division of Alabama's Northern District, in Birmingham, to the Western Division of Alabama's Northern District, in Tuscaloosa. He based his request on “extensive” publicity, claiming that “[t]he primary print media in the Southern Division, the Birmingham News, has printed numerous articles about this case from well before the indictment to the present.” Without objection from the government, the district court granted the motion and moved the trial, in accordance with Langford's request, to Tuscaloosa.

At the conclusion of extensive voir dire, Langford requested still another change of venue, arguing this time that based on the responses of the venire panel, a small number of whom admitted to hearing about the case before trial, he wanted to move the trial to “some place where they haven't heard about this at all.” The district court denied the motion, and Langford proceeded to trial in Tuscaloosa. Thereafter, he was convicted on all counts.

The essential facts adduced at trial were these. Larry Langford took office as a County Commissioner for Jefferson County, Alabama in the fall of 2002. Soon thereafter, he was selected by his fellow commissioners as President of the Commission and, in that capacity, served as head of the Finance Committee. He remained in that role until he was elected Mayor of Birmingham in the fall of 2007.

William Blount had at one time been the Chairman of the Alabama Democratic Party, and had known Langford for twenty-five to thirty years, since Langford was first elected to the City Council in the City of Birmingham. Blount assisted in Langford's campaign for election as a County Commissioner. Blount also was a partner in Blount–Parrish & Company (“Blount–Parrish”), an investment banking firm that specialized in the underwriting and marketing of municipal bonds. An underwriter buys bonds from the municipality and then sells them to the market.

Blount–Parrish did some work for Jefferson County prior to 1998, but did not participate in any Jefferson County bond offerings from about 1998 to 2002. However, soon after Langford took office as a County Commissioner, a meeting was held in January, 2003 between Langford, Blount, Norm Davis (an individual Langford identified as the County's financial advisor), and Steve Sayler (Director of Finance for Jefferson County before and during Langford's term as President of the County Commission). According to Sayler, the defendant Langford introduced Davis and Blount as “the two individuals that he would be taking a lot of advice from for financial transactions at the County.”

The policy in Jefferson County was that County Commissioners could pick the firms to participate in the County's financial transactions. Blount sought out Jefferson County work for his investment banking firm, Blount–Parrish, from Langford. Langford, in turn, selected Blount–Parrish to participate in many of the County's financial transactions. In fact, during Langford's term as President of the County Commission (2002–2007), Blount–Parrish: (1) underwrote a series of bonds issued by the Jefferson County Commission, some of which were general obligation and some sewer revenue;¹ (2) worked on interest rate swap deals; (3) worked on privatizing landfills owned by the County; (4) worked on remarketing several weekly rate reset bonds for the County; (5) assisted with the financing for passing a sales tax for the County; and (6) worked on the attempted acquisition of other sewer systems.

Thus, for example, on January 28, 2003, the Commission had scheduled on its agenda the need to establish a “financing team” for the issuance of “general obligation warrants of the County.”² Blount–Parrish was designated the “senior underwriter” of the deal, receiving 45 percent of “the underwriting liability.” In March, the deal (a $94 million transaction) was officially approved by the Commission. For its part, Blount–Parrish received $282,000 in fees.

Blount–Parrish was included in the County's next major financial transaction, a $1.17 billion sewer rate interest swap and bond refinancing that closed on May 1, 2003. Blount solicited County Commissioner Langford to keep Blount–Parrish as the remarketing agent in these transactions; soon thereafter Langford and other Jefferson County Commissioners voted, on April 22, 2003, to approve a resolution authorizing these bonds. Blount–Parrish was included in at least five other Jefferson County interest rate swap transactions in 2003 and 2004.³ For these transactions, Blount–Parrish received fees of $2,600,000, $225,000, $728,500, $842,000, and $842,000, respectively. All told, Blount–Parrish was paid some $7 million in fees related to transactions involving Jefferson County, which, according to Langford's Presentence Investigation Report (“PSI”), yielded a “net benefit” to Blount–Parrish of about $5.5 million.

Blount–Parrish's fees for these transactions with the County were disclosed some of the time only to Commissioner Langford. For example, on March 27, 2003, the Commission approved “the issue of about one billion dollars worth of sewer revenue refunding warrants to pay off old sewer debt.” An agreement between JPMorgan Chase Bank and the County regarding the deal is dated March 28, 2003. It was signed by Langford on behalf of the County and purported to list the “fees” paid to various entities as a result of the transaction. Notably, Blount–Parrish was not listed as one of those entities. Instead, a separate letter was sent to Langford alone disclosing that Goldman Sachs—another participant in the transaction—“intends to pay [an unspecified amount of] consulting fees in connection with [the] swap to Blount Parrish.” This method of “disclosure”—whereby fees Blount–Parrish received from the County were “disclosed” in a separate letter addressed solely to Commissioner Langford, referred to as a “side letter”—was the favored method of doing business for many of the deals. Indeed in one deal that generated $2,600,000 for Blount–Parrish, the firm's fees were “disclosed” only in a “side letter.”

On still another occasion in 2003, James Lister of Lehman Brothers talked with Blount to discuss potential business with the County. Blount told Lister he had “a very good relationship with [Commissioner Langford] and ... something to the effect ... that he had or controlled three votes on the commission.” When the issue of fee disclosure came up later, however, Lister explained his firm's policy that any fees paid to a third-party “had to be disclosed in the documentation.” Blount said “he had to check with [Commissioner Langford] to find out whether that policy would be acceptable.” Blount subsequently inquired whether “what he described as a side letter, something that would not be actually in the documentation but would be signed by [Commissioner Langford] acknowledging the fee, whether that would be satisfactory.” After Lister said no, he had no further communication with Blount.

During Langford's term as President of the Jefferson County Commission, William Blount gave Langford approximately $150,000 in cash and more than $90,000 worth of clothing and jewelry. As for the jewelry and clothing, Blount would purchase items for Langford...