U.S. v. Levasseur, s. 441
| Decision Date | 01 April 1987 |
| Docket Number | 443,Nos. 441,s. 441 |
| Citation | 816 F.2d 37 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Raymond LEVASSEUR, Carol Ann Manning, Thomas William Manning, Barbara Curzi-Laaman, Richard Charles Williams, Jaan Karl Laaman, Defendants-Appellants. to 447. Dockets 86-1223, 86-1227, 86-1235 to 86-1237 and 86-1243. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Robert J. Boyle, Brooklyn, N.Y., for defendant-appellant Levasseur.
Elizabeth M. Fink, Brooklyn, N.Y., for defendant-appellant Carol Manning.
William M. Kunstler, New York City, for defendant-appellant Thomas Manning.
Margaret L. Ratner, New York City, for defendant-appellant Curzi-Laaman.
Lynne F. Stewart, New York City, for defendant-appellant Williams.
Jesse Berman, New York City, for defendant-appellant Laaman.
John J. Gallagher, Asst. U.S. Atty., Brooklyn, N.Y. (Andrew J. Maloney, U.S. Atty., for E.D.N.Y., Matthew E. Fishbein and Charles E. Rose, Asst. U.S. Attys., Brooklyn, N.Y., of counsel), for appellee.
Before MANSFIELD, * PRATT and ALTIMARI, Circuit Judges.
Defendants-appellants seek to overturn various judgments entered by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (I. Leo Glasser, J.) on April 28, 29, and 30, and May 2, 1986. The appellants, along with one other co-defendant whose trial had to be adjourned, had been charged in a twelve-count indictment with conspiring to bomb, attempting to bomb, and bombing a series of military offices and buildings used in interstate commerce, in violation of 18 U.S.C. Secs. 2, 844(f), and 844(i). After a five-month jury trial, all six appellants were convicted on the conspiracy count; four were convicted on the attempt charge; and individual appellants were found guilty of between two and five completed bombings. The jury acquitted Carol Ann Manning on one bombing count, and was unable to reach a verdict on any of the remaining counts. Judge Glasser sentenced the appellants to consecutive terms of imprisonment on their various convictions, with the following total sentences: fifteen years (Curzi-Laaman and Carol Manning), forty-five years (Levasseur and Williams), and fifty-three years (Laaman and Thomas Manning).
The principal issues raised on appeal pertain to the district court's refusal to suppress various pieces of evidence seized during searches of appellants' houses and cars. One motion was denied in advance of a hearing, and two on the basis of suppression hearing testimony. For reasons explained below, we affirm all convictions.
Appellants, along with former co-defendant Patricia Gros, were the subjects of a decade-long, nationwide search prior to their arrests in 1984 and 1985. They were suspects in a variety of crimes for which several underground organizations with which appellants were allegedly affiliated took credit. Among those crimes were eight Boston-area bombings occurring between 1976 and 1979, the murder of a New Jersey State Trooper and the attempted murder of a Massachusetts State Trooper, several other assaults on law enforcement officers, and several armed bank robberies.
The indictment in this case charged appellants with conspiring to bomb and bombing nine buildings (one building twice), and also with an unsuccessful attempt to bomb an additional site. The ten sites were located in the New York metropolitan area and were used either by the military or in interstate commerce. The indictment identified the dates and sites of the completed bombings as follows:
COUNT DATE BUILDING
----- ---- --------
2 December 16, 1982 IBM Corp
600 Mamaroneck Ave
Harrison, N.Y
3 December 16, 1982 South African Airways
Procurement Office
1975 Linden Blvd
Elmont, N.Y
4 January 29, 1984 Motorola Corporation
17-22 Whitestone
Expressway
Queens, N.Y
5 March 19, 1984 IBM Corp.
3000 Westchester Ave.
Harrison, N.Y.
6 August 22, 1984 General Electric Corp.
Building 1C
Huntington Quadrangle
Melville, N.Y.
7 September 26, 1984 Union Carbide Corp.
Old Saw Mill River Road
Mount Pleasant, N.Y.
8 May 12, 1983 Theodore Roosevelt Jr.
Army Reserve Center
101 Oak Street
Uniondale, N.Y.
9 May 13, 1983 Naval Reserve Center
150-74 6th Avenue
Queens, N.Y.
10 August 21, 1983 Sgt. John Muller
Army Reserve Center
555 East 238th Street
Bronx, N.Y.
11 December 13, 1983 Navy Recruiting District
Office
1975 Hempstead Turnpike
East Meadow, N.Y.
In addition, the indictment charged that the attempted bombing took place on December 14, 1983, at 24-30 Skillman Avenue, Queens, N.Y., a building containing offices of the Honeywell Corporation.
Each bomb was built with dynamite, a pocket watch, a 9-volt battery, black plastic tape, and snap connectors or battery clips. Each explosion was preceded by a warning call and followed by one in a series of consecutively numbered communiques. In the communiques, the United Freedom Front (UFF) claimed responsibility and identified its purported political justifications for the bombings.
Throughout their ten-plus years of underground activities, appellants adopted assumed names, moved repeatedly, and used scanners to monitor police and FBI radio communications. In 1982, for example, Levasseur and the Mannings suddenly deserted their Eastern Pennsylvania residences as law enforcement officials were close to finding them, leaving behind stores of weapons, ammunition, instructions and materials for assembling bombs, and personal belongings.
By the fall of 1984, appellants had moved into several residences in and around Cleveland, Ohio. Their discovery there led numerous FBI agents and law enforcement officials to converge on the area.
On November 3, 1984, former co-defendant Patricia Gros was followed to a Deerfield, Ohio residence she shared with appellant Levasseur, her husband. Agents observed appellant Williams drive away from the Gros-Levasseur residence that evening, and followed him to 4248 West 22nd Street in Cleveland, which turned out to be the residence of appellants Laaman and Curzi-Laaman.
The next morning, November 4th, Levasseur and Gros were arrested when they emerged from their Deerfield farmhouse. That same day, agents surrounded the West 22nd Street house in Cleveland and, using loudspeakers, asked those inside to surrender. Appellants Laaman, Curzi-Laaman, and Williams emerged and were arrested without incident. Several agents from an FBI SWAT team promptly entered the house; one agent later testified that they entered in search of other suspects who may have been lurking inside. The SWAT team members observed, but did not then seize, a total of four weapons on the first and second floors of the house. They turned over the house to a second team of agents who were to occupy the premises until a search warrant arrived. One member of this team discovered in an open basement closet a cannister apparently containing explosive powder and summoned a Cleveland Police Department Bomb Squad detective to examine the cannister. Unlike the weapons previously seen, the cannister was therefore seized before the search warrant arrived the next day.
According to further testimony at the suppression hearing, FBI agents were simultaneously trying to find the Mannings, who were also known to be living near Cleveland. Appellant Williams, according to the testimony of one agent involved in the West 22nd Street arrest, told another agent that he had been on the phone with Carol Manning when he received another incoming call. After placing Carol Manning on hold, he took the other call, which turned out to be from an FBI agent informing the occupants that the house was surrounded. As a result of this fortuity, Williams told the agent, he When the agents received no response to their demands that anyone inside the Dodgeville Road house surrender, they entered the fully furnished premises and searched it for hidden occupants. None were found, but agents testified that they saw in plain view four shoulder weapons hanging on a wall, a scanning device tuned to a frequency used by the FBI, and three footlockers, only one of which was locked. Upon a suggestion that the padlocked footlocker might be booby-trapped, a bomb technician opened it and observed that it contained several additional guns with ammunition. None of the items in the Dodgeville Road house was moved, and the premises were secured while the information obtained during the sweep was relayed to officials working on securing a search warrant. The Mannings never returned.
was able to advise Carol Manning of the agents' arrival. After his arrest, he told the agent that the Mannings would be long gone, and then provided the agent with their telephone number. From that number, the FBI was able to identify 1885 Dodgeville Road, Jefferson, Ohio, as the Mannings' address. Law enforcement officers converged on that house at approximately 4:00 a.m. the next day (November 5, 1984), in hopes of effecting the Mannings' arrest pursuant to outstanding arrest warrants.
Another agent who had worked on the UFF investigation since late 1982 testified at the suppression hearing that the...
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