U.S. v. Longbehn
| Decision Date | 14 March 1990 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 89-5035,s. 89-5035 |
| Citation | 898 F.2d 635 |
| Parties | 29 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 1349 UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. William Charles LONGBEHN, a/k/a William Charles Sisson, Otto William, William Otto, and Peg Leg, Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Elizabeth LUNDSTROM, Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Angela SISSON, Appellant. to 89-5037. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Barry Voss, Paul Engh, and John R. Wilde, Jr., Minneapolis, for appellants.
Paul A. Murphy, Minneapolis, for appellee.
Before LAY, Chief Judge, ARNOLD, Circuit Judge, and LARSON, * Senior District Judge.
Defendants William Longbehn, Elizabeth Lundstrom, and Angela Sisson 1 appeal from the judgment and sentence of the district court. 2 Finding no error which justifies reversal, we affirm.
Longbehn, Lundstrom, and Sisson were indicted with several other individuals in a nineteen count indictment charging conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine (count 1), distribution of methamphetamine by defendant Longbehn on eleven separate occasions (counts 2 through 13), 3 interstate travel by defendants Longbehn, Lundstrom, and Sisson to promote the distribution of methamphetamine (counts 14 through 17), and use of a facility in interstate commerce by defendants Longbehn and Lundstrom to promote the distribution of methamphetamine (count 19). 4
At trial, the government presented testimony from numerous witnesses, including two individuals who distributed methamphetamine for Longbehn from 1984 through 1986, at a profit for each of them of approximately $100,000. One of the individuals, Joseph Colucci, met Longbehn in 1982, while putting a roof on Longbehn's property. Longbehn gave Colucci user quantities of methamphetamine from that time until 1984. From 1984 to 1986, Colucci would buy a quarter pound of methamphetamine twice a month from Longbehn, which Colucci would then sell in smaller quantities.
Colucci testified he accompanied Longbehn on two trips to California, Longbehn's source for methamphetamine. Both Sisson and Lundstrom also traveled to California in connection with the first trip in October, 1984, and Colucci testified he saw Lundstrom and Longbehn together "breaking up" methamphetamine in a hotel room. Bobby Bryant, one of the other individuals who distributed methamphetamine for Longbehn, testified he first met Longbehn in a St. Paul bar shortly after the 1984 California trip. Bryant asked Longbehn if he could buy some methamphetamine, which Longbehn agreed to supply several days later. Thereafter, Bryant became a regular purchaser of increasing quantities of the drug--up to a pound per month from the summer of 1985 through 1986. 5
Rick Molenhouse, a co-conspirator who pled guilty prior to trial, testified he supplied Longbehn with methamphetamine beginning in 1985. Molenhouse met Longbehn and Sisson in Nevada in the winter of 1985 with a sample of methamphetamine, which Longbehn had requested Molenhouse bring from California. After Longbehn and Sisson used the sample, they told Molenhouse to get them a pound for $12,000. Molenhouse and his wife made other trips to Minnesota with methamphetamine for Longbehn. Molenhouse would arrive with the drugs and then wait for additional funds to go back to California to buy more methamphetamine.
In February, 1986, Molenhouse was arrested at the San Diego airport after he left Longbehn's residence in St. Paul. 6 Agents confiscated $35,000 in cash, which Molenhouse had obtained from Longbehn, as well as a small amount of marijuana. After obtaining a lawyer in California, Molenhouse flew back to Minnesota and met with Longbehn and Sisson to discuss the situation. In April, 1986, Sisson herself flew to California to meet with attorneys regarding Molenhouse's arrest.
Upon the advice of an attorney consulted by Sisson, Molenhouse's counsel declined to seek recovery of the $35,000, which resulted in prosecutors declining to press charges against Molenhouse for the marijuana possession. Several months later, Sisson moved from St. Paul to Tennessee. While in Tennessee, Sisson wrote a letter to an unindicted co-conspirator named "Cracko," which detailed Sisson's meetings with the lawyers and her concerns about police detection of drug activity. This letter was found at Longbehn's St. Paul residence.
After Sisson moved out of Longbehn's St. Paul residence, Lundstrom moved in. In September, 1986, she helped arrange Colucci's second California trip with Longbehn, making Colucci's plane reservation, driving him to the airport, and giving him money and instructions on meeting Longbehn. In California, Longbehn and Colucci met with co-defendant Michael Wheeler at Wheeler's motorcycle shop. Upon their arrival back in Minnesota, Colucci obtained a quarter pound of methamphetamine from Longbehn and Lundstrom delivered a basket with a pound of methamphetamine to Bobby Bryant.
On September 8, Lundstrom left Longbehn's St. Paul residence with a package containing $10,000 addressed to Michael Wheeler. She left it at the Post Office at 11:30 a.m. for express mail delivery to Wheeler. Agents, who were conducting surveillance of Longbehn's residence, asked that postal officials keep the package until they could obtain a dog to sniff it. The dog arrived at 1:00 p.m. and picked the package out of approximately 200 other pieces of mail. Agents then applied for a warrant to search the package, which was issued at 4:45 p.m. After agents removed the $10,000 they found inside various "inner envelopes," the package was resealed and delivered to Wheeler the next day.
When Wheeler opened the now-empty package, a series of phone calls between Wheeler and Longbehn ensued, which were recorded by agents and which implied the money was for the purchase of drugs. Agents obtained a search warrant for Longbehn's St. Paul residence, which was executed September 10, 1986. Agents found various incriminating items, although they missed the money Colucci had recently paid Longbehn for the methamphetamine obtained in California, a fact Colucci, Lundstrom, and Longbehn discussed when Colucci met with them shortly after the search warrant was executed.
Longbehn's other properties in Tennessee and northern Minnesota were searched shortly after his residence in St. Paul. The evidence obtained in these searches, along with the testimony presented in the ten days of trial, suggested that Longbehn had been a highly sophisticated, successful dealer. Longbehn himself admitted in a telephone conversation taped in May, 1986, that he'd "been in the business a long [expletive] time." The jury convicted Longbehn of all counts charged in the indictment, and the district court imposed four consecutive 15 year sentences, along with various concurrent sentences.
The jury found defendant Lundstrom guilty of three counts: 7 conspiracy (count 1), one count of distribution in connection with her delivery of the basket of methamphetamine to Bobby Bryant (count 13), and one count of use of an interstate facility to promote the distribution of methamphetamine in connection with the mailing of the $10,000 package (count 19). Lundstrom was sentenced to a total of three years.
Sisson was found guilty of conspiracy (count 1) and two counts of interstate travel to promote the distribution of methamphetamine: the purchase of methamphetamine from Colucci in Nevada (count 15) and her travel in April, 1986 to California to consult with attorneys regarding Molenhouse's arrest (count 16). Sisson was sentenced to a total of eight years. All three defendants have appealed.
Defendant Longbehn argues on appeal that the trial court erred in admitting evidence of other crimes, he challenges the court's instructions regarding the "other crimes" evidence and the Travel Act violations, he submits the search warrants obtained by agents were improperly issued, and he argues his sentence violates the eighth amendment.
In addition to testimony concerning Longbehn's distribution of methamphetamine to Bryant, Colucci, and others from 1984 through 1986 as alleged in the indictment, the trial court admitted testimony from Longbehn's nephew that Longbehn distributed methamphetamine to him in 1978. The court also admitted testimony from Colucci that Longbehn provided Colucci with user quantities of drugs in 1982. Finally, the court allowed the government to introduce evidence that in 1986 Longbehn distributed percodan to a government informant, James Wood, during a tape-recorded conversation with Wood in which Wood and Longbehn discussed setting up a meeting with an individual who wanted to trade diamonds to Longbehn for drugs.
The requirements for admission of evidence of "other crimes" pursuant to Fed.R.Evid.P. 404(b) are well established: (1) the evidence of the other crimes must be relevant to a material issue, (2) the evidence must be similar in kind and reasonably close in time to the crime charged, (3) the other crimes must be proved by a preponderance of the evidence, and (4) the probative value of the evidence must outweigh its prejudicial effect. United States v. Anderson, 879 F.2d 369, 378 (8th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 110 S.Ct. 515, 107 L.Ed.2d 516 (1989); United States v. Johnson, 879 F.2d 331, 334 (8th Cir.1989); United States v. Mothershed, 859 F.2d 585, 588-89 (8th Cir.1988). A trial court has broad discretion to admit other crimes evidence, and its decision will be overturned only when the record shows that the evidence clearly had no bearing on the issues at trial. See Johnson, 879 F.2d at 334; United States v. Maichle, 861 F.2d 178, 180 (8th Cir.1988).
Longbehn argued in his brief and in the oral argument before this Court that the 1978 and 1982 incidents were irrelevant because they fell outside the time frame of the conspiracy alleged in the indictment (1984 through 1986). Longbehn further maintained that the 1986 percodan...
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