Beasley v. State
| Decision Date | 20 January 2023 |
| Docket Number | 2D19-4257 |
| Parties | ROBERT THOMAS BEASLEY, Appellant/Cross-Appellee, v. STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee/Cross-Appellant. |
| Court | Florida District Court of Appeals |
Appeal from the Circuit Court for DeSoto County; Lon S. Arend Judge.
Howard L. Dimmig, II, Public Defender, and Jeffrey Sullivan, Special Assistant Public Defender, Bartow, for Appellant/Cross-Appellee.
Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Linsey Sims-Bohnenstiehl, Assistant Attorney General, Tampa, for Appellee/Cross-Appellant.
In a case arising from the laundering of alligator eggs, Robert Thomas Beasley appeals his judgment and sentences for conspiracy to commit racketeering in violation of section 895.03(4), Florida Statutes (2016) (count one),[1] a first-degree felony, and two counts of intentionally possessing or capturing alligators or alligator eggs in violation of section 379.409, Florida Statutes (2016) (counts two and seven), a third-degree felony. The jury found Beasley not guilty of counts three through six that also alleged violations of section 379.409. Beasley contends that the trial court erred (1) by denying his motion for judgment of acquittal on the conspiracy charge, (2) in instructing the jury on section 379.409, (3) by denying his motion for judgment of acquittal on the section 379.409 violations because section 379.3751 preempts section 379.409, and (4) by rejecting his argument that section 379.409 is unconstitutional as an improper delegation of legislative authority to define crimes. Because Beasley has not shown reversible error, we affirm his convictions.
On cross-appeal, the State contends that the trial court erred in imposing a downward departure sentence because the evidence refuted that Beasley was a relatively minor participant. Because the record contains competent substantial evidence to support the trial court's findings and the trial court did not abuse its discretion in sentencing Beasley, we affirm the downward departure sentence.
This case arose from an undercover operation conducted by the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (the FWC). The FWC operates an alligator management program. Statutory law and administrative code rules, which the FWC promulgates, promote alligator conservation and govern the collection and sale of alligator eggs and alligators in Florida. An FWC undercover officer (the Officer) set up Sunshine Alligator Farms (SAF), a licensed alligator egg processing facility. The undercover operation's purpose was to address the concern that alligator eggs were being laundered through alligator farms.
Robert Albritton (Albritton) had a license and a permit to collect alligator eggs on certain public and private lands. He made an agreement with a large alligator farm in Louisiana that provides alligator hides for the manufacture of luxury goods in Europe. Albritton represented that he would provide the Louisiana farm with 10,000 alligator hatchlings in 2016. If Albritton delivered that amount, the Louisiana farm would open an alligator meat processing facility in Arcadia, Florida, that Albritton would manage. The Louisiana farm paid Albritton a salary of $80,000. Albritton hired Beasley, and the Louisiana farm paid Beasley $15 per hour.
Albritton made an agreement with the Officer to teach him the alligator business and to pay $5,000 in exchange for the use of SAF to store eggs and raise hatchlings for the 2016 season. Albritton was to apply for permits to collect eggs and handle all paperwork.
The State alleged that the members of the conspiracy were Albritton, Beasley, Carl Wayne Pickle, Jr., David Wentworth Nellis, Cory Wilcox, and Robin Albritton. The alleged predicate acts included theft, grand theft, forgery, dealing in stolen property, and sale or receipt of stolen goods. The State presented evidence to show that Albritton, along with Beasley, Pickle, and Nellis, illegally harvested alligator eggs by violating Florida permitting and licensing requirements and worked to launder illegally collected eggs through the Seminole Tribe of Florida (the Seminole Tribe). Albritton entered into a plea deal and was sentenced to three years in prison. Pickle, a co-defendant, went to trial with Beasley and was found guilty of the conspiracy and four counts of illegal possession or capture of alligators or eggs. Pickle was sentenced to a downward departure sentence, but his conspiracy conviction was reversed on appeal, as discussed below. See Pickle v. State, 328 So.3d 1101 (Fla. 2d DCA 2021). The trial court also imposed a downward departure sentence on Beasley, consisting of a concurrent eleven months and twenty-nine days in jail on all counts, followed by ten years of probation on count one.
Beasley contends that the evidence was insufficient to support his conviction for conspiracy to commit racketeering. Beasley is correct that theft of alligator eggs is not a proper predicate offense. See id. at 1106. However, the State presented sufficient evidence that Beasley agreed to participate in the affairs of the criminal enterprise with knowledge and intent that others would carry out the racketeering activity, such as predicate acts of forgery by Albritton.
To prove conspiracy to commit racketeering, the State must establish "that either (1) the defendant knew of the overall objectives of the criminal enterprise and agreed to further its purpose or (2) the defendant personally committed at least two predicate acts." Id. at 1105 (quoting Morgan v. State, 117 So.3d 79, 82 (Fla. 2d DCA 2013)). "[T]he RICO conspiracy statute proscribes a defendant's agreement to participate in the conduct of the affairs of an enterprise, not a defendant's agreement to commit predicate acts." State v. Reyan, 145 So.3d 133, 140 n.7 (Fla. 3d DCA 2014). "A defendant's agreement may be inferred from his conduct." de la Osa v. State, 158 So.3d 712, 731 (Fla. 4th DCA 2015). In a conspiracy to commit racketeering, "the 'crime' is premised not upon the commission of the predicate acts of racketeering, or even an agreement to commit predicate acts, but upon an agreement to participate in the affairs of the criminal enterprise through a pattern of racketeering activity." Reyan, 145 So.3d at 139.
Beasley is correct that the predicate acts of theft cannot support his conviction for conspiracy to commit racketeering. Taking alligator eggs from their nests is not theft because neither private property owners nor the State own alligator eggs while in their nests. Pickle, 328 So.3d at 1105-06. "The eggs cannot constitute the property of another under the theft statute, unlawfully taking them was not theft, and the violations could not serve as predicate acts comprising a pattern of racketeering activity." Id. at 1106.
Although illegally harvesting alligator eggs is a crime under section 379.409(1), see § 379.401(4)(a)8 and (4)(b), the conspiracy statute did not list it as a predicate act when the egg collections at issue here occurred in 2016, see § 895.02(8). We note that in 2021 the legislature amended section 895.02(8) to include as racketeering activity violations of "Chapter 379, relating to the illegal sale, purchase, collection, harvest, capture, or possession of wild animal life, freshwater aquatic life, or marine life, and related crimes"; and "violation of Title 68, Florida Administrative Code, relating to the illegal sale, purchase, collection, harvest, capture, or possession of wild animal life, freshwater aquatic life, or marine life, and related crimes." § 895.02(8)(a)3 and (c), Fla. Stat. (2021); see also Ch. 2021-55, § 1, Laws of Fla. Thus, a violation of section 379.409 was not a predicate act in 2016 when the events at issue occurred.
The State asserts that the predicate acts of forgery committed by Albritton support Beasley's conspiracy conviction. The jury entered a general verdict and the State argued in its closing as follows:
Or even if you don't find that we've proven up the individual predicate for Mr. Beasley or Mr. Pickle, and there's not at least two, as long as they -- knowledge and intent that other members of the conspiracy engaged in at least two incidents of racketeering as alleged in the information. If they had knowledge that these other members of the conspiracy are engaging in predicate incidents, that's sufficient. They have to have knowledge that they engaged in two predicate incidents.
As part of the conspiracy jury instructions, the jury was instructed as follows:
See also Fla. Std. Jury Instr. (Crim.) 26.8.
The State provided evidence from which the jury could find that Beasley knew of and agreed to the overall objectives of the criminal enterprise. The evidence showed that Beasley had agreed to participate in the criminal enterprise with knowledge and...
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