Santopietro v. U.S., 3:96 CV 957 (GLG).
| Decision Date | 04 December 1996 |
| Docket Number | No. 3:91 CR 65 (TFGD).,No. 3:96 CV 1411 (GLG).,No. 3:96 CV 1175 (GLG).,No. 3:96 CV 957 (GLG).,3:96 CV 957 (GLG).,3:91 CR 65 (TFGD).,3:96 CV 1411 (GLG).,3:96 CV 1175 (GLG). |
| Citation | 948 F.Supp. 145 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — District of Connecticut |
| Parties | Joseph J. SANTOPIETRO, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent. Perry A. PISCIOTTI, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent. Paul R. VITARELLI, Petitioner, v. UNITED STATES of America, Respondent. |
Leonard C. Boyle, Assistant U.S. Attorney, New Haven, CT, Thomas J. Murphy, Assistant U.S. Attorney, New Haven, CT, for Respondents.
Eileen McGann, Cummings & Lockwood, Stamford, CT, for Petitioner Santopietro.
Andrew A. Feinstein, Simsbury, CT, for Petitioner Pisciotti:
Paul R. Vitarelli, Waterbury, CT, pro se.
Decision on Petitions Pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 to Vacate and Set Aside Sentences of Conviction
In the early part of this decade, the United States Justice Department launched an investigation into corruption in municipal and state government in Connecticut. The initial indictment returned in 1991, United States v. Santopietro, et al., (3:91 CR 0065 (TFGD)) named eight defendants including: Joseph J. Santopietro, the Mayor of the City of Waterbury; Perry A. Pisciotti, who had served as a Waterbury Republican State Central Committeeman and Town Chairman; and Paul R. Vitarelli, who was President of the Waterbury Board of Aldermen. The final indictment implicated Richard Foley, who had been the Republican State Party Chairman. The recent overturning of Foley's conviction, United States v. Foley, 73 F.3d 484 (2d Cir. 1996), gave rise to the three petitions currently under consideration by this Court.
The defendants in the Santopietro case were on trial for five weeks during March and April of 1992 before the late Honorable T.F. Gilroy Daly. One of the defendants entered a guilty plea and the other seven were found guilty of various crimes central to which was a conspiracy to receive bribes in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. This conspiracy involved a group of bankers'/developers' attempts to obtain favorable city action on projects in exchange for corrupt payments to public officials. These payments were not made in the old fashioned way of quietly delivering cash but rather were disguised as loans, option sales, leases, cancellations of leases, and contracts. The involvement of the Mayor was shielded by his payments usually passing to other persons. The defendants were found guilty of this conspiracy, as well as other offenses. Santopietro was found guilty of: five substantive counts of receiving bribes, 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B); two counts of bank fraud, 18 U.S.C. § 1344; eight substantive counts of embezzlement of Job Training Partnership Act ("JTPA") grant money from the federal government, 18 U.S.C. § 665(a); conspiracy to embezzle those funds, 18 U.S.C. § 371; and two counts of income tax evasion in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7201. In addition to the general conspiracy count mentioned above, Pisciotti was also found guilty of making six illegal payments violating 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(2) and one count of bank fraud violating 18 U.S.C. § 1344. Vitarelli was convicted of the above conspiracy count, one substantive count under 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B), and one count of filing a false tax return, 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1).
At sentencing, Judge Daly gave Santopietro a term of 108 months with respect to the § 666 violations and concurrent 60-month sentences on the two conspiracy counts, the bank fraud counts and the tax evasion counts. Santopietro also received concurrent 24-month sentences on each of the JTPA embezzlement counts. Pisciotti received a term of incarceration of 114 months on his § 666 violations plus concurrent sentences of 60 months on the conspiracy and bank fraud convictions. Vitarelli was sentenced concurrently to a 41-month term of incarceration on the overall conspiracy, 39 months on his § 666 violation, and 36 months on the false tax return count.
All the convicted defendants appealed. A unanimous Second Circuit panel observed:
Joseph J. Santopietro became the mayor of Waterbury, Connecticut, in November 1985. His victory was due in part to a feud between factions of the city's Democratic party, which had been in power for the previous ten years. The Republicans' uncertainty that they would be able to retain the power they had won fueled a "get it while we can" mentality among Santopietro and his close associates. Perry Pisciotti, a former GOP town chairman who was close to Santopietro's family, arranged for Santopietro to use his political position to influence decisions by various city agencies in return for bank loans and cash payoffs from certain local businessmen. Santopietro was reelected twice, and the conspiracy expanded in 1988 to include other Waterbury politicians.
Benefits to certain bankers and land developers included zoning changes, subdivision approvals, confidential appraisal information for use in bidding on city-owned property, expedited treatment from city agencies, and input into appointments. In return, Santopietro and other members of his administration received hundreds of thousands of dollars disguised as loans, sales of options, real estate contract cancellations, and property leases.
United States v. Santopietro, 996 F.2d 17, 18 (2d Cir.1993), cert. denied, 510 U.S. 1092, 114 S.Ct. 921, 127 L.Ed.2d 215 (1994). The convictions of all defendants were upheld, the Court noting that none of their appellate claims had any merits. 996 F.2d at 19. A writ of certiorari was denied by the Supreme Court. See 510 U.S. 1092, 114 S.Ct. 921-922, 127 L.Ed.2d 215.
Santopietro and Pisciotti, who had been serving their sentences, and Vitarelli, who recently completed serving his sentence, have all filed petitions seeking to have their convictions set aside. As noted earlier, these petitions were prompted at least in part (if not completely) by the recent Second Circuit's overturning of the conviction of Foley. United States v. Foley, 73 F.3d 484 (2d Cir. 1996).
Foley was a state legislator accused of accepting bribes in violation of § 666. The real estate developers who tendered the bribes were the same ones involved in petitioners' cases. Foley was tried before the same Judge and was prosecuted by the same Assistant United States Attorneys. While the purpose of the bribe differed somewhat (seeking to have a piece of legislation passed by the state legislature), the statutory violation charged, 18 U.S.C. § 666, was identical. That section provides that:
(a) Whoever, if the circumstance described in subsection (b) of this section exists —
(1) being an agent ... of a State [or] local ... government
* * * * * *
(B) corruptly solicits ... or accepts ... anything of value from any person, intending to be influenced or rewarded in connection with any business, transaction, or series of transaction of such government ... involving anything of value of $5,000 or more;
* * * * * *
shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both.
(b) The circumstance referred to in subsection (a) of this section is that the organization, government, or agency receives, in any one year period, benefits in excess of $10,000 under a Federal program involving a grant, contract, subsidy, loan, guarantee, insurance, or other form of Federal assistance.
It is clear that the governmental bodies involved in both cases (the State of Connecticut and the City of Waterbury) received federal government funds in excess of $10,000. Moreover, the amount of bribes involved in both cases well exceeded $5,000. However, the majority of the panel1 in the Foley case concluded that to prove a violation of § 666 the prosecution must allege and prove that the "thing of value of $5,000 or more" was lost by the state or municipal body as to which the defendant had a relationship.
The decision also impliedly held that the loss had to be of federal funds given to the state organization. Foley had not raised that issue in the trial court, but the Court of Appeals held that the failure of the indictment to charge a federal offense was jurisdictional defect cognizant on appeal under the "plain-error" doctrine. The Court therefore reversed Foley's bribery conviction and remanded his tax fraud conviction for a new trial since it was unable to determine whether the verdict was based on the jury's conclusion that the bribery payments were not ordinary and necessary expenses or that the deduction was impermissible because the bribery payments were illegal under federal law.
We have previously granted bail to those petitioners still incarcerated pending a hearing on their petitions. Because the § 666 convictions accounted for most of the time to be served by the two still incarcerated petitioners, Pisciotti and Santopietro, and since it appeared clear that the Foley decision would, at a minimum, require setting aside the petitioners' § 666 convictions, we found that the resentencing mandated by Foley might run less than what those petitioners had already served.
The three petitions before this Court have much in common. All three start with the claim that the Court lacked jurisdiction to sentence them for the § 666 violations under the law of the Second Circuit as articulated in Foley. All three petitioners then go on to argue that their convictions of other crimes were fatally contaminated by the spillover effect of the § 666 charges in which they stood trial. Moreover, all three petitions claim ineffective assistance of counsel under the Sixth Amendment. The two petitioners convicted of tax offenses argue that under the Foley rationale, they should at a minimum get new trials on those offenses. Additional individual claims are also made and will be discussed below.
As to the § 666 convictions of all three petitioners, we have already reluctantly...
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