U.S. v. Bryant, 84-1460
| Decision Date | 02 August 1985 |
| Docket Number | No. 84-1460,84-1460 |
| Citation | 766 F.2d 370 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Henry Paul BRYANT, a/k/a Paul Bryant and Melissa J. Dalton, Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit |
Raymond Bruntrager, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant Bryant.
Dempster K. Holland, St. Louis, Mo., for appellant Dalton.
Robert T. Haar, Asst. U.S. Atty., St. Louis, Mo., for appellee.
Before HEANEY and ARNOLD, Circuit Judges, and HANSON, * Senior District Judge.
Henry Paul Bryant and Melissa Dalton appeal their convictions on three counts of mail fraud and two counts of wire fraud involving a scheme to bribe Emeric Martin, then Director of the Cervantes Convention Center in St. Louis, for favorable treatment of their convention-booking business, known as Showboard. Appellants raise two substantial issues. First, they argue that the two wire fraud convictions must fall because the government failed to prove that the defendants knew or could reasonably foresee that the telegram in question would be sent interstate. (The telegram was sent from one place in Missouri to another, but, unknown (they say) to defendants, was routed electronically through a Western Union installation in Virginia.) Second, Dalton challenges her wire- and mail-fraud convictions on the ground that these convictions are inconsistent with Martin's conviction for extortion. We find these and the other arguments that appellants raise to be without merit and therefore affirm their convictions.
The evidence established that the appellants paid Emeric Martin, the Director of the Cervantes Convention Center, over $26,000 during a period from August 1979 to April 1980. In exchange for these payments, appellants received favorable treatment in leasing the Center for expositions and shows. 1
The Cervantes Convention Center is a municipal convention facility owned by the City of St. Louis. It is governed by the twenty-one member Convention Center Commission and run on a daily basis by the Director. The Commission adopted rules regarding the leasing of the Center which distinguish between commercial and non-commercial shows. Commercial shows are open to the public, often charge admission, and draw their attendance mainly from the St. Louis area; non-commercial shows are sponsored by not-for-profit associations, most often draw their attendance from beyond St. Louis, and are open only to members of the sponsoring association. The leasing rules prohibited the Director from issuing a lease for a commercial event more than one year prior to the event; however, the Director was permitted to issue a lease for a non-commercial event up to ten years in advance if the expected attendance was not local. If the attendance was local, the lease could be issued only 450 days in advance. To obtain leases over 450 days in advance, the non-commercial customer had to obtain the approval of the Convention and Visitors Bureau, which would then send a bulletin to the Center for issuance of the leases.
The favorable treatment that the appellants received in return for their payments to Martin can conveniently be divided into three different areas: the sports shows; the Industry and Business Expo; and the payment of bills. These are described below.
The sports show at the Center is an annual event normally held in February. Pursuant to an opinion of the Missouri Attorney General, the 1980 sports show was opened to competitive bidding. Bryant and Dalton decided not to bid on the 1980 show, but instead attempted to circumvent the bidding process by locking up the February time block through non-commercial leases. To do so they formed a "not-for-profit" corporation, the "Mid-America Outdoor Sports Association" (MAOSA), and set out to convince the Convention and Visitors Bureau and the Center that MAOSA was a legitimate organization with actual members and that it would be holding a non-commercial event. MAOSA, through its president, Kathryn Mathews, requested leases for its "annual convention and trade show" for five years (1980-1984) during the prime February dates for the commercial sports show.
After noticing several irregularities about MAOSA's application, M.J. Thirkhill, the manager at the Center, grew suspicious about MAOSA, its relationship to Showboard, and the non-commercial status of its proposed events. Approval of the leases was held up, and Bryant subsequently sent the Center a letter over Mathews's signature complaining about the delay and stating that MAOSA was therefore withdrawing its request for the 1980 dates but would continue to seek leases for 1981 through 1984. Count I of the indictment is based on this letter. Although the letter represented that the Board of Directors of MAOSA had met and that MAOSA had a membership, both Dalton and Bryant conceded that no meeting occurred and that MAOSA had no members.
Thirkhill sent Martin a letter outlining the evidence supporting her suspicions about MAOSA, and Martin then wrote the Missouri Attorney General's Office seeking guidance. That office instructed Martin to inquire into the intentions of MAOSA, and if it appeared to be a commercial promoter, to make MAOSA follow the regulations for commercial events. Martin, who was now receiving payments from Showboard, did not follow this advice. He told Center personnel that Showboard was no longer involved with MAOSA and directed that the leases MAOSA requested for 1981 through 1984 be issued.
The 1981 lease was mailed to Mathews in Kansas City, and this mailing forms the basis for the mail fraud charged in Count II. However, the remaining leases were withheld because of the continuing suspicions of a Center employee. In response to the delay, Mathews, at the direction of Bryant, sent the Center a telegram demanding the 1982, 1983, and 1984 leases. Although MAOSA did not have bylaws, committees, or members, the telegram stated that under its bylaws MAOSA had to report to its committees and membership. This telegram underlies Count IV. Martin then ordered that the remaining leases be sent, and told a Center employee he owed Bryant a favor. By this time, Martin had received over $14,000 from Bryant and Dalton.
In March of 1980, Dalton and Bryant decided to bid on the 1981 sports-show leases to ensure that, either by bidding successfully for the show itself, or by virtue of the MAOSA lease already obtained, they would get control of the time for the 1981 sports show. Accordingly, they submitted five collusive bids under the names of fictitious organizations. Bryant's plan was to withdraw successively each of the highest bids until the bid remaining was just higher than that of a legitimate competitor. After opening the bids the Rental Rates Committee of the Center Commission questioned the ability of several of the high bidders to pay the lease and decided to reject all bids and invite all bidders to submit a second bid with payment secured by a fidelity bond.
In effort to stop the second bidding and prevent another promoter from getting the sports show dates in 1981, Bryant dictated a letter to Mathews which he instructed her to telegraph to the Center over her signature. The telegram, which underlies Count V, threatened to cancel the 1981 MAOSA sports travel and recreational vehicle show, if the Center scheduled another sports show either before or immediately after the MAOSA show.
This stratagem, however, did not stop the second bidding, and Dalton, under the name National Show Producers, was announced the winner with a bid of $85,000. Now, Dalton and Bryant held the dates of February 1-9, 1981, under the name of MAOSA, and the dates of February 10-24, 1981, under the name of National Show Producers. They were now faced with the problem of holding dates for the whole month but having only one show to fill it. To eliminate this overbooking, Dalton appeared at the Center Commission on June 11, 1980, and complained that MAOSA had obtained leases for a commercial event under the guise of producing a noncommercial event. She urged the Commission to cancel the MAOSA leases. The Commission ordered a hearing to clarify this situation and subsequently Mathews withdrew MAOSA's claim to the February dates.
In 1980, Showboard helped the Administrative Management Society (AMS), a not-for-profit association of local businessmen, put on its Industry and Business Expo '80. In 1979, Bryant and Dalton were interested in getting contracts for future Expos in 1982, 1984, 1986, 1988, and 1990. However, the Convention and Visitors Bureau refused to issue bulletins for the leases because it believed that the attendance would be primarily local. Despite the Bureau's refusal to send the bulletins, in 1979 Martin ordered a Center employee to issue a contract for the 1982 Expo to Showboard. This lease violated the requirement that a bulletin be obtained for leases more than 450 days in advance and the policy that non-commercial leases should be issued only to not-for-profit organizations, not promoters.
Members of the Convention and Visitors Bureau later discovered that Martin had issued the 1982 Expo lease and decided to back down from their earlier refusal to send the bulletins. Subsequently, they sent the bulletin for 1982 and in addition the bulletins requested for 1984, 1986, 1988, and 1990. After the leases were issued by Martin and signed by Dalton and Martin, they were mailed to the City Comptroller for his signature. This mailing is the basis for Count III.
The trial evidence indicated that after Martin took over personal supervision of the Showboard account, and after payments to him began, Showboard put on four shows from September 1979 to June 1980 without paying a single bill. This violated the Commission's policy that contracts were not to be issued to any entity that had an outstanding...
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