U.S. v. Hasenstab, 613
| Decision Date | 24 April 1978 |
| Docket Number | No. 613,D,613 |
| Citation | 575 F.2d 1035 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. William F. HASENSTAB, Appellant. ocket 77-1442. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit |
Richard Friedman, New York City (Friedman, Friedman, Levy & Bottiglieri, P.C., New York City, of counsel), for appellant.
T. Barry Kingham, Asst. U. S. Atty., Southern District of New York, New York City (Robert B. Fiske, Jr., U. S. Atty. and Robert J. Jossen, Asst. U. S. Atty., Southern District of New York, New York City, of counsel), for appellee.
Before HAYS and GURFEIN, Circuit Judges, and BRYAN, District Judge. *
William Hasenstab appeals from a judgment of conviction entered in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York on October 6, 1977, following a five-day jury trial before the Honorable Robert J. Ward, United States District Judge.
An indictment, filed on July 5, 1977, charged the defendant Hasenstab in three counts with mail fraud, wire fraud and conspiracy, in violation, respectively, of Title 18, United States Code, Sections 1341, 1343 and 371. The jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts. 1
The Government's proof at trial demonstrated that from 1968 through 1976 William Hasenstab, a purchasing supervisor for Pan American World Airways, Inc. ("Pan American"), received about $50,000 in secret cash kickbacks from his co-conspirator George Barney, who testified for the Government. Barney, the president of Tabulating Stock Forms, Inc., a company which supplied Pan American with printed business forms, paid Hasenstab the kickbacks in return for Hasenstab's efforts to see that Tabulating received favored treatment from Pan American. In furtherance of the kickback scheme, Barney submitted bills to and received payment from Pan American through the mail. Barney also made periodic telephone calls between New York and Pan American's computer center at Rockleigh, New Jersey.
Barney met Hasenstab in 1967 when the defendant was a buyer of business forms at Pan American. During the next three years, Barney sold forms to Pan American through Hasenstab and, in appreciation for the business he received, Barney paid Hasenstab approximately fifty to one hundred dollars, once or twice each month. Due to labor trouble in 1970, Barney was unable to take new orders from Pan American. When Barney resumed active business with Pan American in 1972, Hasenstab told Barney that he liked their payoff arrangement, expected it to continue, but would be satisfied to receive only what Barney thought Hasenstab's services were worth. Barney told Hasenstab he would pay him 5% of the total dollar sales by Tabulating Forms to Pan American.
Between 1973 and 1976 Pan American's purchases from Tabulating Forms rose from $68,648 to $498,659, annually. In return for this substantial business, Hasenstab received something on the order of $50,000 in cash, with payments made on a monthly basis. The kickbacks were delivered by Barney to Hasenstab at various places: the Pan Am Building in Manhattan, Hasenstab's office at JFK Airport, and the Hamilton House restaurant in Brooklyn. Following Barney's arrest by the FBI in late 1976 for different offenses, two of Hasenstab's meetings with Barney were recorded with Barney's consent. 2 At the first of the recorded meetings, on December 1, 1976, Barney paid Hasenstab $1,000 in cash at the Hamilton House in Brooklyn. Because $3,000 was due on the schedule of payments for that month, Hasenstab expressed dismay, but recognized that it was the first time that Barney was short. At the second recorded meeting on January 6, 1977, Barney said he could not pay because he had not received payment from Pan American on certain orders. Hasenstab again complained, adding that Barney was getting him used to a "life style."
In return for the secret kickbacks, Hasenstab also helped Barney to fix price levels and to rig bids without competition. This practice contrasted with the normal purchase of business forms at Pan American by competitive bidding. Usually, Walter O'Toole, the Purchasing Manager, would refer Pan American's requisitions for business forms to Nicholas DiNapoli, a senior buyer. DiNapoli would distribute the requisitions among the buyers, including himself. The assigned buyer would solicit price quotations and select the supplier. The completed paperwork would then be sent for approval to Hasenstab, the Purchasing Unit Supervisor, and the order would be made final. The business with Barney's company was handled differently, however. DiNapoli testified that for about 60% of orders placed with Barney's firm, Hasenstab himself informed DiNapoli what prices and which "competitors" to enter on the bid quotation sheets, with Barney's price invariably appearing as the lowest. DiNapoli did not know whether Hasenstab actually obtained quotations, but he followed Hasenstab's orders, assuming that Hasenstab, an experienced printed forms specialist, knew what he was doing. Moreover, as a "management" employee, Hasenstab was not permitted to fill out the bid sheets for orders. All such "productivity work" had to be done by union employees like DiNapoli. Hasenstab was thus able to make it appear as if it was DiNapoli who had actually obtained the bid quotations.
In addition to routine orders, Pan American also had several long-term contracts with suppliers of printed forms. One of these was for the computer paper which was used by Pan American's data processing facility at Rockleigh, New Jersey. For the supply of paper in 1975, this contract had been awarded to Moore Business Forms, one of the nation's largest suppliers. However, during 1975, Hasenstab arranged for Barney's company to supply about half the year's remaining requirements for such paper. That contract was awarded without any competitive bids. Shortly thereafter, Barney's company was favored with the entire contract for the next year, 1976, worth about $300,000, as an "extension" of the improperly obtained 1975 contract. All of these arrangements were made by Hasenstab at a time when he was receiving cash payments from Barney ranging between $1,000 and $2,000 a month.
Throughout the period 1968 to 1976, Pan American mailed payments, and Barney sent invoices, bills and confirmations of the rigged orders through the mail. In addition, Barney used the telephone between New York and Rockleigh, New Jersey to expedite his business with Pan American's computer center, and on occasion called Hasenstab in New York from Rockleigh in order to facilitate the placing of orders and payment of invoices. 3
Appellant's principal claim is that the evidence failed to establish that use of the mails and interstate telephones was sufficiently connected to his scheme to defraud to support a conviction under the mail and wire fraud statutes, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343 and 2. 4 He does not dispute with any vigor that the scheme was fraudulent but says that there was no federal crime. He contends that the only mailings were between Pan American and Tabulating Forms and that these were routine in nature, of the sort that would have taken place if there had been no fraudulent scheme whatever. He asserts that "neither the checks . . ., the invoices, or purchase orders served any purpose in relation to the basis of the fraud claimed to be against Pan Am". The fraud, he submits, was his acceptance of kickbacks without the knowledge of Pan Am, after the mailings occurred.
Appellant misses the point that the essence of the scheme to defraud Pan Am was the creation of a system under which Pan American would buy forms and paper from Barney's company that it would normally have purchased elsewhere. Carrying out the scheme foreseeably involved use of the mails in the sending of invoices by Tabulating Forms to Pan Am, the return of payments by mail from Pan Am, and the consequent payment of the commercial bribe. In effect, appellant and Barney were setting up a new business between Pan Am and Tabulating Forms with the direct purpose of benefiting themselves to the detriment of Pan Am.
To sustain a conviction under the mail fraud statute, "It is enough that (the defendant) participated in the scheme and that it was foreseeable that the scheme would involve use of the mails." United States v. Finkelstein, 526 F.2d 517, 527 (2d Cir. 1975), cert. denied sub nom. Scardino v. United States, 425 U.S. 960, 96 S.Ct. 1742, 48...
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