U.S. v. Ingman
| Decision Date | 24 August 1976 |
| Docket Number | No. 75-2622,75-2622 |
| Citation | 541 F.2d 1329 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Allan Noel INGMAN, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Ninth Circuit |
James Vonash (argued), Seattle, Wash., for defendant-appellant.
Harry J. McCarthy, Asst. U. S. Atty. (argued), Seattle, Wash., for plaintiff-appellee.
Before CHOY and KENNEDY, Circuit Judges, and WONG, * District Judge.
Allan Noel Ingman was convicted for conspiring to violate the narcotics laws of the United States, 21 U.S.C. §§ 846, 963 (the conspiracy count), and for aiding and abetting in the distribution of a Schedule I controlled substance, 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a), (b)(1)(A), 18 U.S.C. § 2 (the substantive count). On appeal from the conspiracy conviction, he raises minor evidentiary objections and also claims to have been placed twice in jeopardy by reason of a previous trial and acquittal for participation in a drug conspiracy. His sole objection to the conviction on the substantive count is that it is based on insufficient evidence.
On July 16, 1974, the grand jury in the Western District of Washington returned a 15-count indictment, Count I of which named Ingman, twelve codefendants, and ten unindicted coconspirators as participants in a conspiracy to import quantities of cocaine, amphetamine, and marijuana, and to possess these with intent to distribute in the United States. On November 19, 1974 the same grand jury returned a three-count indictment charging in its first count that Ingman and five others conspired to import quantities of amphetamine, heroin, cocaine, marijuana, and lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), and to possess such with intent to distribute.
Ingman was first tried under the July indictment. He moved for acquittal by reason of insufficient evidence and the motion was granted. A week later he was tried under the November indictment. He moved to dismiss the conspiracy count by a special plea of former jeopardy, based on his acquittal of conspiracy charges at the first trial. The motion was timely renewed during and at the close of trial, and was denied by the court. A jury found Ingman guilty on the conspiracy count and a substantive count.
We cannot agree with appellant's characterization of the two conspiracies as one and the same. The allegations of the two indictments and the testimony at the two trials convince us that these were in fact two separate conspiracies, and acquittal of participation in the first one did not bar trial for involvement in the second.
The conspiracy charged in the July indictment and proven (as to persons other than Ingman) in the first trial, showed that one Gerald Stoller was the central figure. During the year that the Stoller conspiracy was active, Stoller made trips, frequently by aircraft, between Mexico and the Seattle, Washington area to obtain illegal drugs. The November indictment, by contrast, charges Ingman and members of his immediate family as the central conspirators in separate importation activities during the course of the three and one-half years. The alleged method of importation was by automobile, rather than by airplane. Ingman distributed the drugs to persons not involved in the Stoller conspiracy, primarily his two sons and one Russell Johnson, who in turn sold the contraband in the Yakima, Washington area. The Ingman ring dealt in a number of drugs, but notably heroin and LSD, whereas the Stoller group was not alleged to deal in either of these substances. Stoller, it appears, at one time worked in Ingman's group, but later struck out on his own. The only connection between the two conspiracies was Ingman's alleged involvement in a meeting with Stoller and one Melvin Luckie on January 28, 1973 in Tijuana, Mexico. The purpose of the meeting was to introduce Stoller to a source of supply for cocaine, amphetamine, and marijuana.
The fact that the January, 1973 meeting in Mexico is also alleged as an overt act in the November indictment does not show that the conspiracies were the same. An action may well be in furtherance of two or more conspiracies. The fact that there is some...
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...indictment, some of the same conduct facilitated each conspiracy; but the two were not one agreement. See, e.g., United States v. Ingman, 541 F.2d 1329, 1331 (9th Cir. 1976) (holding that an action may be in furtherance of two or more conspiracies; some interrelationship between conspiracie......
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