U.S. v. Ingram
| Decision Date | 12 November 1992 |
| Docket Number | No. 91-3912,91-3912 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. George INGRAM, Defendant-Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
John W. Vaudreuil, Asst. U.S. Atty., Timothy O'Shea (argued), Office of the U.S. Atty., Madison, Wis., for U.S.
Stephen J. Eisenberg (argued), Madison, Wis., for Ingram.
Before BAUER, Chief Judge, and COFFEY and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges.
In April 1989, George Ingram entered into a plea agreement with the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado. In May 1991, a federal grand jury in the Western District of Wisconsin indicted Mr. Ingram on drug charges that he contends were precluded by the April 1989 Colorado plea agreement. Mr. Ingram moved to dismiss the indictment and to require the government to comply with the terms of the April 1989 plea agreement. The district court denied Mr. Ingram's motion on the grounds that the April 1989 plea agreement unambiguously bound only the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado and that the government did not unfairly induce Mr. Ingram to enter the agreement. Mr. Ingram pleaded guilty with reservation of his right to appeal the district court's denial of his motion to dismiss. Mr. Ingram now appeals, and we affirm.
In mid-1983, George Ingram was convicted on state drug charges and began serving a state sentence in Colorado. In 1986, Mr. Ingram was transferred to the Federal Correctional Institution of Oxford, Wisconsin (FCI Oxford), to serve part of a federal sentence he had received in 1985. At that time, FCI Oxford correctional officials discovered an on-going conspiracy to smuggle methamphetamine into the prison. In March 1987, FBI Special Agent Richard Staedtler, of the Madison, Wisconsin office of the FBI, joined FCI Oxford officials in their investigation of the smuggling scheme. They monitored and tape-recorded phone calls made by Mr. Ingram and several other inmates suspected as participants in the scheme. Seeking to identify Mr. Ingram was scheduled for release from FCI Oxford near the end of May 1987. On April 27, 1987, Mr. Ingram called Danny Hockersmith in Colorado and said: 1 On May 3, 1987, Mr. Ingram called Mr. Hockersmith again and told him to mail "the package" on Tuesday to Terri Coyle, at an address in Raytown, Missouri. The following day, May 4, Patrick Coyle, an inmate at FCI Oxford, called Terri Coyle and told her to watch her mailbox on Wednesday or Thursday. On May 10, Terri Coyle visited Patrick Coyle at FCI Oxford.
subscribers to Colorado telephone numbers that Mr. Ingram had called, Agent Staedtler contacted FBI agents in Colorado in early April 1987. Agent Staedtler learned that several of the subscribers were suspected members of a methamphetamine trafficking organization led by Steven "Harpo" Miller ("the Miller Organization"), which was at that time being investigated in Colorado by the Mountain States Task Force. Agent Staedtler informed the task force of the activities that had been uncovered at FCI Oxford. Soon thereafter, in early April 1987, Bernard Hobson, Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) for the District of Colorado, called Agent Staedtler to ask about the FCI Oxford investigation
Correctional officers who videotaped the visit suspected that Terri Coyle had given small balloons to Patrick Coyle along with some food. Immediately after the visit, Patrick Coyle was placed into a "dry cell." The same day, Mr. Ingram called another associate from the Miller Organization and said: "[T]he piggies got my boy." Def. Ex.4 at 9. Two days later, on May 12, three balloons containing methamphetamine were recovered from Patrick Coyle. Mr. Ingram was not disciplined by FCI Oxford officials and was not aware that they knew of his involvement. In late May 1987, Mr. Ingram was transferred back to the Colorado state correctional system.
In June and September of 1987, pursuant to a District of Colorado grand jury subpoena, members of the Mountain States Task Force visited FCI Oxford and made copies of some of the telephone tape recordings. On September 30, 1987, Agent Staedtler spoke with Grant Johnson, AUSA for the Western District of Wisconsin. Agent Staedtler's official report of the conversation states:
AUSA JOHNSON further advised that he has been in periodic contact with AUSA BERNIE HOBSON, Mountain States Federal Drug Task Force, Denver, Colorado, regarding this matter. AUSA JOHNSON stated that he and AUSA HOBSON have agreed that all participants in captioned drug distribution activities, including both Denver drug suppliers and FCI Oxford inmates who received the drugs, will be prosecuted, but that no decision has been made to date on whether the FCI Oxford inmates and their intermediary associates will be prosecuted in the Western District of Wisconsin or in the federal courts in Denver, Colorado.
Mr. Ingram finished serving his Colorado sentence in December 1987. One year and four months later, on March 17, 1989, a federal grand jury in the District of Colorado returned a fifteen-count indictment against eight members of the Miller Organization, including Mr. Ingram. Count I charged that the defendants conspired to possess with intent to distribute, and to distribute, methamphetamine in Colorado, between July 17, 1987, and April 23, 1988. Five of the remaining counts charged Mr. Ingram with distributing methamphetamine in 1987 and 1988. All of the activity in the indictment allegedly occurred in Colorado, and it all occurred after Mr. Ingram was transferred from FCI Oxford to the Colorado correctional system.
Attorneys John Moorehead and Theodore Shih were appointed to defend Mr. Ingram. Mr. Ingram pleaded not guilty to the charges, and attorneys Shih and Moorehead AUSA Hobson later told Mr. Shih that the authorities in the unidentified jurisdictions "were not especially interested in pursuing prosecution against Ingram." Affidavit of Theodore Shih, R. 133 Ex. 1 p 3. AUSA Hobson did not indicate to Mr. Shih that he and Wisconsin AUSA Johnson had agreed in 1987 that Mr. Ingram would be prosecuted either in Colorado or Wisconsin for his part in the FCI Oxford smuggling scheme. According to AUSA Hobson, by 1989, neither the Colorado nor the Wisconsin United States Attorney officers were "especially enthusiastic" about prosecuting the FCI Oxford conspiracy. AUSA Hobson did tell Mr. Shih that the potential charges in other districts were pre-Guidelines charges, which indicated that they involved activity that occurred before November 1987. AUSA Hobson told Mr. Shih that he was neither willing nor authorized to bind any federal district other than the District of Colorado. R. 125 at 49. 2 Mr. Shih acknowledged that AUSA Hobson told him that he "wasn't going to tie the hands of" the investigating districts, and that "as a result it was possible that Mr. Ingram might be prosecuted in other federal districts." Affidavit of Theodore Shih, R. 133 at 23.
initiated plea negotiations with Colorado AUSA Johnson. AUSA Hobson indicated to attorney Shih that the government was investigating Mr. Ingram's possible criminal conduct outside of Colorado. The Wisconsin investigation was the only other investigation of Mr. Ingram that AUSA Hobson knew about. Mr. Shih asked AUSA Hobson about the location of the other investigations and the nature of Mr. Ingram's suspected activities, but AUSA Hobson refused to reveal either. Mr. Shih later discussed with Mr. Ingram what possible activity AUSA Hobson could be referring to, but Mr. Ingram never mentioned his methamphetamine trafficking activity in Wisconsin. Mr. Ingram was not even aware that federal authorities knew of his involvement in the FCI Oxford smuggling operation. Thus, Mr. Shih had no knowledge of Mr. Ingram's criminal activity in Wisconsin
Mr. Ingram later offered to plead guilty to Count II, charging him with distribution of methamphetamine on August 5, 1987, which was the only pre-Guidelines offense charged. AUSA Hobson agreed and drafted a plea agreement, which stated that the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado would dismiss the other four counts of the indictment and agree not to file any additional criminal charges for criminal activities that occurred in the District of Colorado. Mr. Shih was concerned about the phrase "that occurred in the District of Colorado." At a later deposition, Mr. Shih stated: "I was concerned that if the activity was limited to criminal activity which allegedly occurred physically in the District of Colorado, it might not encompass all the activity that the government thought Mr. Ingram was involved in as a part of the alleged Miller gang." Because of this concern, Mr. Shih requested replacing "that occurred in the District of Colorado" with the phrase "arising from Mr. Ingram's criminal activity in the District of Colorado." The substance of the final plea agreement was expressed in a letter from AUSA Hobson to Mr. Shih, which stated, in relevant part:
[T]he United States Attorney's Office for the District of Colorado ... further agrees not to file any additional criminal charges in the District of Colorado which are known to this office arising from Mr. Ingram's criminal activities in the District of Colorado.
Letter of April 25, 1989, R. 133 Ex. 2. Mr. Ingram also agreed that this was the substance of the agreement and that no other promises had been made to him. 3 Pursuant
to Mr. Ingram's guilty plea, he was convicted and sentenced in June 1989 to a six-year term of imprisonment.
On May 9, 1991, a Western District of Wisconsin grand jury returned a one-count indictment against Mr. Ingram, Danny Hockersmith, Patrick Coyle, and Terri Coyle. The indictment...
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