U.S. v. Sprogis

• Decision Date: 31 May 1985
• Docket Number: No. 391,D,391
• Citation: 763 F.2d 115
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Elmars SPROGIS, Defendant-Appellee. ocket 84-6223.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

Page 115

763 F.2d 115

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellant, v. Elmars SPROGIS, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 391, Docket 84-6223.

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued Nov. 19, 1984.

Decided May 31, 1985.

Jeffrey N. Mausner, Trial Atty., Office of Special Investigations, Crim. Div., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C. (Neal M. Sher, Director, Michael Wolf, Deputy Director, Martin H. Sachs, Trial Atty., Dept. of Justice, Washington, D.C., of counsel), for plaintiff-appellant.

Ivars Berzins, Babylon, N.Y. (Joel A. Brenner, Ronald M. Organ, Ivars Berzins, P.C., Babylon, N.Y., of counsel), for defendant-appellee.

Before LUMBARD, MANSFIELD and CARDAMONE, Circuit Judges.

LUMBARD, Circuit Judge:

This case presents, in its most difficult and troubling form, the question of whether a naturalized citizen's conduct while a native police officer in a country invaded and occupied by the Nazis during World War II constitutes an involvement in the Nazis' persecution of civilians sufficient to require the revocation of his citizenship over 40 years later. The government appeals from the May 21, 1984 dismissal, by Judge Altimari, of its suit, brought in the Eastern District under Sec. 340(a) of the Immigration and Nationality Act ("INA"), 8 U.S.C. Sec. 1451(a) (1982), to cancel the naturalization of Elmars Sprogis and to vacate an April 16, 1962 order of the Southern District of New York granting him United States citizenship. Judge Altimari dismissed the suit based on his conclusion that the government failed to prove, by clear, unequivocal and convincing evidence, that Sprogis assisted in persecuting Jews and other civilians while serving as a policeman in Nazi-controlled Latvia during World War II.

On appeal, the government contends that, even in the absence of additional proof, Sprogis' admissions establish that he assisted in persecution. We agree substantially with Judge Altimari's decision that the government offered insufficient proof of assistance in persecution.

Elmars Sprogis was born in Latvia on November 26, 1914. During World War II, he worked there as a police officer. On November 25, 1950, Sprogis entered the United States, having gained a visa from U.S. immigration officials in Wentorf, West Germany pursuant to the Displaced Persons Act of 1948, Pub.L. No. 80-774, 62 Stat. 1009 (DPA). On his immigration papers, including his I-144, a form filled out by all persons immigrating under the DPA, Sprogis disclosed his Latvian police service and stated that he had not become involved in persecuting any civilians.

The government, in a six-count complaint, advanced two theories for revoking Sprogis' citizenship under Sec. 340(a) of the INA. ¹ It asserted that his citizenship was illegally procured, under 8 U.S.C Secs. 1427(a)(1), 1427(a)(3), 1429, because of his assistance in persecuting Soviet prisoners of war, Jews and other civilians while a Latvian police officer and because of his failure to disclose that assistance on his immigration papers. ² In addition, it asserted that his citizenship was procured through misrepresentations concerning his participation in persecution.

A bench trial was held before Judge Altimari in October 1983. Most of the evidence focused on Sprogis' alleged involvement in three incidents of persecution: 1) the detention and forced transport of nine Jews and the confiscation of their property on July 19, 1941; 2) the mass execution of approximately 200 Jews at Litene, Latvia on August 1 or 2, 1941; and 3) the confiscation of property from the homes of arrested Jews.

The government called Dr. Raul Hilberg, an expert historian who has studied the Holocaust for over 35 years. Hilberg testified that Germany invaded Soviet-controlled Latvia on June 22, 1941, occupying Gulbene on or about July 5, 1941 and the entire country by the end of the summer. According to Hilberg, there were approximately 83 Jews in Gulbene at the time of the Nazi invasion. Throughout Latvia, the Nazis initiated a systematic effort to seize and shoot all Jews except for a small number of skilled laborers. Usually, but not always, a special unit of Latvians, under the direction of the Nazis and known as the Arajs Kommandos, carried out the executions. In some cases, the Nazis, asserting their authority over the local Latvian police, used the police to locate, arrest, guard, transport or execute Jews, and to confiscate their property. Hilberg conceded, however, that the role of the local Latvian police varied from region to region.

The government also introduced Sprogis' sworn statements of March 9, 1976, November 25, 1981 and February 24, 1982 and his September 24, 1983 deposition, all of which were taken by immigration officials and government lawyers in New York.

Sprogis also testified on his own behalf: He graduated from military college in 1937 and served in the Latvian Army until June 1940, when the Soviets occupied Latvia. During the Soviet occupation, he served in the Latvian Territorial Corps, a group formed by the Soviets. In the summer of 1941, he was stationed in Cesis, but he left on July 5 or 6 and travelled to Riga, Latvia, in search of his brothers, and then to Gulbene, an eastern Latvian town of approximately 2,900 people, where his wife was living and working. On July 16, he joined the Gulbene police force at the request of the chief of police, a friend. Sprogis' father had previously served as chief of police in Gulbene. Sprogis continued to serve on the police force, as assistant precinct chief, until August 10, 1941, although he maintained that after the first of August he missed some work because of a knee injury. On September 8, 1941, he left Gulbene in order to become assistant chief of police in Madona, a larger city. Eventually he became police chief in Madona.

Sprogis testified that the Gulbene police were under the control of the Nazis. He consistently denied, however, that he ever arrested any Jews. He asserted that all Jews in Gulbene had been arrested prior to his joining the police force there on July 16. According to Sprogis, the Nazi presence in Gulbene was centered not at the police station but at the Gulbene military airport where Major Schaeffer was in charge. Reporting to Schaeffer was a Latvian unit, headed by Captain Lietuvietis, responsible for guarding the airport and the prisoners the Nazis held there. Sprogis asserted that the police had no authority over the military airport and that he visited it only once.

Sprogis also testified concerning his role in the confiscation of the property of arrested Jews and in the July 19, 1941 incident involving the detention of nine Jews at the Gulbene police station. Initially, Sprogis, in his 1981 sworn statement, denied any involvement in either the confiscation of property or the July 19 incident. However, subsequent to that interview, the government produced four documents, which, according to Sprogis, refreshed his memory concerning the July 19 incident.

The first document, dated July 19, 1941 and signed by Sprogis, F. Ermiks, and one other, reads, as translated:

The following sums of money that were found on July 19, 1941 on the arrested Jews were confiscated and turned over to the mayor of Gulbene for his disposition:

* * *

* * *

A total of six thousand four hundred ninety three (6,493) rubles.

One hundred rubles (100.00 rbl.) out of this sum have been paid to four farmers of the Municipality of Litene for transporting the Jews along a dirt road from Litene to the police precinct in Gulbene--see enclosed receipts.

Six thousand three hundred ninety three (6,393.00) rubles are being turned over to the city administration of Gulbene.

The second document is like the first, except that it records the confiscation and delivery to the mayor of the arrested Jews' personal property. The third document, of the same date and concededly written and signed by Sprogis, reflects the payment of 25 rubles to a farmer who had transported the Jews from Litene to Gulbene.

The fourth document is a statement, prepared and signed by Sprogis on October 17, 1942 in response to a Nazi investigation of alleged irregularities in the disposition of confiscated property, in which Sprogis asserts, as he did at trial, that his involvement in confiscations was limited to the performance of incidental administrative tasks. Translated, the statement reads as follows:

From July 16 to August 10, 1941, I was Assistant Chief of Police in Gulbene.... During the first days of my employment, I managed police organizational matters in the town and in the counties, and also office space assignments. Chief A. Bergs, in coordination with the Town Commandant, instructed me to take over the former Gulbene Region Court Building in order to establish police offices there. The Chief, at that time, did not give me the assignment to keep track of and to manage things taken away from, i.e., goods, money and valuables, confiscated from the Jews. I have not been present when all this was being done, and I also have not given any orders regarding this matter. Only once, when the Senior Policeman of Litene County sent Jews together with their confiscated belongings to the Gulbene Police, I turned in the certified lists, with the money, together with valuables, right there at the police office to Mrs. Olga Skenderis, the senior clerk at the office. She checked them for accuracy. After the check was completed, Mrs. Skenderis informed me that the money and valuables on the certified lists checked out with the money and valuables turned in. Subsequently all instructions regarding this matter, pertaining to valuables and the money, as well as turning in of these items were issued by and also handled by Chief A. Bergs. I do not know anything about the valuables confiscated from the Jew Ceslers and other (Jews) from Gulbene. In late July, Chief Bergs gave instructions to turn in all the Jewish money and valuables immediately to the Gulbene Town Council....