United States v. D'ANTONIO

• Decision Date: 30 June 1966
• Docket Number: 15191.,No. 15188,15190,15188
• Citation: United States v. D'ANTONIO, 362 F.2d 151 (7th Cir. 1966)
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Anthony D'ANTONIO, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph SPAGNOLI, Defendant-Appellant. UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Louis BARTEMIO and Arthur Rachel, Defendants-Appellants.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit

362 F.2d 151 (1966)

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Anthony D'ANTONIO, Defendant-Appellant.

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joseph SPAGNOLI, Defendant-Appellant.

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Louis BARTEMIO and Arthur Rachel, Defendants-Appellants.

Nos. 15188, 15190, 15191.

United States Court of Appeals Seventh Circuit.

June 9, 1966.

Rehearing Denied June 30, 1966.

Anna R. Lavin, Edward J. Calihan, Jr., Melvin B. Lewis, Chicago, Ill., for appellant.

Edward V. Hanrahan, U. S. Atty., John Peter Lulinski, John Powers Crowley, Richard T. Sikes, Charles H. Turner, Asst. U. S. Attys., Chicago, Ill., Lawrence Jay Weiner, Asst. U. S. Atty., of counsel, for appellee.

Before KNOCH, CASTLE and SWYGERT, Circuit Judges.

CASTLE, Circuit Judge.

Anthony D'Antonio, Joseph Spagnoli, Louis Bartemio and Arthur Rachel, defendants-appellants,¹ prosecute these appeals from the respective judgment of conviction and sentence entered as to each following a jury trial under an indictment charging the defendants² with participation in two conspiracies, each a violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 371, and with a substantive offense in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 471. The defendants were found guilty on all of the three counts of the indictment. Count I charges a conspiracy to transport counterfeit traveler's checks in interstate commerce in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 2314; Count II charges a conspiracy to counterfeit Series "E" United States Savings Bonds, and to pass, utter, and sell such counterfeited bonds, in violation of 18 U.S.C.A. § 471, § 472 and § 473; and Count III charges the substantive offense of counterfeiting a Series "E" United States Savings Bond of $100 denomination and bearing a designated issue date and serial number.

The defendants do not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence to sustain their respective convictions. They assail the government's action in charging the existence of two conspiracies as constituting a "misuse of the doctrine of conspiratorial liability", and contend that the admission of irrelevant and prejudicial matter in evidence, an unsworn prejudicial statement by the prosecutor, and prejudicial argument to the jury vitiate their convictions. On behalf of defendant Spagnoli it is additionally contended that the government's use of him as a witness in another prosecution where he proclaimed his innocence of the offenses here charged precludes his conviction thereon.

We perceive no merit to the defendants' contention that we should regard the government's prosecution of the defendants for both of the conspiracies charged as merely a device or scheme calculated to afford additional area for the admission of testimony of conversations incriminating of non-present defendants as well as providing a subterfuge for doubling the permissive penalty. It is true, of course, that there is similarity in the subject matter and objectives of the two conspiracies charged. Both involve counterfeit obligations — traveler's checks in the one case, and government bonds in the other. But the indictment alleges and the supporting proofs demonstrate that the first conspiracy, that involving the traveler's checks, antedated by several months the second conspiracy which involves government bonds, and that some different unindicted co-conspirators were involved in each. Prosecution for both of the offenses was neither error nor an abuse or misuse of authority. Cf. Braverman v. United States, 317 U.S. 49, 63 S.Ct. 99, 87 L.Ed. 23. And, insofar as defendants predicate error in the admission of evidence on the premise of a misuse of conspiracy charges their complaint is untenable. We have, in addition, considered the several rulings on the admission of testimony concerning conversations tending to incriminate a non-present defendant with respect to which the defendants have made specific complaint and are of the opinion that such rulings were in keeping with the standards recognized as governing the admissibility of such evidence in Lutwak v. United States, 344 U.S. 604, 73 S.Ct. 481, 97 L.Ed. 493; Krulewitch v. United States, 336 U.S. 440, 69 S.Ct. 716, 93 L.Ed. 790; Glasser v. United States, 315 U.S. 60, 62 S.Ct. 457, 86 L.Ed. 680; United States v. Konovsky, 7 Cir., 202 F.2d 721, 727; United States v. Dennis, 2 Cir., 183 F.2d 201, 230-231, affirmed 341 U.S. 494, 71 S.Ct. 857, 95 L.Ed. 1137, and similar cases.

Defendant Spagnoli contends that his testimony given as a government witness in another criminal prosecution³ renders him immune from conviction on the present indictment. In that trial it was brought out on the direct examination of Spagnoli that he was under indictment for the offenses here involved. During cross-examination Spagnoli was asked if any promises of immunity had been made to him for his testimony. He replied in the negative but voluntarily added a proclamation of his innocence of the present charges, stating:

"I\'m innocent to them charges. I didn\'t conspire with nobody. I don\'t have to have a deal. * * * I don\'t need no deal. I am innocent of them charges. I didn\'t do none of them things."

We reject as being wholly devoid of merit the contention that these unresponsive and volunteered self-serving protestations of innocence from the witness stand in another trial serve to immunize Spagnoli from conviction. The government's use of Spagnoli as a witness did not cloak him with immunity from conviction of the offenses for which he was then under indictment, nor constitute a continuing and irrevocable endorsement of his credibility which endowed his self-serving declarations, past or future, with invulnerability. To state the proposition is to refute its reasonableness.

The defendants claim the trial court erred in the scope of the cross-examination permitted the government in connection with a government agent called as a defense witness. The direct examination had opened up the matter of a search made of defendant D'Antonio's trailer, and the agent had testified that no parchment or bond paper, ink, type or press was found in the search. On cross-examination the government was permitted to ask,...