United States v. Dennis

• Decision Date: 19 October 1978
• Docket Number: No. 78-142 CR (3).,78-142 CR (3).
• Citation: 458 F. Supp. 197
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Willie H. DENNIS, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Missouri

458 F. Supp. 197

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Willie H. DENNIS, Defendant.

No. 78-142 CR (3).

United States District Court, E. D. Missouri, E. D.

October 19, 1978.

Stephen B. Higgins and Georgia M. Goslee, Asst. U. S. Attys., U. S. Dept. of Justice, St. Louis, Mo., for plaintiff.

Irl B. Baris, St. Louis, Mo., for defendant.

MEMORANDUM

NANGLE, District Judge.

This matter is before the Court upon the Court's own motion to consider the dismissal of Count I of the indictment herein. Said count charges defendant with violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c) which provides:

It shall be unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise's affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity or collection of unlawful debt.

Defendant is an employee of the General Motors Assembly Division, General Motors Corporation, which is alleged to be an enterprise affecting interstate commerce. The government charges that defendant participated in the conduct of the enterprise's affairs through the collection of unlawful debts, as defined by 18 U.S.C. § 1961(6). Defendant was not an officer of General Motors Corporation. The debts that he is alleged to have unlawfully collected were incurred by fellow employees at the General Motors Assembly Division as a result of allegedly borrowing funds at usurious rates from defendant.

The issue which the indictment raises herein is whether the collection of unlawful debts by an employee from co-employees on the premises of an enterprise affecting interstate commerce constitutes participation in the enterprise's affairs through the collection of unlawful debts. The Court concludes that it does not.

In United States v. Stofsky, 409 F.Supp. 609 (S.D.N.Y.1973), defendants, who were officials and employees of a labor union, challenged § 1962(c) as void for vagueness because the statute "fails to set forth the degree and intensity of the relationship required between the racketeering activity and the usual operation of the enterprise". Id. at 612. The court rejected the argument stating that

. . . § 1962(c) sufficiently places men of reasonable intelligence on notice that persons employed by the type of enterprise therein defined cannot resort to a pattern of specified criminal acts in the conduct of the affairs of that enterprise. Id. at 613.

The court also stated that offenses committed in the course of employment satisfied the relationship required by the statute.

Other courts have placed a more stringent interpretation upon the statutory requirement that the defendant participate in the conduct of the enterprise's affairs through the prohibited activity. In United States v. Nerone, 563 F.2d 836 (7th Cir. 1977), defendants were charged with participating in the operation of an illegal gambling business; use of extortionate means to collect a gambling debt; use of a deadly weapon in an assault upon a federal officer; and conducting the affairs of Maple Manor, Inc. through a pattern of racketeering activity and/or through collection of an unlawful debt. The evidence adduced showed that an individual operated a casino gambling operation in a mobile home located in a mobile home park which was operated by Maple Manor, Inc. A number of this corporation's board of directors were directly involved in the gambling operation. Nevertheless, the court determined that 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c) had not been violated:

Our examination of the record leaves us with the

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