United States v. Ridolfi

• Decision Date: 06 October 2014
• Docket Number: No. 13–2127.,13–2127.
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Corey RIDOLFI, Defendant, Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit

768 F.3d 57

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee

v.Corey RIDOLFI, Defendant, Appellant.

No. 13–2127.

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit.

Oct. 6, 2014.

Elizabeth Prevett for appellant.

Donald C. Lockhart, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Peter F. Neronha, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.

Before LYNCH, Chief Judge, HOWARD and KAYATTA, Circuit Judges.

Opinion

HOWARD, Circuit Judge.

The defendant, Corey Ridolfi, was charged with federal firearms offenses after Cumberland, Rhode Island police found him at the wheel of a car whose trunk was jampacked with stolen property, including two shotguns. After hearing evidence of Ridolfi's involvement in a recent burglary crime spree, the fruits of which were in the trunk of the car, a jury convicted him of being a felon in possession of one or more firearms and of knowingly possessing one or more stolen firearms. See 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1) ; id. §§ 2 & 922(j). On appeal, Ridolfi primarily challenges the evidentiary sufficiency for his knowing possession of the shotguns. We affirm his convictions.

I

In the early morning hours of November 28, 2011, local police responded to a report of a suspicious person in a residential neighborhood of Cumberland, Rhode Island.¹ At around 4:15 a.m., a caller reported that a man had just rung his doorbell and then walked away from the house. Sergeant Jonathan Cook arrived on site in less than one minute and immediately approached the lone car (a Ford Focus) parked in the neighborhood, about 250–300 feet from the complaining residence. The two men in the vehicle matched the description given by the caller, including the winter hats with ear flaps worn by both. Ridolfi was in the driver's seat; his cousin Jared Lemay was in the passenger's side.

Ridolfi explained to the officer that he had become lost traveling from his girlfriend's house and had pulled off the main road to use his GPS unit. Ridolfi began perspiring heavily as his conversation with Sergeant Cook continued. A second police officer, David Rosa, soon arrived to assist. He spoke with Ridolfi and Lemay separately, and both men denied ringing the doorbell at the nearby residence. Lemay told Officer Rosa that he had been with Ridolfi all night at the home of Ridolfi's girlfriend in North Attleboro, Massachusetts and that the two were heading to Cumberland where they lived.

Ridolfi's story was that he had spent the night with his girlfriend in North Attleboro and then called Lemay, who was in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, to pick him up. Ridolfi spontaneously displayed his cell phone to the officer as proof of the call. Officer Rosa remarked that the time notation showed that the call had just occurred minutes earlier at 4:08 a.m. and questioned how the two could have traveled such a distance in such a short time. Ridolfi had no explanation, and his nervous behavior increased.

Meanwhile, Sergeant Cook had learned that the Ford Focus was registered to Lemay's father, and that neither Ridolfi nor Lemay had a valid driver's license. He decided to arrest Ridolfi for driving without a valid license and to impound the car since Lemay could not lawfully drive it. Before the tow truck arrived, Sergeant Cook and Officer Rosa conducted an inventory search of the Ford Focus and discovered, among other items, a 20–gauge shotgun shell in plain view on the back seat. When they opened the trunk to continue their accounting, the officers observed that it was filled with boxes and bags stuffed full. Sergeant Cook also noticed two rifle bags buried among the belongings. Because of the sheer volume of the trunk cache, he opted to complete the inventory at the police station. There, Sergeant Cook found that the rifle bags indeed contained two shotguns, a pump action 12–gauge and a bolt action 20–gauge, with the serial numbers etched off. A different officer cataloged the various other items.

The police later learned that most of the belongings in the trunk comprised stolen property from three recent home burglaries that occurred in the month of November 2011. In addition to the shotguns, the loot included a large quantity of baseball cards and other sports memorabilia, jewelry, watches, a cell phone, and a replica handgun. The shotguns, in particular, were connected to a burglary that had occurred at a Cumberland home some time during the overnight hours of November 8th and November 9th. Many items of women's jewelry also were stolen during that same burglary. Other stolen property recovered from the trunk, such as the large sports memorabilia collection, were connected to yet another burglary of a Cumberland home that was located directly across the street from where Sergeant Cook found Ridolfi and Lemay parked in the Ford Focus. The testimony of the homeowner established that this burglary had occurred around the time that the two men showed up in the neighborhood.

The police also discovered that Ridolfi had sold some of the stolen jewelry connected to the early November burglary at a pawnshop in Woonsocket, Rhode Island, shortly after that theft had occurred. On November 9th, at around 5:30 p.m., Ridolfi, accompanied by Lemay and another individual, entered the shop, where Ridolfi sold ten pieces of jewelry for $1,200.00 in cash. While Ridolfi informed the store clerk that a family member had given him the jewelry, he later told the police that he had received the valuables from some unknown woman at a party. He also told the police that he had visited the pawnshop alone, unaware that the store's security recording debunked his tale.

Finally, the police learned that on November 11th, just a few days after the early November burglary, Ridolfi and Lemay went to a party at the home of Lemay's girlfriend. Amidst the festivities, Lemay decided to showcase one of the stolen shotguns to Ridolfi's sister and others, demonstrating how to use the pump action feature. Although Ridolfi also was at the party, the record does not indicate whether he was present in the room at the time that Lemay boasted the weapon.

The government subsequently levied two firearms charges against Ridolfi as earlier outlined.² In addition to the police account, witnesses from each of the three burglarized homes provided a description of the items stolen, as well as the approximate dates and times that their respective residences were burglarized. The homeowners also identified their property that the police had procured from the Ford Focus on November 28th. Additionally, a pawnshop document was admitted into evidence. It contained descriptions of the unique items of women's jewelry that Ridolfi had sold on November 9th, which were identical to the items that had been reported as stolen along with the shotguns. Finally, the parties stipulated to certain legal elements, such as that the shotguns were moved from one state to another and that Ridolfi previously had been convicted of a crime punishable by more than one year of imprisonment.

Lemay's father was the sole witness who testified for the defense. He confirmed that the Ford Focus was registered to him and explained that he had bought the car for his son, Lemay. He also testified that his son regularly loaned the car to other people, including Ridolfi.

Ridolfi unsuccessfully challenged the sufficiency of the evidence for both the felon in possession of a firearm charge (count I) and the knowing possession of a stolen firearm charge (count II). The jury ultimately returned guilty verdicts against Ridolfi, and this timely appeal followed.

II

Ridolfi argues that the evidence is insufficient to prove that he knowingly possessed the firearms (an element common to counts I and II) and that he knew that the firearms were stolen (an element of count II). We review de novo preserved challenges to the sufficiency of the evidence. United States v. Rodríguez, 735 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir.2013). Applying a familiar standard, “we consider whether any rational factfinder could have found that the evidence presented at trial, together with all reasonable inferences, viewed in the light most favorable to the government, established each element of the particular offense beyond a reasonable doubt.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted); see Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 318–19, 99 S.Ct. 2781, 61 L.Ed.2d 560 (1979).

As the district court informed the jury here, a guilty verdict may rest on reasonable factual inferences drawn from direct or circumstantial evidence, but not on insupportable or overly speculative evidentiary interpretations. See United States v. Burgos, 703 F.3d 1, 10 (1st Cir.2012) ; United States v. Spinney, 65 F.3d 231, 234 (1st Cir.1995). And, it is within the jury's purview to evaluate competing factual inferences and theories that are supported by the evidentiary presentation. See Jackson, 443 U.S. at 319, 99 S.Ct. 2781 ; United States v. Cruz, 352 F.3d 499, 511 (1st Cir.2003).

In urging reversal, Ridolfi cites to cases that include admonishments against improper stacking of factual inferences. See United States v. Valerio, 48 F.3d 58, 64 (1st Cir.1995) (noting that “we are loath to stack inference upon inference in order to uphold the jury's verdict” (citing Ingram v. United States, 360 U.S. 672, 680, 79 S.Ct. 1314, 3 L.Ed.2d 1503 (1959) )). Bare citation to this inference-stacking principle as a type of normative call, however, rings hollow. It is true that in certain contexts, such as prosecutions for conspiracy crimes and criminal fraud schemes, heightened caution sometimes may be warranted to ensure that the particular conviction does not depend upon too attenuated a link between the evidentiary presentation, the necessary predicate facts urged by the prosecutor, and the ultimate facts and legal elements of the charged offense. See Ingram, 360 U.S. at 680, 79 S.Ct. 1314 (“ ‘[C]harges of conspiracy are not to be made out by piling inference upon inference, thus fashioning ... a dragnet to draw in all substantive crimes.’ ” (citation omitted)).³ Still, our...