United States v. Sweig, 694

• Decision Date: 14 April 1971
• Docket Number: Docket 35503.,No. 694,694
• Citation: 441 F.2d 114
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Martin SWEIG, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Second Circuit

441 F.2d 114 (1971)

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee, v. Martin SWEIG, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 694, Docket 35503.

United States Court of Appeals, Second Circuit.

Argued March 26, 1971.

Decided April 14, 1971.

Certiorari Denied June 21, 1971.

Whitney North Seymour, Jr., U. S. Atty., S. D. N. Y. (Richard Ben-Veniste, Peter F. Rient, William B. Gray and Ross Sandler, Asst. U. S. Attys. on the brief), for appellee.

Manuel Katz, Boston, Mass. (Paul T. Smith and Morris M. Goldings, Boston, Mass., on the brief), for defendant-appellant.

Before LUMBARD, Chief Judge, and KAUFMAN and HAYS, Circuit Judges.

Certiorari Denied June 21, 1971. See 91 S.Ct. 2256.

LUMBARD, Chief Judge:

Martin Sweig appeals from a judgment of conviction on one count of perjury, entered on September 3, 1970, in the Southern District of New York, after a sixteen-day jury trial before Judge Frankel. On the same day, Sweig was sentenced to a term of thirty months in jail and was fined $2,000; execution of his sentence was stayed and he is presently enlarged on bail pending appeal. We affirm the conviction.

The fifteen-count indictment in this case charged Sweig and Nathan Voloshen with conspiracy and related offenses of false personation, conflict of interest, and perjury. Count One alleged that Voloshen, who lived and had an office in New York City, and Sweig, who had been an administrative assistant to Speaker of the United States House of Representatives John W. McCormack for 23 or 24 years, conspired to defraud the United States by using the influence of the Speaker's office to benefit Voloshen's clients who had matters pending before various federal departments and agencies by applying and attempting to apply improper influence upon officials in said departments and agencies, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. Count Two charged Voloshen alone with false personation of a federal officer in violation of Title 18 U.S.C. § 912. Count Three charged Sweig and Voloshen with conflict of interest in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 205 and 2. Counts Four through Twelve charged Sweig with perjury in his grand jury testimony of October 15, 1969, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1621. Counts Thirteen through Fifteen charged Voloshen with perjury in his grand jury testimony of August 5 and 19, 1969.

Voloshen pleaded guilty before trial to Counts One, Thirteen, Fourteen and Fifteen. As for Sweig, Count Three was dismissed prior to trial for lack of venue, Counts Four and Nine were dismissed by the court at the close of the government's case, and Count Five was withdrawn by the government at the same time. On July 7, 1970, the jury acquitted Sweig on Counts One, Seven, Eight, Ten, Eleven, and Twelve, and found him guilty on Count Six, one of the perjury counts.

With respect to Count Six, the only count on which Sweig was convicted, the government's proof at trial showed that Sweig made numerous telephone calls to military personnel in 1968 and 1969 on behalf of Gary Roth and Roger Warner, two of Voloshen's clients; that these telephone calls were made in Sweig's official capacity as assistant to the Speaker in order to help secure benefits for those clients, such as discharge from the Army or a better assignment within the Army; and that on October 15, 1969, in sworn testimony before a federal grand jury sitting in the Southern District of New York, Sweig falsely denied ever hearing of Roth and falsely stated that he had not made telephone calls relating to servicemen for Voloshen for three years or five years preceding the date of his appearance before the grand jury. Specifically, Sweig's allegedly false testimony was as follows (with the particular answers charged by the government as perjurious marked in brackets):

Q. I take it you\'ve made various phone calls on Mr. Voloshen\'s behalf to certain people, is that correct? A. Yes, sir.

Q. For instance, could you give us an example of some of the people that you called at Mr. Voloshen\'s urging? A. Well, he\'d come down and, say, with a service case, — a boy in the service, who applied for a Compassionate Re-assignment, or a Hardship Discharge, — I have no hesitancy in calling up the appropriate army officer, to find out the status of that application.

Q. Can you give us one of the names? A. Oh, gee, there were so many now; I just don\'t remember now.

* * * * * *

Q. Or Mr. Roth, did you ever hear that name in connection with one of these military cases? A. No.

* * * * * *

Q. When did you do this for Mr. Voloshen? A. Well, this is in a period of years gone by.

Q. This wouldn\'t be recently? A. No, sir.

Q. In other words, not in the last three years? A. No sir.

Q. You\'re talking about something that happened maybe ten, fifteen years ago? A. No, I wouldn\'t say ten, fifteen years ago. I can\'t remember that far back. I\'d say in the past five years, up, I may have made some calls for him in similar cases.

Q. In other words, over five years ago? A. Yes.

Sweig's major contention on appeal is that the district court erred in denying his motion for acquittal on the perjury counts, because there was insufficient evidence that, when he made his concededly false statements, he subjectively knew that those statements were false. The accused's knowledge of the falsity of his statements at the time he made those statements is essential to a perjury conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1621. United States v. Stone, 429 F.2d 138, 140 (2d Cir. 1970); LaPlaca v. United States, 354 F.2d 56, 58 (1st Cir. 1965), cert. denied, 383 U.S. 927, 86 S. Ct. 932, 15 L.Ed.2d 846 (1966); United States v. Magin, 280 F.2d 74, 76 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, 364 U.S. 914, 81 S.Ct. 271, 5 L.Ed.2d 228 (1960).

Sweig argues that this essential element of knowledge or wilfulness was not proven here. First, he claims, the evidence was insufficient for a jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that he wilfully perjured himself when he stated that he had never heard of Roth. Rather, according to Sweig, the fact that he dealt with so many names and people in his capacity as administrative assistant to the Speaker and the fact that Roth was involved in what he calls a routine matter preclude a jury's conclusive finding that his statement was wilful or attributable to something other than innocent forgetfulness. Second, Sweig contends, the evidence that he intentionally lied when he testified that he had not made calls for Voloshen in the last three or five years was insufficient, because such calls were routine matters which he had no reason to remember. Moreover, according to Sweig, the clear significance of his grand jury testimony, considered as a whole, is that he did make numerous calls for Voloshen within the past five years. The allegedly perjurious answers, Sweig claims, were traps set up by the prosecutor.

We reject these contentions. In the absence of an admission by the defendant, the only way a defendant's knowledge of the falsity of his statements can be proved is through circumstantial evidence. American Communications Ass'n., C.I.O. v. Douds, 339 U.S. 382, 411, 70 S.Ct. 674, 94 L.Ed. 925 (1950). The jury must infer the state of a man's mind from the things he says and does. Such an inference may come from proof of the objective falsity itself, from proof of a motive to lie, and from other facts tending to show that the defendant really knew the things he claimed not to know. See United States v. Rao, 394 F.2d 354, 356-357 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 393 U.S. 845, 89 S.Ct. 129, 21 L.Ed.2d 116, reh. denied, 393 U.S. 972, 89 S.Ct. 390, 21 L.Ed.2d 386 (1968); United States v. Jones, 374 F.2d 414, 419 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 389 U.S. 835, 88 S.Ct. 40, 19 L.Ed.2d 95 (1967); United States v. Bergman, 354 F.2d 931, 934 (2d Cir. 1966); United States v. Marchisio, 344 F.2d 653, 667 (2d Cir. 1965).¹

In this case, there was sufficient evidence for the jury to infer that Sweig really remembered Roth, when he said he didn't, and that he remembered making calls within the last three or five years, when he said he didn't. The evidence showed that Sweig had at least nine separate conversations, spanning a four-month period, with five army officers concerning Roth, and that he handled at least eleven different documents concerning Roth. Some of these conversations and documents indicated Sweig's considerable familiarity with the situation. In addition, just five months prior to testifying, Sweig handled a similar matter concerning Warner; and his comments on that matter at the time indicate that he had a great deal of information about the soldier in question. Moreover, the government showed Sweig's motive to lie, since he was intimately connected with Voloshen's activities in both of these matters — activities which at the time he testified he knew were being investigated. All this was surely enough for the jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Sweig wilfully lied when he made the statements charged as perjurious.

Sweig's argument that his statements before the grand jury, viewed as a whole, amounted to an admission, rather than a denial, that he made calls for Voloshen within the past three or five years is simply erroneous. The transcript of Sweig's testimony before the grand jury, quoted above, quite clearly shows the opposite.

Sweig's next contention is that the trial court erred in joining the conspiracy count with the perjury counts under Rule 8 of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure;² and that even if joinder was permitted, the court abused its discretion in denying Sweig's motion for a severance under Rule 14.³ The basis for this argument is that certain evidence, including various "hearsay" declarations, which were admissible on the conspiracy count as statements made in furtherance of the conspiracy, were not related in any way to the perjury counts; and since the counts were joined, the evidence may have spilled over in the jury's mind to the perjury allegations, on which it would not have been admissible, and thereby prejudiced...