United States v. Wright

Decision Date08 January 2015
Docket Number13–1768.,Nos. 13–1766,13–1767,s. 13–1766
Citation776 F.3d 134
PartiesUNITED STATES of America v. Christopher G. WRIGHT, Appellant in 13–1766. United States of America v. Ravinder S. Chawla, Appellant in 13–1767. UNITED STATES of America v. Andrew Teitelman, Appellant in 13–1768.
CourtU.S. Court of Appeals — Third Circuit

Jennifer A. Williams, Esq., [argued], Office of United States Attorney, Philadelphia, PA, Counsel for Appellee.

Lisa A. Mathewson, Esq., [argued], Philadelphia, PA, Counsel for Appellant, Christopher G. Wright.

Ellen C. Brotman, Esq., Montgomery, McCracken, Walker & Rhoads, Philadelphia, PA, Counsel for Appellant, Andrew Teitelman.

Peter Goldberger, Esq., Ardmore, PA, Megan S. Scheib, Esq., William J. Winning, Esq., Cozen O'Connor, Philadelphia, PA, Counsel for Appellant, Ravinder S. Chawla.

Before: AMBRO, CHAGARES, and VANASKIE, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

VANASKIE, Circuit Judge.

Appellants Christopher G. Wright, Ravinder S. Chawla, and Andrew Teitelman filed this interlocutory appeal from the District Court's denial of their pretrial joint motion to preclude the Government from relitigating certain issues under the Double Jeopardy Clause and from constructively amending the indictment. Because the District Court's ruling is not a “collateral” order subject to immediate review under Cohen v. Beneficial Industrial Loan Corp., 337 U.S. 541, 69 S.Ct. 1221, 93 L.Ed. 1528 (1949), and was not otherwise a “final decision[ ] under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we lack jurisdiction to consider their appeal. Accordingly, we will dismiss this appeal and remand for further proceedings.

I.

We have already had occasion to describe the facts underlying this case in United States v. Wright, 665 F.3d 560 (3d Cir.2012), and that description of the facts is important for understanding the matter before us now:

From 2005 through 2007, Wright was Chief of Staff to Philadelphia City Councilman John “Jack” Kelly. Wright was also a realtor. Chawla owned the real estate firm World Acquisition Partners (“World Acquisition”), and Teitelman, an attorney, did most of the firm's legal work. Teitelman was not a World Acquisition employee, but his offices were in its office suite, and most of his work came from World Acquisition. Chawla and Teitelman befriended Wright when Wright had an office in the same building.
This case concerns a series of gifts that Chawla, Teitelman, or both gave Wright and a simultaneous series of official acts that Wright took on behalf of World Acquisition. Wright received a free stint in an apartment, free legal services, and was promised commissions on World Acquisition deals. At the same time, Wright shepherded a bill that Chawla favored through Kelly's office, arranged meetings about a World Acquisition development, and communicated with City of Philadelphia offices for World Acquisition.
More specifically, Wright received three main benefits. First, he lived at least part-time in an apartment (with a free parking space) for 14 months without paying rent. World Acquisition had contracted to buy a building at 2000 Delancey Street in Philadelphia, then sold its right to buy the building to another purchaser. Meanwhile, Wright was in divorce proceedings and struggled with alcohol abuse. Teitelman, concerned for Wright, helped him move into one of the building's vacant units. The parties contest the extent to which Chawla knew about this arrangement. The new purchaser's agent soon discovered Wright, who left the apartment months later after the new purchaser sought to evict him.
Second, Wright received free legal help from Teitelman and his associate. When the Delancey Street building's new owner attempted to evict Wright, Teitelman defended him. Teitelman also took over negotiations with the lawyer for Wright's wife when Wright could no longer afford his previous divorce lawyer. Finally, Teitelman defended Wright in a bank foreclosure against Wright's marital home. For all that work, Teitelman billed Wright but $350, and did so only after Teitelman learned that the FBI was investigating their relationship. As with the apartment, the parties contest Chawla's involvement.
Third, Wright was promised commissions in his capacity as a realtor. He occasionally “brought deals” to World Acquisition in the same manner that any realtor could, but none of those deals succeeded, so Wright never earned anything. On one occasion, World Acquisition granted Wright and his partner the exclusive right to approach a buyer for a $100 million property. Had Wright succeeded in making the sale, he would have earned a commission of $6 million, but that deal also fell through. Chawla offered Wright “liaison work” as well, but Wright declined that offer.
While he was receiving those benefits, Wright took three sets of actions as Councilman Kelly's Chief of Staff that tended to benefit World Acquisition. First, Wright helped Kelly propose and pass a “mechanical parking” ordinance. Philadelphia law required developers planning to install mechanical parking to get a zoning variance, a time-consuming process. At Teitelman's behest, Wright set up a meeting at which Chawla and his partner suggested that Kelly change that law. Kelly, who usually took a pro-development stance, agreed. Chawla and Teitelman prodded Wright to make the bill a priority, and Kelly soon after introduced the bill. The City Council passed it by a vote of 15–0.
Second, Wright helped Chawla oppose an ordinance that would cripple a planned World Acquisition project. Chawla envisioned a large development called River City south and west of Philadelphia's Logan Square, where low-rise residences predominate. When the neighborhood association protested, Wright arranged a meeting between Chawla and association leaders. Afterward, Wright wrote Chawla and Teitelman advising that his “role as Jack's Chief of Staff” should be to focus City staff on River City's benefits. Nonetheless, in the face of continued opposition, the City Council passed a building-height restriction that thwarted the River City plans. Kelly joined the 15–0 vote.
Third, Wright worked with other City offices on World Acquisition's behalf. When the Parking Authority was selling a certain property, Wright forwarded public information about its “request for proposal” process to Chawla and Teitelman. Wright also arranged a walkthrough of the property. He obtained public information for World Acquisition from Philadelphia Gas Works through a high-level official rather than through the main call center. Finally, Wright worked with the City's Department of Licenses and Inspections on a certification that the River City property was not encumbered with zoning violations. City Council staff often did so for their constituents, though this certification was unusually complicated.
In 2008, a federal grand jury returned a fourteen-count indictment against Chawla, Teitelman, Wright, and Chawla's brother Hardeep. The indictment charged honest services fraud, traditional fraud, conspiracy to commit both kinds of fraud, and bribery in connection with a federally funded program. After a four-week jury trial, including five days of deliberations, the jury convicted Chawla, Teitelman, and Wright on three counts: (1) conspiracy to commit honest services and traditional fraud (Count One); (2) honest services fraud for the apartment arrangement (Count Ten); and (3) traditional fraud for the apartment arrangement (Count Twelve). The jury further convicted Chawla alone on one honest services count for offering Wright liaison work (Count Three). It acquitted on the other ten counts and acquitted Hardeep Chawla of all counts.
The District Court sentenced Wright to 48 months' imprisonment, Chawla to 30 months, and Teitelman to 24 months, followed in each case by two years of supervised release. It also imposed fines and special assessments on each person.

Id. at 564–67.

Wright, Teitelman, and Chawla appealed their convictions. See generally id. Their primary argument on appeal was that the intervening decision in Skilling v. United States, 561 U.S. 358, 130 S.Ct. 2896, 177 L.Ed.2d 619 (2010) —establishing that the federal honest-services fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1346, criminalized only fraudulent schemes based on bribery or kickbacks—undermined the validity of their convictions. We agreed that Appellants' convictions for honest-services fraud on Counts One, Three, and Ten may have been predicated on a now-impermissible theory of liability, and thus vacated those convictions and remanded for a new trial. Because prejudicial spillover may have tainted the traditional fraud convictions on Count Twelve, those convictions too were vacated.

On remand, Appellants filed a joint motion under the Double Jeopardy Clause to limit the scope of the new trial, “to prevent relitigation of issues that were necessarily decided in their favor when the jury acquitted them on several counts.” Appellants' Br. at 4. Appellants also sought to bar certain arguments from the Government that they believed would constructively amend the indictment. In an order filed on February 4, 2013, followed by an accompanying memorandum on April 5, 2013, the District Court denied the motion except as to evidence of a $1000 check paid to Wright by Hardeep Chawla (the only defendant acquitted of all charges). United States v. Wright, 936 F.Supp.2d 538 (E.D.Pa.2013).1 Appellants timely appealed.

II.

Although our jurisdiction over substantial aspects of this appeal is not contested, we have an independent duty to ascertain whether we do indeed have jurisdiction. See Metro Transp. Co. v. N. Star Reinsurance Co., 912 F.2d 672, 676 (3d Cir.1990) (“Where counsel has not satisfied us that jurisdiction is present, we are obliged to raise that issue on our own initiative.”). Our review of this threshold question is, of course, plenary. In re Blatstein, 192 F.3d 88, 94 (3d Cir.1999).

III.
A.

The principal statutory basis for our jurisdiction over appeals taken by criminal defe...

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