US v. Cole
| Decision Date | 07 June 1989 |
| Docket Number | Crim. A. No. 88-516-02,88-516-03,88-516-05 and 88-516-06. |
| Citation | 717 F. Supp. 309 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America v. Hubert Francis COLE, a/k/a "Dr. Hugh Cole" a/k/a "Milutin Colovic," Vjekoslav Spanjol, a/k/a "V.J." a/k/a "Slavko," Bahrudin Bijedic, a/k/a "Burri," Larry Card, LBS Bank of New York, Inc., Vinko Mir. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Eastern District of Pennsylvania |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
U.S. Atty., Michael M. Baylson by Thomas J. Rueter, Paul A. Sarmousakis, Asst. U.S. Attys., Philadelphia, Pa., for plaintiff.
Michael Goode, Lincolnwood, Ill., for defendant, Bahrudin Bijedic.
Jacob Laufer, New York City, and Donald Goldberg, Philadelphia, Pa., for defendant, Vinko Mir.
Kathleen Beggs, and Vincent Fuller, Washington, D.C., for defendant, LBS Bank of New York.
Presently before the Court are the pretrial motions of defendants Bahrudin Bijedic, Vinko Mir and LBS Bank of New York, Inc. (1) to inspect the grand jury testimony, or, in the alternative, for an in camera inspection of the grand jury testimony by the Court; (2) to dismiss the superseding indictment; and (3) to sever the trial. In addition, the Court has before it the pretrial motions of defendant Bahrudin Bijedic (1) to transfer venue; (2) to recognize the applicability of consular immunity; and (3) to recover items wrongfully seized. Oral argument was held on these motions on May 9, 1989.
The alleged facts of this case, as set forth in the superseding indictment and the submissions of counsel, may be summarized as follows:
On or about July 9, 1987, an undercover Customs agent, posing as a financial consultant rendering services to organized crime figures, contacted an individual referred to as "R.G." in the superseding indictment. At this meeting, which took place in Delaware, the agent stated that he wanted to convert a large amount of United States currency in small bills into larger bills for transportation out of the country.
R.G. put the Customs agent in touch with defendant Larry Card. Card stated that he was an international banker and could help the agent transport the money overseas. Card also put the Customs agent in touch with defendant Hubert Francis Cole. In a series of meetings, Cole outlined a method of laundering large amounts of cash without filing the reports required by the United States government.
On October 22, 1987, Cole received and transported $50,000 in United States currency from Philadelphia to Bermuda without filing a Report of International Transportation of Currency or Monetary Instruments (hereinafter "CMIR Form") or a Currency Transaction Report (hereinafter "CTR") as required by law.
On November 19, 1987, Cole received and transported $100,000 from Philadelphia to Bermuda without filing a CMIR Form or a CTR. On November 21, 1987, Cole met defendant Vjekoslav Spanjol in Bermuda. Cole and Spanjol travelled with the $100,000 from Bermuda to London, Great Britain and then to Zagreb, Yugoslavia. While in Yugoslavia, they deposited $90,000 in the Privredna Banka in Yugoslavia. On December 14, 1987, Cole sent to Philadelphia a copy of a document authorizing the wire transfer of $85,000 from the Privredna Banka in Yugoslavia to a bank in Bermuda.
On January 19, 1988, the Customs agent met with Cole in Philadelphia to discuss smuggling large sums of cash from the United States using a consular officer of the Yugoslavian government. Over the course of the next three days, Cole received approximately $200,000 and transported the cash to Yugoslavia without filing a CMIR Form or a CTR. Cole also received $2,000 in cash as an advance commission for the laundering trip.
On February 18, 1988, the Customs agent introduced Cole to an undercover agent of the Internal Revenue Service, Criminal Investigation Division, as the Custom agent's superior. At that meeting, Cole stated that he could smuggle money out of the United States into Yugoslavia as a diplomatic courier by sealing the money in a diplomatic pouch. Approximately one week later, Cole gave the Customs agent a check drawn on Jugo Banka Agency, Inc., New York, for $198,000, which represented a portion of the $200,000 smuggled to Yugoslavia on January 22, 1988. The next day, Cole received and transported $200,000 in cash from Philadelphia to Yugoslavia without filing a CMIR Form or a CTR. Cole was also paid $10,000 in cash as the commission balance from the previous funds that Cole had laundered.
On March 22, 1988, Cole met with an officer of defendant LBS Bank of New York, Inc. and opened a checking account in the name of Lehman, Kuhn Associates, Ltd. Cole signed the name "Milos Vrenc" on the signature card for the account. On March 24, 1988, the IRS agent and Cole met with an officer of LBS Bank. During that meeting, the IRS agent deposited $53,500 in cash in LBS Bank and received a bank check in the amount of $50,000.
On April 1, 1988, the IRS agent and Cole met with defendant Vinko Mir, Chairman of the Board of LBS Bank. During that meeting, the IRS agent deposited $81,695 in cash in LBS Bank and received a bank check in the amount of $76,350. At the same meeting, Cole stated that he would supply Mir with all the necessary information to complete the CTRs required for the March 24 and April 1 transactions. Mir filed the CTRs for the transactions on April 13, 1988.
On May 11, 1988, Mir met with the IRS agent and discussed the fact that the CTRs filed by LBS Bank on April 13, 1988 contained material omissions and misstatements of fact. Mir reassured the IRS agent that the CTRs would not be changed and that bank regulators would not discover the inaccuracies.
On April 9, 1988, Cole and Spanjol received and transported $300,000 in cash from Philadelphia to Yugoslavia without filing a CMIR Form or a CTR. On April 11, 1988, Spanjol deposited $299,500 in cash in a bank in Yugoslavia. On April 13, 1988, Spanjol caused $299,000 of funds held in an account at Ljubljanska Banka, the Yugoslavian parent company of LBS Bank, to be transferred by wire to Cole's account with LBS Bank. On April 28, 1988, Cole met with the Customs agent in Philadelphia and gave the agent a check drawn on the LBS Bank for $300,000.
During the trip to Yugoslavia on April 9, 1988, Cole and Spanjol transported two Sea Pak 25 Closed Circuit Rebreather Scuba Units. The rebreathers are classified as special warfare equipment and require a special export license which Cole and Spanjol did not acquire. The rebreathers were delivered to Cole and Spanjol through an agent located in West Germany.
On August 11, 1988, Cole, Spanjol and the Customs agent met with defendant Bahrudin Bijedic, the Consul-General of Yugoslavia, in Chicago, Illinois. On that date, Cole brought a trunk containing $500,000 in cash to the Consulate General of Yugoslavia where seals with the printing of the Consulate General of Yugoslavia were affixed to it; the cash had been supplied to Cole by the Customs agent. Bijedic then drove Cole, Spanjol, the Customs agent and the trunk containing the cash to O'Hare International Airport in Chicago. En route, Cole gave the Customs agent a copy of a letter bearing Bijedic's signature that purported to notify the United States Department of State that Spanjol and Cole were assigned to the diplomatic service of Yugoslavia as couriers. In the letter, Cole was identified as "Milutin Colovic." Cole and Spanjol then transported the $500,000 from Chicago to Yugoslavia without filing a CMIR Form or a CTR.
On October 18, 1988, Cole, Spanjol, Bijedic and the Customs agent met in Chicago. They discussed Bijedic's continued assistance in exporting millions of dollars in United States currency without filing the reports required by law.
On December 1, 1988, Cole and Spanjol met with the Customs agent at Philadelphia International Airport for the purpose of transporting $2,000,000 to Yugoslavia without filing the necessary reports. Bijedic travelled to Palwaukee Airport near Chicago on that same date to meet with Cole, Spanjol and the Customs agent to assist them in transporting the money to Yugoslavia.
On that same day, a federal grand jury returned a twenty-one count indictment against Cole, Spanjol, Card, Bijedic, Mir and LBS Bank. On December 6, 1988, Magistrate Richard A. Powers III ordered that Cole and Spanjol be detained pending trial pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3142. Those detention Orders were affirmed by this Court on December 23, 1988 and by the Third Circuit on January 10, 1989.
On April 6, 1989, a federal grand jury returned a twenty-two count superseding indictment against Cole, Spanjol, Card, Bijedic, Mir and LBS Bank. Count I of the superseding indictment charges all the defendants with conspiracy to defraud the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. In addition, Cole is charged with six counts and Spanjol is charged with two counts of failing to file United States Customs currency reports in violation of 31 U.S.C. §§ 5316(a)(1)(A) and 5322(b). Cole is charged with five counts, Spanjol is charged with three counts, and Bijedic is charged with one count of laundering proceeds of an unlawful activity in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956. Cole is charged with six counts and Spanjol is charged with two counts of failing to file Internal Revenue Service currency transaction reports in violation of 31 U.S.C. §§ 5313 and 5322(b). Cole is charged with three counts and Spanjol is charged with one count of interstate travel in aid of racketeering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1952. Cole and Spanjol are charged with one count of violating the Arms Export Control Act, 22 U.S.C. § 2778.
On April 18, 1989, Cole entered a plea of guilty to the charges in the superseding indictment. The remaining defendants have not been arraigned on the superseding indictment.
Two motions are before the Court which seek an inspection of the grand jury testimony by the defendants, or in the...
To continue reading
Request your trial
-
US v. Eisenberg
...strictures of Rule 8 are met. Thus, Rule 8(b) is generally satisfied if the indictment charges a single conspiracy. United States v. Cole, 717 F.Supp. 309, 317 (E.D.Pa.1989); United States v. Di Pasquale, 561 F.Supp. 1338, 1347 (E.D.Pa. 1983), aff'd, 740 F.2d 1282 (3d Cir.1984), cert. denie......
-
US v. Cannistraro
...strictures of Rule 8 are met. Thus, Rule 8(b) is generally satisfied if the indictment charges a single conspiracy. United States v. Cole, 717 F.Supp. 309, 317 (E.D.Pa.1989), aff'd, sub nom, U.S. v. Spanjol, 1992 U.S.App. LEXIS 4382 (3d Cir.1992); United States v. DiPasquale, 561 F.Supp. 13......
-
US v. Nguyen
...strictures of Rule 8 are met. Thus, Rule 8(b) is generally satisfied if the indictment charges a single conspiracy. United States v. Cole, 717 F.Supp. 309, 317 (E.D.Pa.1989), aff'd, 958 F.2d 365 (3d Cir. 1992); United States v. Di Pasquale, 561 F.Supp. 1338, 1347 (E.D.Pa.1983), aff'd, 740 F......
-
United States v. Al Sharaf
...officer which takes advantage of the privileges of that position does not suddenly make it a consular function." United States v. Cole , 717 F.Supp. 309, 322–23 (E.D.Pa.1989).10 See also Joseph v. Office of Consulate General of Nigeria , 830 F.2d 1018 (9th Cir.1987) (permitting the plaintif......