Reiter v. United States

371 F. Supp. 2d 417, 2005 WL 1053183
CourtDistrict Court, S.D. New York
DecidedMay 5, 2005
Docket97 Civ. 02941(RO), 87 CR. 132(RO)
StatusPublished
Cited by8 cases

This text of 371 F. Supp. 2d 417 (Reiter v. United States) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, S.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Reiter v. United States, 371 F. Supp. 2d 417, 2005 WL 1053183 (S.D.N.Y. 2005).

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

OWEN, District Judge.

Petitioner Mark Reiter has moved for collateral review of his conviction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255. In 1988 he was tried, together with four co-defendants, on a 13-count redacted indictment which was renumbered 12S 87 Cr. 132(RO), Exhibit A to Respondent’s papers. It charged a variety of narcotics-related offenses, as well as a tax violation. Specifically, Reiter was charged in Count One with racketeering (with predicate acts including murder, conspiracy to commit murder, conspiracy to distribute narcotics, heroin distribution, and using a telephone to facilitate a narcotics violation), in Count Two with racketeering conspiracy, in Count Three with operating a continuing criminal enterprise (“CCE”), in Counts Five and Six with heroin distribution, in Count Seven with using a telephone to facilitate heroin distribution, and in Count Thirteen with conspiring to defraud the Internal Revenue Service.

Reiter’s trial commenced on May 2, 1988. The evidence against him included the testimony of numerous cooperating witnesses, including Leroy “Nicky” Barnes, James Jackson (who testified, among other things, that Reiter had supplied him with many kilograms of pure heroin, and that Reiter had personally ordered the murders of Beverly and Steven Ash after learning that Nicky Barnes had begun to cooperate with authorities (Tr. 316-343)), 1 Salvatore Corallo (who testified, among other things, that his responsibilities were “to test, package heroin, weigh heroin, deliver [kilogram quantities *420 of] heroin and collect cash from the sales of those heroin deals” to Reiter (Tr. 2235-36)), Vito Loiacono (who testified, among other things, that he worked “distributing the heroin for Mark, pick[ing] up money, set[ting] up appointments, pick[ing] up the drugs and storing] it” over a period of years (Tr. 4028-4048)), and Russell Fleming (to whom Vito Loiacono delivered heroin for Reiter, and who Reiter ordered killed after he learned that Fleming was cooperating (Tr. 3709-12, 4172)). The testimony of these individuals was corroborated by diverse and overwhelming evidence from other sources, including heroin supplied by Reiter, which was seized from Russell Fleming upon his arrest; surveillance reports; telephone calls recorded by means of a wiretap on Reiter’s phone; a telephone call recorded by Salvatore Cor-allo in which Reiter offered Corallo $30,000 to plead guilty in a pending heroin conspiracy prosecution; another telephone call recorded by Corallo in which Corallo and William Battista discussed the difficulties in working for Reiter; evidence of Reiter’s flight from New York upon learning that Jackson had begun to cooperate; documents and witnesses attesting to Reiter’s extravagant lifestyle and his purchase of luxury items with cash; and evidence that Reiter had a no-show job that he used as a cover for narcotics trafficking.

On August 25, 1988, the jury convicted Reiter and his co-defendants on all counts, and found that each RICO predicate had been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. Reiter was sentenced to two life terms of imprisonment, plus 60 years, followed by a lifetime term of special parole, and fines totaling $4 million.

On direct appeal, Reiter complained that: 1) he had been denied a severance; 2) the Court excluded certain tape-recordings he wished to offer; 3) the Court excluded his proposed expert testimony; 4) the Court refused to require the Government to provide extra copies of tape-recordings; 5) the Government had improperly refused to provide immunity to proposed defense witnesses; 6) the Court had refused to provide the jury with special interrogatories on the CCE count, which would have required the jury to identify the five or more individuals Reiter supervised; and 7) the Court had failed in its jury instructions appropriately to distinguish between liability for conspiracy and liability for aiding and abetting. His claims were summarily rejected by the Court of Appeals, which found them “all to be without merit.” United States v. Reiter, 897 F.2d 639, 646 (2d Cir.1990).

On April 2, 1997, more than seven years after his appeal was denied, Reiter filed a pro se habeas corpus petition. The form submitted by Reiter contained instructions requiring that he “include all grounds for relief and all facts supporting such grounds for relief in the motion you file seeking relief from any judgment of conviction.” Petition at 2, number (6).

In his petition, Reiter asserted that his due process rights had been denied by the Government’s failure to provide him with exculpatory evidence tending to show that James Jackson had killed Beverly and Steven Ash. 2 Specifically, Reiter claimed that on a day when he was not present in court, it became apparent that there existed “other theories” of why Beverly and Steven Ash were killed, as well as exculpatory witness statements, and that he did not become aware of these matters until two *421 years later, when he saw the trial transcript. Reiter claimed that his trial attorney was ineffective for having failed to investigate “exculpatory evidence known to other counsel at trial” (Petition at 7), and that his appellate counsel was ineffective “for failure to detect the disclosure issues.” (Id.). 3

The Government moved to dismiss the said petition as time-barred under the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA’ ’”), arguing that there was no justification for Reiter’s seven-year delay in filing. The Court dismissed the petition as untimely. Reiter thereafter appealed and on September 22, 1998, the Court of Appeals remanded the matter pursuant to its decision in Mickens v. United States, 148 F.3d 145 (2d Cir.1998).

Reiter thereafter obtained counsel, and counsel requested permission to supplement the record. Reiter then made several further submissions to the Court. 4 In certain very limited respects, the additional submissions amplified the claims contained in Reiter’s original petition. Specifically, in a supplemental submission filed by counsel on December 29, 1998, Reiter contended that William “Billy” Battista— who had been described by various witnesses during the trial as a supervisee of Reiter’s during the period charged in the Indictment — had been an FBI informant during the time period the Beverly and Steven Ash murders .had allegedly been ordered by Reiter, and contended that FBI reports withheld by the Government would have revealed that: 1) Reiter was not in the New York area in 1982, when the hotel meeting described by Jackson at which Reiter allegedly ordered the murders of Beverly and Steven Ash occurred; 2) Battista knew that Reiter did not attend any hotel meeting in 1982; 3) witness statements supporting an alternative theory of the motive for the murders were not produced to the defense; and 4) reports of these statements would have shown that it was believed that Beverly Ash would be a witness for the Government against Reiter. (12/29/98 Supplement at 4-5).

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
371 F. Supp. 2d 417, 2005 WL 1053183, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/reiter-v-united-states-nysd-2005.