United States v. Abel Parama Borromeo

954 F.2d 245, 1992 U.S. App. LEXIS 755, 1992 WL 7795
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedJanuary 22, 1992
Docket90-5736
StatusPublished
Cited by53 cases

This text of 954 F.2d 245 (United States v. Abel Parama Borromeo) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Abel Parama Borromeo, 954 F.2d 245, 1992 U.S. App. LEXIS 755, 1992 WL 7795 (4th Cir. 1992).

Opinion

SPROUSE, Circuit Judge:

Dr. Abel P. Borromeo, convicted of illegally distributing controlled substances on fifty-two occasions and of conducting the affairs of his medical practice through a pattern of racketeering activity, presents five issues for review. Finding no merit to Borromeo’s challenges to the district court’s rulings, we affirm his conviction.

Borromeo, licensed by West Virginia to practice medicine, began treating patients in Charleston in 1974. By 1986, he saw as many as sixty patients a day in three separate offices. In 1987, a Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) investigation prompted by Borromeo’s prescribing excessive amounts of controlled drugs culminated in the issuance of a search warrant and a search of his three offices. He was subsequently indicted, but during the initial trial, the court granted Borromeo’s motion for a mistrial. After a second trial, the jury found Borromeo guilty of violating section 1962(c) of the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations statute (RICO), 18 U.S.C. § 1961 et seq., and of fifty-two counts of distributing controlled substances in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) and 18 U.S.C. § 2. He was sentenced to serve six-and-one-half years in prison and ordered to pay a fine of $150,000. Borromeo presents a host of contended errors, but principally urges that the district court erred by refusing to suppress evidence, by concluding that a second trial was not barred by double jeopardy principles, and by giving a flawed jury instruction concerning the interstate commerce nexus essential to a RICO conviction. Finding no error, we affirm.

I

Borromeo first argues that the DEA agents who searched his medical offices exceeded the terms of the valid search warrant and that the court should therefore have suppressed all evidence seized during the search. We review the court’s decision for an abuse of discretion.

The search warrants for each of Borro-meo’s three offices authorized DEA agents to search for and to seize “[a]ny and all records including, but not limited to ... patient records ... medical files, patient appointment books, [and] patient billing records” of thirty-five individuals whose names were listed on the warrants.

As the agents conducted the search for the files of the thirty-five listed patients, they also reviewed all of the patient files in each office. Their review identified fifty-seven other patients who were known to them as drug users. After obtaining the advice of the Assistant United States Attorney who had helped draft the warrant, the agents seized those files as well.

The district court suppressed the evidence pertaining to the additional fifty-seven individuals, reasoning that the failure to establish probable cause as to them amounted to a warrantless search. The court refused Borromeo’s motion to exclude evidence relating to the thirty-five patients named in the warrant. In attacking that portion of the district court’s ruling on his suppression motion, Borromeo relies on United States v. Medlin, 842 F.2d 1194, 1199 (10th Cir.1988), which mandates the exclusion of “even evidence which is properly seized pursuant to a warrant ... if the officers executing the warrant exhibit ‘flagrant disregard’ for its terms.” We do not think, however, that the circumstances of this case fit the rubric of “flagrant disregard.”

The DEA agent in charge of the investigation had worked with an Assistant United States Attorney to ascertain what could be seized under the warrants and later *247 interrupted the search to confirm that instruction. He was told that the warrants authorized the removal of additional patient files. The district court, considering the conduct of the search and the circumstances leading to it, found that although the officers acted mistakenly, they acted in good faith and not in flagrant disregard of the terms of the warrant. We cannot say that the district court was clearly erroneous in this factual finding. In addition, we are guided by our previous consideration of a search and seizure that exceeded the scope of the warrant when agents appropriated an entire file cabinet instead of removing individual files. See United States v. Shilling, 826 F.2d 1365 (4th Cir.1987), cert. denied, 484 U.S. 1043, 108 S.Ct. 777, 98 L.Ed.2d 863 (1988). In affirming the trial court’s denial of a defense motion to suppress the entire contents of the file cabinet, we noted that “[t]he exclusionary rule does not compel suppression of evidence properly covered by a warrant merely because other material not covered by the warrant was taken during the same search.” Shilling, at 1369. Given that decision and the fact that the agents here did not flagrantly disregard the terms of the warrant, we agree with the district court’s conclusion that the improper search and seizure of the additional fifty-seven files does not require the suppression of the thirty-five files that were lawfully obtained.

II

Borromeo also argues for the first time that the trial court erred in sua sponte ruling, as part of its declaring a mistrial, that double jeopardy principles would not bar a second trial. Although part of the evidence which the court previously suppressed as illegally seized included the file of a patient named Morgan, the prosecution introduced the file, direct testimony of Morgan, and the testimony of another witness relating to the Morgan evidence. As a result, Borromeo moved for mistrial. The district court considered the prosecutor’s alternatively asserted grounds for presenting the suppressed evidence but, finding no legitimate basis for its introduction, granted Borromeo’s motion and declared a mistrial. The court also indicated that because the government’s introduction of the suppressed evidence was not an intentional attempt to force a mistrial, there was no bar to a second trial.

Generally, the government is not barred from retrying cases when the first trial ends on the defendant’s motion for mistrial. United States v. Tateo, 377 U.S. 463, 84 S.Ct. 1587, 12 L.Ed.2d 448 (1964); United States v. Wentz, 800 F.2d 1325, 1327 (4th Cir.1986). In order to escape this rule, Borromeo relies on the narrow exception articulated in Oregon v. Kennedy, 456 U.S. 667, 676, 102 S.Ct. 2083, 2089, 72 L.Ed.2d 416 (1982), that double jeopardy bars retrial if prosecutors engage in misconduct intended to “goad” the defense into moving for mistrial. Borromeo contends that the prosecutor intentionally misused the suppressed evidence to provoke a mistrial and thereby gain a de facto

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Bluebook (online)
954 F.2d 245, 1992 U.S. App. LEXIS 755, 1992 WL 7795, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-abel-parama-borromeo-ca4-1992.