United States v. Ashon Leftenant

341 F.3d 338, 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 17178, 2003 WL 21983734
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
DecidedAugust 21, 2003
Docket02-4731
StatusPublished
Cited by77 cases

This text of 341 F.3d 338 (United States v. Ashon Leftenant) 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. Ashon Leftenant, 341 F.3d 338, 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 17178, 2003 WL 21983734 (4th Cir. 2003).

Opinion

*340 Affirmed in part and vacated in part by-published opinion. Judge King wrote the - opinion, in which Judge Widener and Judge Wilkinson joined.

OPINION

KING, Circuit Judge:

On May 29, 2002, Ashon Leftenant was convicted of six counts of possessing counterfeit obligations of the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 472. On appeal, he has raised several issues. First, he asserts that his indictment should have been dismissed because of a violation of the Speedy Trial Act. Second, he contends that the district court erred in admitting evidence of uncharged counterfeiting activity. Third, he insists that the evidence against him was insufficient to sustain his convictions. Finally, he maintains that the charges in the indictment were multiplici-tous. As explained below, we reject his first three contentions. However, as the Government now concedes, Leftenant was erroneously convicted of six offenses when the evidence established only a single act of possession. Thus, we vacate all save one of Leftenant’s convictions.

I.

A.

On October 13, 2001, police officers responded to' a call from Loyce Bailey, the manager of a Hardee’s restaurant on Temple Avenue in Colonial Heights, Virginia. Bailey reported that a black male wearing an Atlanta Falcons hat had attempted to pass a counterfeit twenty-dollar bill. After the bill reacted to a counterfeit detection pen used by one of the restaurant’s employees, Bailey advised Freeman that Har-dee’s would not accept it. Freeman then took the bill and left the restaurant, but he remained in the Hardee’s parking lot with some friends.

Three police officers responded separately to Bailey’s call, arriving at the Har-dee’s within minutes of one another. The first to arrive, Officer Richard Wilson, approached a group of individuals who were standing in the Hardee’s parking lot. The second to arrive, Officer Steve Hanson, went inside the restaurant and spoke to Bailey, who verified that the counterfeit bill had been returned to the suspect, and that it had a black “X” on it from the counterfeit detection pen.

By this point, a third police officer, Detective Steve Kolev, had arrived on the scene, and he had joined Officer Wilson in questioning individuals in the- parking lot. William Freeman, an African-American male, was one of the individuals in the parking lot, and he was wearing an Atlanta Falcons hat. Because Freeman matched the description of the person who had attempted to use the counterfeit bill, Officer Wilson separated him from the group and patted him down for weapons. During the patdown search, Wilson discovered a roll of money in one of Freeman’s pockets, including fifteen counterfeit bills. None of these bills, however, bore the incriminating black “X.”

Officer Wilson arrested Freeman for possession of counterfeit bills and transported him to police headquarters. During the trip, Freeman advised Wilson that, after Bailey advised him that the bill he had tendered was counterfeit, he had ripped it up. Wilson promptly radioed that information to the officers at the Har-dee’s. Officer Hanson and Detective Ko-lev then searched the area surrounding the Hardee’s restaurant for the remnants of the bill, but they did not find anything.

After their search, Detective Kolev ran record checks on the remaining individuals in the parking lot, and he discovered that one of them, Derrick Ward, was the sub *341 ject of an outstanding arrest warrant in Pennsylvania. Kolev arrested Ward and placed him in a police cruiser. Ward advised the officers that he had driven to the Hardee’s in his girlfriend’s Range Rover, and that he did not want anyone else driving the vehicle, which remained parked in the Hardee’s lot. The restaurant manager, Loyce Bailey, in turn, advised the officers that he wanted the Range Rover removed from the premises.

At some point, the officers asked Leften-ant if he had the keys to the Range Rover, and Leftenant reached into his right-hand pocket to search for them. As Leftenant removed his hand from his pocket, a twenty-dollar bill fell to the ground. It was folded such that a black “X” was clearly visible. On seeing the twenty-dollar bill fall from his pocket, Leftenant appeared shocked. Officer Hanson promptly retrieved the bill and placed Leftenant under arrest. When the officers searched Lef-tenant incident to the arrest, they discovered ten additional counterfeit bills. Five of these counterfeits were twenty-dollar bills, and the other five were fifty-dollar bills.

B.

On November 13, 2001, criminal complaints were filed against Leftenant and Freeman in the Eastern District of Virginia, charging them with possession of counterfeit obligations of the United States, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 470. On November 26, 2001, Leftenant and Freeman were arrested in connection with this charge. Two days later, on November 28th, the Government sought to amend the complaints to clarify that they intended to charge a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 472, rather than § 470, because § 470 applies only to acts committed outside the United States. After a detention hearing on November 28, 2001, and a bond reconsideration-hearing conducted six days later, Leftenant was released on a personal recognizance bond on December 4, 2001. 1

Thereafter, on December 28, 2001, the Government gave Leftenant and Freeman the opportunity to plead guilty to a misdemeanor charge. On that date, the Government filed a criminal information in the district court, charging Leftenant and Freeman with a misdemeanor offense, namely, possession of paper similar in size and shape to lawful currency with the intent to use it fraudulently, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 491(b). On January 17, 2002, Leftenant and Freeman were arraigned on this misdemeanor charge, and trial was scheduled for March 7, 2002. On January 22, 2002, Freeman pled guilty to the misdemeanor, and he was later sentenced to three years of probation.

After a breakdown in plea negotiations with Leftenant, however, the Government discontinued its effort to prosecute him on the misdemeanor charge, and it instead presented the grand jury with an indictment charging felony possession of counterfeit bills. In particular, the indictment charged Leftenant with violating 18 U.S.C. § 472. Because Leftenant possessed groups of bills with six separate and distinct serial numbers,' the indictment charged six counts of felony possession. The grand jury returned the indictment on March 5, 2002, and a jury trial was scheduled for May 29, 2002. 2

*342

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Bluebook (online)
341 F.3d 338, 2003 U.S. App. LEXIS 17178, 2003 WL 21983734, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-ashon-leftenant-ca4-2003.