United States v. Beardslee

197 F.3d 378, 1999 WL 983680
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit
DecidedNovember 1, 1999
DocketNos. 97-10286, 97-10314
StatusPublished
Cited by42 cases

This text of 197 F.3d 378 (United States v. Beardslee) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Ninth 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. Beardslee, 197 F.3d 378, 1999 WL 983680 (9th Cir. 1999).

Opinion

CHOY, Circuit Judge:

Florence Martha Beardslee (“Beard-slee”) appeals her conviction, following a jury trial, for conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, arson in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 844(i), use of fire to commit a felony in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 844(h), and mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341. Beardslee contends that the district court erred by (1) barring cross-examination by Beardslee of government witness Ben Pierce; (2) limiting the scope of cross-examination by Beardslee of government witness Barry Venable; (3) ruling that Count Three of the superseding indictment, use of fire to commit mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 844(h), was not barred by the statute of limitation; and (4) denying Beardslee’s motion to suppress evidence on the ground that the Government had an independent source for the evidence. We reject each claim and affirm the decisions of the district court.

The Government cross-appeals Beard-slee’s sentence. The Government contends that the district court erred by (1) failing to impose Beardslee’s sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 844(h) consecutively to all other sentences; (2) applying the 1989 Sentencing Guidelines instead of the 1992 Sentencing Guidelines to Beardslee’s conspiracy conviction; (3) declining to make an upward adjustment to Beardslee’s arson conviction for knowingly or recklessly creating a risk of harm; and (4) declining to enhance Beardslee’s sentence for obstruction of justice. We affirm the district court on all but the first claim of the cross-appeal; on that claim alone we vacate and remand Beardslee’s sentence for imposition of a sentence under 18 U.S.C. § 844(h) that runs consecutively to all other sentences.

Facts

On December 10, 1989, a fire burned a Fort Bragg, California, warehouse that was owned by Beardslee and used in her business, Natural Beverage Distributors (“NBD”).

Although investigators tentatively concluded that the cause of the fire was electrical,' Beardslee called the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco & Firearms (“ATF”) to report the fire as a suspected arson. Beardslee told an insurance investigator that she suspected that various individuals connected to Anheuser-Busch, Inc. (“Anheuser-Busch”) might have a motive to set the fire. On August 28, 1989, An-heuser-Busch had terminated an agreement under which NBD was authorized as a wholesale distributor of Anheuser-Busch products. At the time of the fire, Beardslee was engaged in litigation with Anheuser-Busch over the fair market value of her assets, which consisted primarily of the warehouse, and the value of two times her pre-tax net earnings, to which she was entitled under her distributorship agreement with Anheuser-Busch.

Further investigation revealed the presence of gasoline in the area of the warehouse office, and investigators concluded that the fire was initiated by gasoline that had been poured into the warehouse struc[382]*382ture through a drain pipe, and ignited. However, investigation of the fire became inactive after late 1990, and in early 1992 both the Fort Bragg police and the ATF closed their files without determining who was responsible for the fire. In the intervening period, in 1990 and 1991, Beardslee made claims to and received payments from the Fireman’s Fund Insurance Company (“Fireman’s Fund”), California Insurance Group, and Financial Indemnity Company (“Financial Indemnity”) for losses sustained as a result of the fire.

At the time of the fire, Beardslee held a $350,000 Fireman’s Fund insurance policy on the warehouse, which policy covered the cost of replacement of lost or damaged property due to fire. In August of 1989-four months before the fire occurred-Beardslee had canceled all coverage on the warehouse except for the fire coverage; at that time, she had expressed concerns to her insurance broker that someone associated with Anheuser-Busch “might burn the building down.” Fireman’s Fund ultimately paid Beardslee a total of $85,150.43 for damage to the warehouse, and a total of $20,250 for lost rent. Beardslee also collected approximately $10,000 in insurance proceeds from Financial Indemnity for claims relating to damage to business vehicles owned by Beardslee and housed at her warehouse.

In early 1993, the ATF received a tip that Barry Venable (“Venable”) had been involved in the fire. In March of 1993, Venable was arrested in Colorado on an unrelated matter. During an interview with the authorities, Venable confessed that he had been hired by Beardslee to burn the warehouse, and that he and Paul Glover (“Glover”) had committed the arson. Venable also agreed to make a number of taped phone calls to Beardslee.

In the first of these calls, on March 30, 1993, Beardslee acknowledged that she had doubled the amount she agreed to pay Venable, and that she had already given him a car as partial payment. In another telephone conversation that occurred on April 1, 1993, Venable told Beardslee for the first time that he had recruited Glover to assist in setting the fire; Beardslee stated that she would not have arranged for the arson if she had known that anyone other than Venable would be involved.

Proceedings

On April 18, 1994, a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Beard-slee, Venable, and Glover with conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 (Count One) and arson of a structure used in interstate commerce in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 844(i) (Count Two). Beardslee was also charged with mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1341, based on her submission of insurance claims concerning the burning of the building (Counts Three through Twenty-One).

After both Venable and Glover agreed to cooperate with the Government and pled guilty, a federal grand jury returned a superseding indictment against Beardslee on September 13, 1995. The superseding indictment added one charge, embodied in a new Count Three, alleging that Beard-slee violated 18 U.S.C. § 844(h) by using fire to commit a federal felony offense-mail fraud, as charged in the remaining counts. The superseding indictment also changed Venable and Glover from defendants to unindicted co-conspirators in Count One and aiders and abettors in Count Two. The mail fraud counts (formerly Counts Three through Twenty-One) were renumbered to Counts Four through Twenty-Two, but in all other respects the superseding indictment remained the same as the original indictment.

Beardslee’s first jury trial, which commenced on September 22, 1995, ended with a mistrial.

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Bluebook (online)
197 F.3d 378, 1999 WL 983680, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-beardslee-ca9-1999.