United States v. David R. Knoll

116 F.3d 994, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 16565, 1997 WL 368631
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedJuly 7, 1997
Docket843, Docket 95-1267
StatusPublished
Cited by16 cases

This text of 116 F.3d 994 (United States v. David R. Knoll) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Second 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. David R. Knoll, 116 F.3d 994, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 16565, 1997 WL 368631 (2d Cir. 1997).

Opinion

WALKER, Circuit Judge.

Defendant-appellant David R. Knoll appeals from a decision and order entered April 28, 1995, in the United States District Court for the Western District of New York (William M. Skretny, Judge), denying Knoll’s motion to suppress evidence introduced against him at trial. The district court issued its decision and order on remand from this court following Knoll’s appeal from a judgment entered September 28, 1992, convicting him of one count of aiding and abetting the making of a material false statement to a department of the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1001 and 2. We affirm the district court’s evidentiary ruling.

Knoll also challenges the validity of his conviction under United States v. Gaudin, 515 U.S. 506, 115 S.Ct. 2310, 132 L.Ed.2d 444 (1995), decided while this appeal was pending, because the jury did not decide the question of materiality in convicting him as Gaudin requires. We affirm Knoll’s conviction because the failure to submit materiality to the jury did not “seriously affect the fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 736, 113 S.Ct. 1770, 1779, 123 L.Ed.2d 508 (1993).

I

The facts pertaining to this appeal are described in the district court’s opinion denying Knoll’s pre-trial motion to suppress, United States v. Gleave, 786 F.Supp. 258 (W.D.N.Y.1992), and in our prior opinion remanding to the district court for further consideration of Knoll’s suppression motion, United States v. Knoll, 16 F.3d 1313 (2d Cir.) (“Knoll I ”), cert. denied, 513 U.S. 1015, 115 S.Ct. 574, 130 L.Ed.2d 490 (1994), familiarity with which is assumed.

*996 On February 22, 1990, Knoll was indicted on, among other things, one count of aiding and abetting his co-defendant Ted W. Gleave in making a material false statement to a department of the United States in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1001 and 2 (“Count Eight”). 1 Count Eight charged that, in June 1987, Knoll assisted Gleave in the preparation of a financial statement for the United States Department of Justice (“DOJ”), in which Gleave falsely stated that he did not have a savings account. Knoll I, 16 F.3d at 1317. In fact, “Gleave and Knoll went together to the Cayman Islands [in 1982] and there opened two bank accounts: a personal account in Gleave’s name ... and a corporate account in the name of soon-to-be-formed [company] Atlantis International, [Ltd.].” Id. at 1316.

The government’s case against Knoll was based in part on information obtained from files stolen from Knoll’s law office. The files were purloined during a burglary orchestrated in June 1986 by Timothy Ernie, a then-incarcerated felon. Id. at 1317. Following the burglary, Ernie contacted Assistant United States Attorney (“AUSA”) Anthony Bruce and informed AUSA Bruce that Ernie could provide evidence of illegal activity by Knoll. Id. Ernie’s girlfriend, Patricia Devany, then delivered to AUSA Bruce various documents and tapes that she and Ernie’s associate, Diane Brown, had removed from the stolen files. Id.; United States v. Knoll, No. 90-CR-33S-01, slip op. at 6 (W.D.N.Y. Apr. 28, 1995) (“Knoll II”). After receiving the delivery, AUSA Bruce informed Ernie that he was disappointed with the materials and told Ernie he would have to “get [him] more information.” Knoll I, 16 F.3d at 1320; Knoll II, slip op. at 12. Devany then turned over additional documents recovered from the original burglary, including two letters addressed to Barclays Bank International Limited regarding the accounts in the Cayman Islands. These letters ultimately led to the indictments of Knoll and Gleave.

Knoll filed a pre-trial motion to suppress the evidence recovered from his stolen files, arguing that its use violated his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches and seizures. Gleave, 786 F.Supp. at 282. The district court held that Knoll suffered no Fourth Amendment violation because the government did not participate in the burglary. See id. at 286-89. The district court also rejected Knoll’s argument that the government was required to obtain a search warrant in order to read the documents after they were turned over to the government by Ernie and Devany. See id. at 289-91.

The ease proceeded to trial. In charging the jury on Count Eight, the district court, in accordance with settled Second Circuit law, see United States v. Elkin, 731 F.2d 1005, 1009 (2d Cir.1984), overruled by United States v. Ali, 68 F.3d 1468, 1475 (2d Cir.1996), did not submit to the jury the question of the materiality of the false statement and instructed the jury that the court determined that “the facts charged in the indictment are material facts.” Knoll did not object to this instruction. The jury convicted Knoll on Count Eight.

Knoll appealed, reasserting the Fourth Amendment claim that he raised in his pretrial motion to suppress. We agreed with the district court that the burglary of Knoll’s office occurred without the involvement of the government, and thus did not implicate the Fourth Amendment. However, we concluded that the search of the stolen files following the burglary was an event separate from the burglary. See Knoll I, 16 F.3d at 1319 (noting that the “search” at issue involved “specific rummaging through boxes of files that had earlier been stolen from Knoll’s law office”). Because the record left open the possibility that AUSA Bruce requested that Ernie produce additional documents, we *997 were concerned that Ernie and Devany might have been acting as agents for the government when they searched Knob’s files. Id. at 1319-20 (“While it appears all the files had already been taken from Knoll’s office [when Ernie and AUSA Bruce spoke], it is not clear from the record that they had necessarily been opened”). Accordingly, we remanded, instructing the district court to conduct a hearing to determine whether the object of the search had been completed, and Knoll’s reasonable expectation of privacy in the files breached, before AUSA Bruce’s request for additional documents. Id. at 1320-21.

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Bluebook (online)
116 F.3d 994, 1997 U.S. App. LEXIS 16565, 1997 WL 368631, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-david-r-knoll-ca2-1997.