United States v. Demjanjuk

838 F. Supp. 2d 616, 2011 WL 6371801, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148583
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. Ohio
DecidedDecember 20, 2011
DocketCase No. 1:99 CV 1193
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 838 F. Supp. 2d 616 (United States v. Demjanjuk) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. Ohio primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Demjanjuk, 838 F. Supp. 2d 616, 2011 WL 6371801, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148583 (N.D. Ohio 2011).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OF OPINION AND ORDER

DAN AARON POLSTER, District Judge.

This case is before the Court on the Motion of John Demjanjuk pursuant to Fed.R.Civ.P. 60 (hereafter, “Motion” or “Rule 60 Motion”). (Doc # : 219.) Demjanjuk seeks extraordinary relief from the denaturalization judgment entered against him on February 21, 2002. Demjanjuk alleges that the Government deliberately withheld internal FBI documents, drafted in March 1985, which prevented him from asserting a complete defense. He contends that had he seen these documents, he might have prevailed at his 2001 denaturalization proceeding. Thus, he asks the Court to authorize such further discovery as is necessary to complete the record, to hold a hearing on the matter, and to set aside the judgment of denaturalization with prejudice.

The Court has reviewed the Rule 60 Motion and the memorandum in support (Doc ##: 219, 220), the Government’s opposition brief (Doc #: 229), and Demjanjuk’s reply brief (Doc #: 232), along with the attachments and the record. For reasons that follow, the Court DENIES the Rule 60 Motion. To summarize, the Court concludes that the internal FBI documents contain nothing more than the conjecture of an FBI agent, unsupported by investigation, that would have made no difference in refuting or undermining the Government’s overwhelming evidence at the 2001 denaturalization trial.

I.

John Demjanjuk, born Iwan Demjanjuk in the Ukraine, was drafted into the Soviet Army in 1940. In 1941, he was wounded by shrapnel which left a scar on his back. After a brief hospital stay, he returned to active duty. In 1942, he was captured by German soldiers in the Battle of the Crimea. The Germans thereafter transported him to POW camps in Rovno, Ukraine and Chelm, Poland.

At the time of his capture, the Nazis had initiated “Operation Reinhard,” a program for the systematic extermination of Jews in Poland. Extermination camps were constructed to implement Action Reinhard in Poland, including in Sobibor, Belzec and Treblinka. Because the German SS lacked sufficient manpower to carry out the program, it recruited Soviet war prisoners from the Rovno and Chelm camps to assist. These recruits were taken to Trawniki, an SS camp where they were trained to implement the program, were given uniforms, and took an oath to serve the SS.

The whereabouts and status of Demjanjuk between the time he arrived at the POW camps in 1942 and the end of World War II have been the subject of numerous legal proceedings both here and abroad. It is undisputed, however, that following Germany’s surrender in 1945, Demjanjuk was taken by American forces to several displaced persons camps, eventually arriv[619]*619ing in Regensburg, Germany, where he drove a truck in an American army motor pool from 1947 to 1949.

The Displaced Persons Act of 1948 (“DPA”) was enacted to enable “eligible displaced persons” driven from their homelands by World War II to immigrate to the United States regardless of traditional immigration quotas. Fedorenko v. United States, 449 U.S. 490, 495, 101 S.Ct. 737, 66 L.Ed.2d 686 (1981). Persons who had “assisted the enemy in persecuting civilians]” or who “had voluntarily assisted the enemy forces ... in their operations,” however, were expressly excluded from being displaced persons eligible for immigration under the DPA. Id. The burden of proving eligibility rested on the applicant, and any person who made “a misrepresentation for the purpose of gaining admission into the United States as an eligible displaced person” was deemed inadmissible. Id.

The Immigration and Naturalization Act provides that citizenship can be revoked if it was illegally procured or procured by concealment of a material fact or by willful misrepresentation. 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a). In 1981, the Supreme Court held that an individual’s prior service as an armed concentration camp guard, whether voluntary or involuntary, made that person ineligible for a DPA visa as a matter of law. Fedorenko, 449 U.S. at 509-10, 101 S.Ct. 737. The Court further held that a DPA visa applicant who failed to disclose that he had been an armed guard at a concentration camp had made a false statement that was material, rendering him inadmissible into the United States. Id. Where a naturalized citizen was ineligible for a visa, his citizenship was deemed “illegally procured” and subject to revocation. Id. at 514, 101 S.Ct. 737 (citing 8 U.S.C. § 1451(a)). The right of citizenship once conferred, however, should not be stripped away absent clear, convincing, and unequivocal evidence that the citizenship was procured illegally. Id., 449 U.S. at 505, 101 S.Ct. 737.

In 1948, Demjanjuk initiated procedures to immigrate to the United States as an eligible displaced person under the DPA. As required, he first applied for assistance to the International Refugee Organization (“IRO”), the agency created by the United Nations following the war to assist displaced persons. During the IRO interview, Demjanjuk represented that he lived and worked in Sobibor, Poland from 1937 to 1943, and in Pilau, Germany from 1943 to 1944. Demjanjuk next applied for, and received, qualification as an eligible displaced person, representing that he lived and worked in Sobibor from 1936 to 1943, followed by Danzig, Germany from 1943 to 1944, and Munich, Germany from 1944 to 1945. In 1951, Demjanjuk filed an application for a DPA visa representing that he lived in Sobibor from 1934 to 1943, in Pilau from 1943 to September 1944, and in Munich from September 1944 to May 1945. In 1952, Demjanjuk moved to the United States after obtaining a visa.

In 1958, Demjanjuk applied for naturalization. During that process, the Immigration and Naturalization Service checked his immigration and visa file to verify that his entry into the United States was lawful, as lawful entry is a prerequisite for naturalization. On the application, Demjanjuk denied having ever given false testimony for the purpose of obtaining any benefits under the immigration and naturalization laws. On November 14, 1958, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Ohio naturalized Demjanjuk at which time he changed his first name from Iwan to John. Demjanjuk eventually moved to Cleveland, Ohio, where he worked at the Ford Motor plant until his retirement 30 years later.

[620]*620A. First Denaturalization Proceeding

The legal battle over the identity and whereabouts of Demjanjuk during war years 1942 to 1945 began in 1977, when the Government instituted a proceeding to denaturalize him for illegally procuring his citizenship. United States v. Demjanjuk, Case No. C77-923, N.D. Ohio (Battisti, J.). The Government contended that Demjanjuk was one of the Russian POW recruits who was trained at Trawniki and served as an SS guard at Treblinka, and that he willfully misrepresented his service and location during the war on his visa and immigration applications to gain admission to the United States.

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838 F. Supp. 2d 616, 2011 WL 6371801, 2011 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 148583, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-demjanjuk-ohnd-2011.