United States v. Donna

366 F. App'x 441
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedFebruary 24, 2010
DocketNos. 08-4433, 08-4434
StatusPublished
Cited by3 cases

This text of 366 F. App'x 441 (United States v. Donna) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third 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. Donna, 366 F. App'x 441 (3d Cir. 2010).

Opinion

OPINION OF THE COURT

GREENBERG, Circuit Judge.

I. INTRODUCTION

These matters come on before this Court on consolidated appeals from judgments of conviction and sentence entered on October 27, 2008, and certain earlier orders in these criminal proceedings in the District Court. Following the defendants’ convictions, the Court imposed custodial sentences followed by periods of supervised release on each defendant. For the reasons that follow, we will affirm.

II. BACKGROUND

At the times material to this case, defendants, now appellants, David and Anna Delle Donna, who are husband and wife, were public officials in Guttenberg, Hudson County, New Jersey, David being the mayor and Anna being a member of the Guttenberg Planning Board.1 (We will refer to appellants as “David” and “Anna” because of their common last name.)

This case focuses on the interplay between the actions of a local bar-owner, Luisa Medrano, and her sister Eduviges (“Duvi”) Medrano, on the one hand, and appellants on the other hand. (We will refer to the Medranos as “Luisa” and “Duvi,” again because of their common last name.) Luisa owned several bars in and around Guttenberg from which she derived a substantial income.2 In 2002 one of Luisa’s bars, the Puerta de la Union, ran into regulatory trouble with Guttenberg’s Alcoholic Beverage Commission (“ABC”), of which David as mayor was a member. Consequently, on May 4, 2002, there was a hearing that Luisa and Duvi attended before the ABC at which the bar’s license was subject to suspension.

During a break in the ABC proceedings, Duvi met Anna at a water fountain and the two women engaged in a brief conversation. Following the conversation Duvi informed Luisa that Anna was the mayor’s wife and it might be good for business if they could befriend her. Luisa agreed as she reasoned that her generosity to Anna would lead to the Delle Donnas helping [444]*444her and that any money she spent on the Delle Donnas would be a small price to pay if it kept her bar in good standing. Consequently, the Medrano sisters intentionally set out to befriend Anna in the hope that she and her husband would perform favors in their capacities as public officials benefitting Luisa’s business.

Over the course of the next few years, Anna and Duvi became fast friends and Anna and Luisa also became friends, though to a less intense extent. The circumstance that Anna is fluent in Spanish, Luisa speaks only Spanish, and Duvi speaks Spanish and hesitant English furthered the development of the relationships. On the other hand, David does not speak Spanish and therefore never conversed with Luisa directly. Luisa testified that during the course of her friendship with Anna, she gave Anna numerous gifts including a sapphire necklace, hundreds of dollars in gift cards, liquor, face cream, a garage storage system, half of the cost of an expensive dog, thousands of dollars for gambling in Atlantic City, and money for breast surgery. The Delle Donnas denied receiving some of these items but David admitted that he knew that Luisa gave some of the smaller gifts to Anna and that Luisa had paid for half of the cost of the dog.3

The gift-giving, however, was not entirely one-way, and the record clearly shows that Anna thought of Duvi and Luisa as genuine friends. Anna gave Luisa a pocketbook, clothing, and earrings as gifts and Duvi was a regular guest at the Delle Donna household. The Delle Donnas were christened as godparents to Duvi’s two children, and the Delle Donnas gave expensive gifts to mark the occasion. When Duvi’s son needed emergency surgery to save his life, the Delle Donnas loaned Duvi the $5,000 that she needed. Accordingly, it is accurate to say that this case differs from the typical political corruption case in which the defendant public official receives benefits from a person seeking favors but does not reciprocate at his or her own expense.

Luisa testified that Anna promised to use her position on the planning board to assist her and that Anna promised to “speak with her husband” to help her businesses. App. at 921, 942, 948. Thus, when Luisa needed a building permit to convert a bar into an apartment, Anna promised to speak with her husband about helping her. In fact, Anna helped Luisa fill out an English-language application for the permit and then accompanied Luisa when she submitted the application to the building code supervisor. Two days later, David asked the code supervisor whether the permit was going to issue and then, one year later, asked how the process was going. The building inspector testified that the mayor and his wife showed a unique interest in Luisa’s project with his questions. In another matter the town garbage inspector testified that David asked him to “take care of’ several tickets that had been issued to Luisa, a request that the inspector thought was improper. David told a friend that he had to take care of Luisa’s tickets because his wife was pestering him about it.

[445]*445David points out that there were two ABC hearings during his time as mayor directly involving Luisa’s businesses, one involving discipline and one dealing with a license application, and in both cases he recused himself. David, however, did not recuse himself when Luisa’s liquor licenses were up for annual renewal because the Guttenberg municipal attorney advised him that he did not need to recuse in such “pro forma” matters.

After the government arrested and interrogated Luisa it began investigating the Delle Donnas. That investigation led to the return of a superseding indictment charging the Delle Donnas with five counts of criminal conduct: conspiracy to commit mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1346, 1349 (Count One); mail fraud under 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1346 (Count Two); conspiracy to commit extortion under color of official right under 18 U.S.C. § 1951(a) (Count Three); filing a false income tax return with respect to rental income under 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1) (Count Four); and filing a false income tax return with respect to gifts received under 26 U.S.C. § 7206(1) (Count Five). The Delle Donnas made a pretrial motion in which they asked the Court to sever Count Four from the indictment for the trial as they argued that the count was not related factually to the remaining counts. At the same time the Delle Donnas asked the Court to sever Count Five so that the tax counts could be tried together. The Court, however, denied this request in an opinion and order dated March 14, 2008, and thus the Court tried all five counts against both defendants at a single trial.

At the conclusion of a lengthy trial at which the Delle Donnas testified, the Court, over Anna’s objection, gave an instruction explaining when a defendant with a mixed motive for her conduct, partially corrupt and partially neutral “like friendship,” can be guilty of extortion.

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Bluebook (online)
366 F. App'x 441, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-donna-ca3-2010.