United States v. Frank Desalvo

26 F.3d 1216, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 7118, 1994 WL 122932
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedApril 8, 1994
Docket650, Docket 93-1330
StatusPublished
Cited by25 cases

This text of 26 F.3d 1216 (United States v. Frank Desalvo) 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. Frank Desalvo, 26 F.3d 1216, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 7118, 1994 WL 122932 (2d Cir. 1994).

Opinion

*1218 McLAUGHLIN, Circuit Judge:

Frank DeSalvo appeals from a judgment entered in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Charles P. Sifton, Judge) convicting him, after a jury trial, of four counts of perjury, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1623(a), and four counts of obstructing justice, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1508. Judge Sifton sentenced DeSalvo to 30 months in prison, which reflected a three-level enhancement for causing a “substantial interference with the administration of justice.” U.S.S.G. §§ 2J1.2(b)(2)& 2 Jl.3(b)(2).

In this appeal, DeSalvo challenges the manner in which the government used his prior immunized testimony. DeSalvo argues that the government violated the federal immunity statute and the Fifth Amendment’s self-incrimination clause when it used some of his immunized testimony to prove that other “noncontemporaneous” immunized testimony was false. DeSalvo also challenges the sentencing enhancement.

We affirm.

BACKGROUND

In the early 1980s, Frank DeSalvo was a trial lawyer with the now infamous personal injury firm of Morris J. Eisen, P.C. The Eisen firm dishonored the legal profession by routinely bribing -witnesses and manufacturing evidence to win lawsuits or exact favorable settlements. After a federal trial, seven of the firm’s lawyers, investigators and administrators were convicted on racketeering charges. See United States v. Eisen, 974 F.2d 246 (2d Cir.1992), cert. denied, — U.S. -, 113 S.Ct. 1619, 123 L.Ed.2d 178 (1993).

Although DeSalvo himself was not prosecuted along with his colleagues, his central role as an Eisen insider did not escape the attention of the federal prosecutors. DeSal-vo’s conviction stems from false testimony he gave under oath during the investigation and prosecution of the Eisen defendants. The facts surrounding DeSalvo’s testimony are largely undisputed.

A. DeSalvo’s State and Federal Testimony

In September 1987, a New York state grand jury was empaneled to investigate the Eisen firm. It then compelled DeSalvo’s testimony under a grant of transactional immunity. See N.Y.C.P.L. § 190.40(2). DeSalvo appeared and testified about his background and employment with the Eisen firm, and about his participation as a trial lawyer in one Eisen case. DeSalvo was not charged with lying before the state grand jury.

Two years later, a federal grand jury subpoenaed DeSalvo to testify in a federal investigation of the firm. Pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 6002, Judge Eugene Nickerson granted DeSalvo immunity “as to all matters about which he may be interrogated before the [Eisen] Grand Jury.” In all, DeSalvo appeared three times before the Eisen federal grand jury in the fall of 1989. On each occasion, he denied complicity in the Eisen firm’s crimes.

In his first federal grand jury appearance on September 14, DeSalvo claimed that it was pure coincidence that his cousin testified as an eyewitness on behalf of Eisen clients in two unrelated personal injury cases.

In his second appearance, one week later, in testimony about a different case, DeSalvo denied colluding with two firm investigators who, during a personal injury trial, fabricated an account of a defense witness’s whereabouts. This account persuaded the trial judge that the witness was available to be called and thus his deposition testimony should be excluded.

In his third and final appearance before the Eisen grand jury, DeSalvo denied ever knowing that a witness who testified in yet another of his cases was the mother of the Eisen firm’s office manager.

In August 1990, the federal grand jury indicted the Eisen defendants, not including DeSalvo. The government, however, called DeSalvo to testify at the Eisen trial. DeSal-vo appeared on December 20, 1990, and declined to answer the questions put to him, asserting his Fifth Amendment privilege against self-incrimination. In response, Judge Sifton entered a second federal immunity order pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 6002, *1219 covering “all matters about which [DeSalvo] may be interrogated at the [Eisen] trial.” DeSalvo’s trial testimony essentially tracked his federal grand jury testimony.

B. The Proceedings Below

Following the government’s successful prosecution of DeSalvo’s colleagues, a federal grand jury indicted DeSalvo for perjury and obstruction of justice in connection with the testimony he gave during his three appearances before the federal grand jury (the “Ei-sen grand jury”) and the trial jury (the “Ei-sen trial jury”). The government maintained that DeSalvo had repeatedly lied when he denied participating in any wrongdoing at the Eisen firm.

Before trial, DeSalvo moved to dismiss the indictment under the principles of Kastigar v. United States, 406 U.S. 441, 460, 92 S.Ct. 1653, 1664-65, 32 L.Ed.2d 212 (1972) (government has the burden to show that the evidence it proposes to use “is derived from a legitimate source wholly independent of the compelled testimony”). DeSalvo essentially argued that the federal grand jmy which indicted him for perjury and obstruction should not have been presented with his prior state and federal immunized testimony. DeSalvo claimed that since his indictment alleged perjury committed on four separate occasions (i.e., three appearances before the Eisen grand jury and one appearance before the Eisen trial jury), there was a danger that the grand jury weighing the perjury charges against him might have considered immunized testimony he gave in one appearance to prove the falsity of testimony he gave in another appearance. He also claimed that the government improperly used evidence derived from his immunized state grand jury testimony to indict him for lying before the federal grand and trial juries. The district court (Sifton, J.) dismissed DeSalvo’s multifaceted argument, and denied DeSalvo’s request for a Kastigar hearing, on the authority of United States v. Apfelbaum, 445 U.S. 115, 100 S.Ct. 948, 63 L.Ed.2d 250 (1980). See United States v. DeSalvo, 797 F.Supp. 159 (E.D.N.Y.1992).

The federal immunity statute expressly permits immunized testimony to be used in “a prosecution for perjury.” 18 U.S.C. § 6002. Belying on the Supreme Court’s interpretation of the perjury exception in Apfelbaum, Judge Sifton reasoned that “only ‘the otherwise applicable rules of evidence’ limit the use of immunized testimony in a perjury prosecution.” DeSalvo, 797 F.Supp. at 163 (quoting

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Bluebook (online)
26 F.3d 1216, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 7118, 1994 WL 122932, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-frank-desalvo-ca2-1994.