United States v. Hector B. Germosen

139 F.3d 120, 48 Fed. R. Serv. 1390, 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 3893
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedMarch 6, 1998
Docket96-1524, 96-1666
StatusPublished
Cited by133 cases

This text of 139 F.3d 120 (United States v. Hector B. Germosen) 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. Hector B. Germosen, 139 F.3d 120, 48 Fed. R. Serv. 1390, 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 3893 (2d Cir. 1998).

Opinion

WINTER, Chief Judge:

Hector B. Germosen appeals from his conviction and sentence following a jury trial in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York before Judge Seybert. He was convicted of a single count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 and was sentenced to 60 months in prison and three years of supervised release. He was also ordered to pay restitution in the amount of approximately $1.6 million. Germosen argues that he was deprived of a fair trial by the admission of certain evidence and by improper statements by the government during summation. Germosen also challenges his sentence on a variety of grounds, taking issue with: (i) the “amount of loss” found to be attributable to his conduct; (ii) his criminal history category; (iii) the fact that the restitution order was based in part on conduct for which he *123 was not convicted; and (iv) a special condition of supervised release subjecting him to searches of his person and property. The government concedes that the district court’s restitution order was erroneous insofar as it included amounts attributable to conduct for which Germosen was not convicted. We therefore remand for an appropriate recalculation. Otherwise, we affirm.

BACKGROUND

Germosen operated a travel agency, Cami-no Travel and Tours (“Camino Tours”), in Queens, New York. It was accredited by the Airlines Reporting Corporation (“ARC”), a not-for-profit organization created and owned by major U.S. airlines. ARC acts as an intermediary between the airlines and travel agents and furnishes accredited travel agencies with blank ticket stock, which agents issue to their customers as airline tickets. Every week accredited agencies report ticket sales to ARC, which then withdraws the sales proceeds for that week from each agency’s bank account (minus the agents’ commissions) and forwards the proceeds to the appropriate air carriers. If a travel agency does not have sufficient funds in its bank account to make the required payment to ARC, ARC resorts to a variety of means to collect the money, the ultimate sanction being suspension of the agency’s accreditation and confiscation of its ticket stock.

A “bust-out” is a fraudulent scheme in which a travel agency sells airline tickets to customers but then fails to remit the proceeds to ARC. Lizanne Siccardi, an auditor and investigator for ARC, testified that there is generally a lag of at least a month between the beginning of a bust-out and ARC’s discovery of it. To reap substantial profits, the “busting-out” agency must order a large quantity of ticket stock and sell as many tickets as possible — usually at a cut-rate price — in a very short period of time. To increase the volume of quick sales, a busting-out agency will typically employ other travel agencies to assist in selling tickets.- In exchange for their assistance, the cooperating agencies will usually receive a 50 percent commission on their sales, far exceeding the 10 percent received for sales of legitimate tickets, while the busting-out agency takes the other 50 percent. During a bust-out, the agency typically reports the sales of its tickets to ARC so that, upon discovering that the agency’s bank account is empty, ARC will assume that the agency is experiencing financial difficulty rather than engaging in fraud.

Germosen was charged with participation in a conspiracy to defraud ARC by participating in bust-outs of several ARC-accredited travel agencies between 1992 and 1994. The government’s case relied primarily on the testimony of five co-conspirators: Alexander Feliz, Pedro Gonzalez, Ernesto Gonzalez, Maria Ofelia Fonts, and Miosotis Acre. Their testimony revealed the following. Ger-mosen became involved in the conspiracy through Alexander Feliz, an owner of two travel agencies, Trébol Travel in the Bronx and Kiwi Travel in Yonkers. Feliz, who admitted participating in at least ten other bust-outs, first met Germosen in October 1991 on a promotional trip to Guatemala for travel agents. After meeting socially several times in New York, Feliz and Germosen travelled to Cancún, Mexico, in January 1992. They -were accompanied by Rosa Batista (now Feliz’s wife) and Fatima Santana, an ■employee at Camino Tours. Feliz testified that, while in Cancún, he told Germosen that he “sold tickets from agencies that were going bankrupt,” and that Germosen asked to be included. Feliz also testified in response to questions by the government and over defense objection that Germosen confided that he had told his wife he was at a conference in Washington, D.C., rather than in Cancún, and that he was therefore trying to avoid getting a suntan.

After their return to New York, Feliz and Germosen had more conversations. about bust-outs. Feliz testified that he gave Ger-mosen .details about “an agency that was going bankrupt and that was selling tickets” and that Germosen asked Feliz “to connect him and to put him to work selling those tickets.” In May 1992, Feliz, Germosen, and Batista travelled to the Dominican Republic, where they discussed the bust-out scheme further. They also discussed “the agencies that were going to be busted out.” Germo-sen responded that he understood the work *124 ings of the scheme and asked to be included in the next planned bust-out because he needed the money. Feliz agreed to “introduce him in the next one.” Feliz testified that later, when he and Germosen were checking out of their hotel, he noticed that Germosen paid for his room with an American Express card in the name of “Hector G. Bonifacio.” Feliz asked Germosen about the strange name, to which Germosen responded that Bonifacio “is my other name.” Over objection, the government was allowed to introduce records showing that the Social Security number Germosen used to acquire that American Express card belonged to Germosen’s father, Bienvenido Germosen.

In late May or early June 1992, Feliz received a call from a Jose Valdez, a travel agent, who informed Feliz that Pedro Tours would be the next agency to bust out. Feliz then attended a meeting at Valdez’s office with Pedro Gonzalez, the owner of Pedro Tours, and others regarding the planned bust-out. Feliz said that he wanted to participate but could not because he had already planned a vacation in Europe. Feliz instead proposed that “someone else” distribute Fel-iz’s tickets to his usual network of travel agents. Feliz then met with Germosen to tell him “that he [Germosen] was going to be in charge” of distributing the tickets to Fel-iz’s network of travel agents, which included Miosotis Acre of Blue Moon Travel and Ofelia Fonts of Copacabana Travel. Germosen was to receive a commission on all tickets sold by Feliz’s network and pay Feliz five percent of the proceeds. Feliz then informed Gonzalez that Germosen would perform Fel-iz’s role during the bust-out, and Gonzalez accordingly met with Germosen to go over the details of the bust-out. Gonzalez told Germosen he would first receive a 35 percent commission, later to be “upgraded to 40 percent.” Ernesto Gonzalez, Pedro’s brother, would serve as a “bookkeeper” during this bust-out, keeping records of the distribution of, and payment for, the airline tickets. Ernesto Gonzalez testified that he provided Germosen with tickets and estimated that he received payments from Germosen in the amount of approximately $116,000 to $125,-000 for the bust-out.

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Bluebook (online)
139 F.3d 120, 48 Fed. R. Serv. 1390, 1998 U.S. App. LEXIS 3893, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-hector-b-germosen-ca2-1998.