United States v. Joseph MacChia Sr. Lawrence MacChia George MacChia Joseph L. MacChia Viktor Batuner Michael Varzar, John Barberio, and Marat Balagula

35 F.3d 662, 74 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 6233, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 23970
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Second Circuit
DecidedAugust 31, 1994
DocketDocket 94-1161, 94-1192
StatusPublished
Cited by46 cases

This text of 35 F.3d 662 (United States v. Joseph MacChia Sr. Lawrence MacChia George MacChia Joseph L. MacChia Viktor Batuner Michael Varzar, John Barberio, and Marat Balagula) 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. Joseph MacChia Sr. Lawrence MacChia George MacChia Joseph L. MacChia Viktor Batuner Michael Varzar, John Barberio, and Marat Balagula, 35 F.3d 662, 74 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 6233, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 23970 (2d Cir. 1994).

Opinions

JACOBS, Circuit Judge:

Defendants-appellants John Barberio and Marat Balagula (collectively, the “defendants”), having previously been convicted for their roles in a five-month scheme to defraud the United States of federal gasoline excise taxes, now interpose the double jeopardy clause of the Fifth Amendment to bar the present prosecution for their roles in a broad-gauge tax evasion conspiracy employing similar techniques on a greater scale, over a period of years that wholly subsumes the period of the first conspiracy.

The United States District Court for the Eastern District of New York (Wexler, J.) conducted a thorough analysis under United States v. Korfant, 771 F.2d 660 (2d Cir.1985), and determined that the two indictments describe distinct conspiracies and therefore do not subject the defendants to double jeopardy. See United States v. Macchia, 845 F.Supp. 953 (E.D.N.Y.1994). We affirm.

BACKGROUND

The facts of this appeal are set forth in every useful detail in Judge Wexler’s opinion. [665]*665We recapitulate only the facts we deem dis-positive.

A. The Tarricone Indictment

In January 1992, a federal grand jury returned an indictment charging Balagula, Bar-berio and three co-defendants — Arthur Tar-ricone, Dominic A. Bombaee, and John Pa-bone — with one count of conspiring to evade the federal gasoline excise tax in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 and 3623, and two counts of attempted excise tax evasion in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7201 and 18 U.S.C. .§§ 2 and 3623 (the “Tarricone Indictment”). .

The Tarricone Indictment described the alleged evasion of over $400,000 in federal gasoline excise taxes between November 1985 and April 1986. At that time, federal law imposed an excise tax of nine cents per gallon on the sale of gasoline, but exempted sales between gasoline distributors holding a Registration for Tax-Free Transactions issued by the Internal Revenue Service on its “Form 637”. In tax parlance, a holder of a Form 637 was a “licensed” company; a company without such a form was “unlicensed.” Transactions between licensed companies were “tax-free” because the seller was not required to pay the federal excise tax. The one-time payment of the excise tax on any gasoline shipment occurred when it passed from a licensed company to an unlicensed one. In that transaction, the licensed seller incurred the obligation to pay the tax. Since the licensed seller generally included the excise tax in the sales price, such sales were known as “tax included” or “tax paid” transactions. Subsequent sales of the same gasoline were exempt because the one-time excise on that gasoline had been paid.

The defendants named in the Tarricone Indictment evaded the federal excise tax with respect to the sale of some 41 million gallons of gasoline from Arthur Tarricone, Inc. (“AT”), a licensed supplier, to unlicensed purchasers. This was accomplished by false invoices that created a paper trail — or “daisy chain” — of fictitious transactions. Through these fictitious transactions, the gasoline appeared to be sold first to a licensed company, and then, in apparently tax-paid transactions, to unlicensed companies. However, .the licensed company that made the paper sale to the unlicensed purchasers was a shell company, consisting of little more than a Form 637 and a rented office. The company existed solely to record the receipt of excise taxes, incur the tax liability to the United States, and eventually collapse. The conspirators called this instrumentality a “burn” company.

The daisy chain outlined in the Tarricone Indictment was set in motion when AT bought a total of 21 barge loads of gasoline from licensed New Jersey wholesalers in tax-free transactions. AT then created invoices reflecting fictitious sales to a burn company that was called Conlo, Inc. (“Conlo”). John Pabone and John Quock had purchased Con-lo as a burn company on December 11, 1985, from individuals who had been using Conlo for the same purpose. Since both Conlo and AT were licensed companies, the sales of gasoline to Conlo were, on paper, tax free. In the second step of the daisy chain, Conlo sold the gasoline to Beck Equities, Inc. (“Beck”), an unlicensed shell company also controlled by Pabone and Quock. This transaction triggered Conlo’s obligation to pay the federal excise tax. The conspirators then prepared false invoices indicating that Beck had sold the gasoline to unlicensed purchasers and had paid the excise tax to Conlo. At the completion of the daisy chain, Conlo, which was responsible for the federal excise taxes, simply “burned” up — the company and its records disappeared.

There were no sales between AT and Con-lo or between Conlo and Beck. In reality, AT sold the gasoline directly to the unlicensed purchasers invoiced by Beck, including Westchester Hudson Petroleum Corp. (‘WHPC”),' which employed Barberio, and Hamilton Oil Brokers, Inc. (“Hamilton”). Hamilton was officially owned by an unindict-ed coconspirator named John Byrne, but actually was controlled and operated by Bala-gula. After receiving the gasoline, Hamilton would turn around and sell it to other unlicensed companies, such as Energy Makers of America, Inc. (“EMA”), a company owned by Balagula, and Shore Line Oil Co., Inc. (“Sho-reco”), a company that employed Barberio as a consultant. The invoices reflecting the sales from Hamilton to these companies [666]*666falsely indicated that all excise taxes had been paid.

Count I of the Tamcone Indictment charged the defendants with conspiring to defraud the United States by evading and impeding the collection of federal gasoline excise taxes. The remaining two counts charged the defendants with specific instances of attempted tax evasion. After an eight day jury trial beginning on June 22, 1992, Balagula was convicted on all three counts and Barberio was convicted on the conspiracy count and on one substantive count.

B. The Macchia Indictment

In June 1993, a federal grand jury returned an indictment against Balagula, Bar-berio and six co-defendants — Joseph Macchia Sr.; his three sons Lawrence, George, and Joseph; Viktor Batuner; and Michael Var-zar. Count I of the indictment charged the eight defendants with conspiring to evade the federal gasoline excise tax in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 371 and 3623. The six additional counts charged them with attempted tax evasion in violation of 26 U.S.C. § 7201 and 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 3623 (the “Macchia Indictment”). Balagula is named in four of the substantive counts, while Barberio is charged only in the conspiracy count.

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35 F.3d 662, 74 A.F.T.R.2d (RIA) 6233, 1994 U.S. App. LEXIS 23970, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-joseph-macchia-sr-lawrence-macchia-george-macchia-joseph-ca2-1994.