United States v. Pelullo

5 F. Supp. 2d 285, 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8685, 1998 WL 312489
CourtDistrict Court, D. New Jersey
DecidedJune 12, 1998
DocketCrim. 94-276
StatusPublished

This text of 5 F. Supp. 2d 285 (United States v. Pelullo) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, D. New Jersey primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Pelullo, 5 F. Supp. 2d 285, 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8685, 1998 WL 312489 (D.N.J. 1998).

Opinion

OPINION

DEBEVOISE, Senior District Judge.

Defendant, Leonard A. Pelullo, moves (i) for an order vacating a July 14, 1997 order on the ground that the order was based upon a factually erroneous premise and (ii) for production of tapes and transcripts of defendant’s telephone conversations while he was in prison. For the reasons set forth below both motions will be denied without an evidentiary hearing.

A. Background

In November 1996 a jury found defendant guilty on one count charging him with conspiracy to embezzle $4,176 million from two employee pension benefit plans and to engage in money laundering, on 11 counts of embezzlement from these employee pension benefit plans, and on 42 counts of money laundering. Thereafter defendant moved for a judgment of acquittal or- a new trial. The motion was denied on April 17,1997.

Subsequently defendant moved for reconsideration of the denial of his motion. One of the grounds advanced in support of the new motion was that newly discovered evidence disclosed that the- government violated his Fifth Amendment due process rights and his Sixth Amendment right to counsel. According to defendant:

In its response brief dated April 10, 1997 to Mr. Pelullo’s post-trial motion, the government disclosed for the first time that it had reviewed tapes of all of Mr. Pelullo’s conversations pursuant to grand jury subpoenas issued between June 28, 1995 and November 8„ 1995. These tapes were made of conversations Mr. Pelullo had while in prison. The grand jury subpoenas were issued in Philadelphia on an unrelated matter.
* :¡: * ‡ * *
The government’s possession and review of tapes of these attorney client privileged communications was not disclosed before or during the trial. Ex. 43, Verification of Herbert Beigel dated May 19, 1997. The only tapes the government disclosed involved tapes of conversations between Mr. Pelullo and Andrew Heine. Included within these attorney client tapes were hundreds of conversations Mr. Pelullo had with his attorneys in this case, and other connected cases, including the Philadelphia and Jacksonville criminal actions. As to this case, Mr. Pelullo discussed his defense strategy with Edward Plaza and David Fassett, his court appointed attorneys. See Certifications of Edward J. Plaza and David Fassett dated May 2,1997, ¶ 4, Exh. 44. Plaza and Fassett explain the detailed strategy that they discussed with Mr. Pe-lullo in their conversations:
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The tapes also contain conversations between Mr. Pelullo and his attorneys from the Philadelphia criminal action. In these conversations, the issues discussed included the post-trial motions and appeal from the fourth trial in Philadelphia. Mr. Pelul-lo also discussed the overlap between the Newark, Philadelphia and Jacksonville cases with his attorneys in Philadelphia (Howrey & Simon), Newark (Arseneault & Krovatin), Jacksonville (Baumer, Bradford & Walters), among other attorneys.
The government seized and reviewed these privileged conversations. These seizures were a knowing intrusion into Mr. Pelullo’s attorney client relationship by which the government obtained confidential privi *287 leged communications concerning Mr. Pelullo’s pretrial and trial strategy.

Pelullo’s Brief at pp. 2-4.

As will be discussed in further detail below, these allegations are demonstrably wrong in a number of critical respects.

(i) Allegation: “... [on] ... April 10, 1997 the government disclosed for the first time that it had reviewed tapes of all of Mr. Pelullo’s [prison] conversations.... ” Fact: The government attorneys handling the Newark prosecution never reviewed the prison tapes. Before and during the 1997 trial they advised defendant’s counsel of the existence of taped recordings of certain of defendant’s prison telephone conversations. They did not listen to these conversations or read the transcripts. They made available to defense counsel (but did not themselves read) transcripts of conversations defendant had with Andrew Heine.

(ii) Allegation: “The government’s possession and review of tapes of these attorney client privileged communications was not disclosed before or during trial.” Fact: The circumstance that the United States Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania possessed and reviewed these tapes was disclosed to defense counsel before and during trial, and after receipt of the Andrew Heine transcripts defendant did not pursue the matter further, despite the fact that earlier in the proceedings defendant had moved for the production of the tapes. The tapes and transcripts were not attorney client privileged communications.

Allegation: “Included within these attorney client tapes were hundreds of conversation Mr. Pelullo had with his attorneys in this case, and other connected cases, including the Philadelphia and Jacksonville criminal actions. As to this case, Mr. Pelullo discussed his defense strategy with Edward Plaza and David Fassett, his court appointed attorneys.” Fact: None of the intercepted conversations were with defendant’s attorneys in this case. Instead of “hundreds” of conversations between defendant and his attorneys, an assistant United States Attorney in the Eastern District reviewed two tape recordings of conversations between defendant and attorneys. These attorneys and conversations had nothing to do with this case and, as will be discussed below, the conversations were not protected by the attorney client privilege. In addition, the government in the Eastern District screened calls between defendant and persons known to be attorneys, and there occurred seven such calls which were neither listened to nor transcribed.

At the time when defendant’s motion for reconsideration was under review the Assistant United States Attorneys handling this case were unaware that any of the intercepted conversations were with attorneys and so represented to the court. The prison authorities had been directed to furnish tapes of telephone calls to designated numbers, none of which were telephone numbers of attorneys. At argument the government raised the possibility that during a telephone call defendant ..might have requested the person ■with whom he was talking to place a third party call (a practice forbidden by prison rules) and that the third party might have been an attorney.

Based on the information available to me and the United States Attorney’s Office in New Jersey, I ruled as follows:

While Pelullo’s legal principles are sound, his factual premise, that the government obtained “all” of his conversations between June 28, 1995 and November 8, 1995, is. flawed. The subpoenas which were issued at the request of the United States Attorney’s Office in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania requested that FCI Fairton, New Jersey, where Pelullo was confined, to provide all recorded conversations of his during that period made to specifically identified telephone numbers. None of those numbers were those of the persons then representing defendant — Edward J. Plaza, Esq., David W. Fassett, Esq., or W. David Talbert, II, Esq.

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Related

Casey v. Lewis
834 F. Supp. 1553 (D. Arizona, 1992)
United States v. Pelullo
971 F. Supp. 159 (D. New Jersey, 1997)
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764 F. Supp. 1480 (S.D. Florida, 1991)
United States v. United Shoe MacHinery Corporation
89 F. Supp. 357 (D. Massachusetts, 1950)

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Bluebook (online)
5 F. Supp. 2d 285, 1998 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 8685, 1998 WL 312489, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-pelullo-njd-1998.