United States v. Raymond Kennedy, Benjamin Kasprzak and Joseph Kasprzak, and James Alvanos, 291 F.2d 457, 2d Cir. (1961)

291 F.
2d 457
UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.
Raymond KENNEDY, Benjamin Kasprzak and Joseph
Kasprzak, and
James Alvanos, Defendants-Appellants.
No. 342, Docket 26663.
United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Argued May 11, 1961.
Decided June 20, 1961.
Henry A. Lowenberg, New York City, for defendants-appellants

Raymond Kennedy and James Alvanos.
Jacob P. Lefkowitz, New York City, for defendants-appellants Benjamin
Kasprzak and Joseph Kasprzak.
Daniel P. Hollman, New York City (Robert M. Morgenthau, U.S. Atty.,
for the Southern District of New York, New York City, Atty. for the
United States; Daniel P. Hollman and Irving Younger, Asst. U.S. Attys.,
New York City, of counsel), for plaintiff-appellee.
Before FRIENDLY and SMITH, Circuit Judges, and WATKINS, District
judge. 1
FRIENDLY, Circuit Judge.
Raymond Kennedy, Benjamin and Joseph Kasprzak, and James Alvanos appeal
from a judgment of the District Court for the Southern District of New York
convicting them upon a jury verdict. The indictment, filed April 11, 1960,
contained 182 counts. The first 181 charged substantive violations of the Hobbs
Act, 18 U.S.C. 1951, at various dates going back to April 1, 1955; the last
charged a conspiracy to violate it, beginning in 1952 and continuing up to the
date of the indictment. All four defendants were named in the conspiracy count.
Of the substantive counts, the first 152 charged Kennedy with obstructing
interstate commerce by extorting money on particular interstate shipments of
meat products and counts 153-176 and 177-181 charged Benjamin and Joseph
Kasprzak respectively with similar crimes. Alvanos was not named in the
substantive counts.
2
The trial began on August 23, 1960 and continued until September 21. At the
conclusion of the government's case, 41 substantive counts were dismissed on
the government's motion. After an afternoon's deliberation, the jury found the
defendants guilty on all counts that had been submitted to it. The Court
sentenced Kennedy to 15 years imprisonment, Benjamin Kasprzak to 10 years
and Joseph Kasprzak to 7 1/2 years, on each count on which they had been
convicted, the sentences on the various counts to be served concurrently.
Alvanos was sentenced to 10 years on the conspiracy count.
Appellants' claim of insufficiency of the evidence is so utterly frivolous that it

would not warrant mention save for the bearing that its answer has on other
aspects of the case. The evidence fairly 'shrieks the guilt of the parties,' Lutwak
v. United States, 1953, 344 U.S. 604, 619, 73 S.Ct. 481, 490, 97 L.Ed. 593. The
charge was that drivers, hauling carcasses of hogs from the midwest to packing
plants in New York, Jamaica and Brooklyn, were met at the packing plants by
defendants, who insisted, by actual or threatened force or violence, on being
paid an unloading fee. There was abundant testimony as to actual violence, as
to the display of knives and blackjacks, and as to threats of physical violence
and of delay in unloading and consequent spoilage. The only defense offered
was an attempt, which the jury could only have regarded as feeble in the
extreme, to show that defendants actually performed services in carrying meat
off the trucks, for which the Teamsters Union required that they receive a day's
pay.
The Court allowed various drivers who had paid the defendants to testify to
conversations with other drivers concerning threats defendants had made to the
latter, instructing the jury in each instance that the evidence was admitted not as
proof of the facts but to show the victims' state of mind. Proof of the state of
mind of the victim is relevant, indeed essential, to a prosecution for extortion,
and this may be evidenced by the victim's own testimony at the trial, Bianchi v.
United States, 8 Cir., 1955, 219 F.2d 182, 192 or pursuant to a recognized
exception to the hearsay rule, 6 Wigmore, Evidence (1940 ed.), 1730, by
statements made by him to others. Here a considerable number of the
informants themselves testified, as they did in United States v. Varlack, 2 Cir.,
1955, 225 F.2d 665, 673, United States v. Palmiotti, 2 Cir., 1958, 254 F.2d 491,
497, and United States v. Stirone, D.C.W.D.Pa.1957, 168 F.Supp. 490, 497,
affirmed 3 Cir., 1958, 262 F.2d 571, reversed on other grounds, 1960, 361 U.S.
212, 80 S.Ct. 270, 4 L.Ed.2d 252. We all agree that in such instances the
evidence was properly admitted; indeed, in these instances, the limiting

instruction was more favorable than defendants deserved. However, there were
also instances where the victim's informant was not called and some where he
was not even named.
5
My brothers think that even that testimony was properly received for the
limited purpose stated by the judge, although a trial court would have discretion
to refuse such evidence where its usefulness to show the victim's state of mind
was outweighed by its likely prejudicial effect on the jury, 31 C.J.S. Evidence,
159, and cases cited, and the victim was himself available to testify as to his
state of mind; they believe there was no abuse of discretion in receiving the
evidence here.
In my view it was error to receive evidence of threats to informants not called as

witnesses, even to prove the victim's state of mind; for his state of mind is
irrelevant unless it springs from action by the defendant and the hearsay rule
forbids the use of the informant's statement to show that this had occurred.
Where the sole evidence offered by the prosecution in an extortion case was a
victim's testimony that he had paid money to the defendant because numerous
other persons, not called as witnesses, had told him of threats by the defendant
under similar circumstances, I should suppose a court would reverse for
violation of the hearsay rule and not, as my brothers think, for insufficiency of
the evidence; if that be so, I cannot see it is any the less error to receive such
evidence where the testimony of threats to informants not called as witnesses is
merely superimposed upon testimony as to fear caused by threats to informants
who were so called or to the victim himself. None of the cases cited by the
Government, save possibly Nick v. United States, 8 Cir., 1941, 122 F.2d 660,
670-671, 138 A.L.R. 791, supports the admission of such testimony, and even
that is doubtful since Kaimann, the 'third person' there, had himself been on the
stand, had testified to his remark to the victim and had at least been subject to
cross-examination as to what lay behind it even if he had not spelled this out. In
United States v. Compagna, 2 Cir., 1944, 146 F.2d 524, the issue was whether
witnesses who testified to payments under threat of strikes might also say they
had been moved to pay by fear of violence during the strikes, such as had been
encountered in the past; their testimony related to their own previous
experiences at the defendants' hands, as to which they were subject to crossexamination. There was thus no hearsay issue; the question was whether such
testimony, which all agreed would be admissible on substantive charges, was
also receivable where the sole charge was conspiracy. However, and here is
where it is important that the proof in this case was merely cumulative, what I
consider the error in receiving this evidence does not call for reversal, since the
Government's case had been proved to the hilt without it and, as the sentences
were concurrent, there is no need to analyze the transcript, of over 3000 pages,
to determine whether this is so as to each of the 141 counts on which various
defendants were convicted, Lawn v. United States, 1958, 355 U.S. 339, 362, 78
S.Ct. 311, 2 L.Ed.2d 321; excising the evidence that I think was erroneously
admitted, there was overwhelming proof on the conspiracy count and on many
substantive counts as well. It is quite impossible to believe, for example, that
the jury which had heard a victim tell how Kennedy 'jumped on the trailer and
started throwing the carcasses, pigs, down on the street,' and how on another
occasion 'Benny popped me in the neck and knocked me down on my knees,' at
the same time imparting the cheering information 'Smart guys like you come up
here popping off your mouth is likely to find themselves floating down the
river,' would have found much had been added by the victim's testimony of
what others drivers had told him.
7
The serious question raised by appellants is whether reversal is required

because of remarks by the judge during the trial. The prevailing atmosphere
was, indeed, unfortunate; there was altogether too much altercation between the
judge and defense counsel. If the incidents were to be considered alone, as they
appear when assembled in some seventy typewritten pages of appendix to
appellants' briefs, we should deem it our duty to reverse, as our colleagues in
the First Circuit have recently done, Killilea v. United States, 1 Cir., 1961, 287
F.2d 212, 216, even though many of the episodes were in no small measure
provoked by defense counsel and they were not so grave as in the case cited.
However, quite a different impression of the importance of these incidents is
formed when the 3000 page transcript of the month long trial is read as a
whole. Moreover, this was not a case where there was a sharp factual issue, as
in United States v. DeSisto, 2 Cir., 1961, 289 F.2d 833; defendants had not
testified and the only issue of fact was whether the jury would disbelieve
prosecution witnesses whose testimony had not been challenged in any
effective way. Under all the circumstances we do not believe reversal to be
required, 28 U.S.C. 2111.
Affirmed.
United States District Judge for the Northern and Southern Districts of West
Virginia, sitting by designation

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291 F.

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee,

United States Court of Appeals Second Circuit.

Henry A. Lowenberg, New York City, for defendants-appellants

Appellants' claim of insufficiency of the evidence is so utterly frivolous that it

evidence was properly admitted; indeed, in these instances, the limiting

In my view it was error to receive evidence of threats to informants not called as

The serious question raised by appellants is whether reversal is required

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