## Facts

- Federal prosecutors charged five defendants with conspiring to sell two rail carloads of whiskey above Office of Price Administration (OPA) ceiling prices during World War II.
- The whiskey was shipped in December 1943 to Francisco Distributing Company, a licensed wholesale liquor dealer in San Francisco, which acted as the apparent consignee and seller.
- Goldsmith owned Francisco; Weiss served as its sales manager.
- Evidence showed Goldsmith and Weiss arranged for Francisco to function as an intermediary for an undisclosed owner while distributing the whiskey through “legal” channels.
- Feigenbaum, Blumenthal, and Abel operated independent retail businesses and functioned as salesmen who placed whiskey with taverns and other buyers, collected payments, and remitted proceeds under arrangements made with Goldsmith and Weiss.
- Goldsmith’s and Weiss’s admissions established their knowledge of the undisclosed ownership and Francisco’s intermediary role; the salesmen were not shown to have known those internal arrangements.
- All defendants were tried jointly and convicted of a single-count conspiracy with multiple overt acts; the court of appeals affirmed.

## Issues

1. Whether the proof showed multiple conspiracies rather than the single conspiracy charged, creating a prejudicial variance.
2. Whether admissions by Goldsmith and Weiss, admitted only against them with limiting instructions, unfairly prejudiced the salesmen in a joint trial.
3. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support finding that all defendants joined one overall conspiracy to make over-ceiling sales, even if the salesmen did not know the undisclosed owner’s identity or all plan details.
4. Whether a conspiracy to violate the Emergency Price Control Act, coupled with an overt act, is punishable under the federal conspiracy statute.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court affirmed the convictions.
- The Court held the evidence supported one overall conspiracy to sell the whiskey at over-ceiling prices through the guise of lawful wholesale transactions, not a series of separate conspiracies.
- The Court distinguished prior multiple-conspiracy precedent, concluding the various arrangements were essential and connected steps in one continuous scheme involving the same whiskey and distribution effort.
- The Court found no reversible error from admitting Goldsmith’s and Weiss’s admissions because the trial court limited their use to those defendants and instructed the jury to consider each defendant separately.
- The Court held the competent evidence permitted finding that each defendant knowingly participated in the illegal sales plan, even if some participants lacked knowledge of all identities and internal details.
- The Court confirmed that conspiracy to violate the Emergency Price Control Act, accompanied by an overt act, is prosecutable under the federal conspiracy statute.

## Legal Principles

- A single conspiracy may be found where separate agreements are interdependent steps toward one unlawful objective; analytical separability does not require treating the case as multiple conspiracies.
- A conspirator need not know every participant or every detail, so long as the evidence supports knowing participation in the common illegal plan.
- In a joint trial, co-defendant admissions may be admitted with limiting instructions restricting their use to the declarant, and such admissions do not require reversal absent demonstrated prejudice.
- A variance claim turns on whether the evidence proves materially different conspiracies than charged and whether the difference caused unfairness at trial.
- Conspiracy to violate federal price-control laws, with an overt act in furtherance, is punishable under the federal conspiracy statute.

## Conclusion

The Court held that the defendants’ coordinated efforts to distribute specific whiskey shipments at unlawful over-ceiling prices constituted one integrated conspiracy, that the jury could be trusted to follow limiting instructions regarding co-defendants’ admissions, and that the evidence supported all convictions under the federal conspiracy statute.


Blumenthal v. United States, 332 U.S. 539 (1947)