## Facts

- Louis A. Masterpol, a construction-company owner, was tried in federal court for defrauding a school district by overbilling for renovation work.
- At the fraud trial, former employees Daniel Tagliamonte and Royal Cooper testified that they were paid less than what Masterpol billed the customer.
- After the fraud trial but before sentencing, Masterpol met with Tagliamonte and Cooper and urged them to write letters to the sentencing judge recanting or modifying portions of their testimony.
- The letters asserted that the employees had received additional cash and/or gifts, seeking to undermine their trial testimony and improve Masterpol’s position at sentencing.
- Cooper’s letter was attached to Masterpol’s sentencing memorandum and filed with the district court; Tagliamonte’s letter was delivered to the judge by defense counsel at the sentencing hearing.
- A later indictment charged Masterpol with (1) obstruction of justice under 18 U.S.C. § 1503 (based on inducing recantation) and (2) aiding and abetting a false statement offense under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2 and 1001 (based on submitting Cooper’s allegedly false letter).
- A jury convicted Masterpol on both counts, and he appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether, after enactment of 18 U.S.C. § 1512 (witness tampering), the government may prosecute witness-tampering conduct under the omnibus clause of 18 U.S.C. § 1503.
2. Whether submitting an allegedly false witness letter to a federal district court in connection with sentencing supports a conviction for aiding and abetting a violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001 as charged.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit reversed the § 1503 conviction, holding that the charged witness-tampering conduct fell within § 1512 and could not be prosecuted under § 1503’s omnibus clause.
- The Second Circuit also reversed the § 1001 aiding-and-abetting conviction, concluding that the Cooper-letter submission did not support liability under § 1001 on the indictment’s theory and the statutory requirements.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the court’s opinion.

## Legal Principles

- When Congress enacts a more specific statute directed at witness tampering (§ 1512), that statute governs classic witness-tampering conduct and displaces use of the more general obstruction omnibus clause (§ 1503) for that conduct.
- A § 1503 prosecution is improper when the alleged obstructive act is the corrupt persuasion of witnesses to recant testimony directed to the court in a pending federal proceeding, because that conduct is addressed by § 1512.
- A conviction under § 1001 (and aiding and abetting under § 2) requires satisfaction of the statute’s elements as charged; submitting a witness’s letter to an Article III court in sentencing papers does not automatically establish § 1001 liability without fitting the charged jurisdictional and substantive predicates.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit set aside Masterpol’s convictions, ruling that Congress channeled witness-tampering prosecutions into § 1512 rather than § 1503’s omnibus clause and that the government’s § 1001 theory based on filing a witness letter at sentencing failed on the charged statutory elements.


United States v. Masterpol, 940 F.2d 760 (2d Cir. 1991)