## Facts

- Nelson Valdes was a detective with the District of Columbia Metropolitan Police Department.
- William Blake was a paid Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) informant who was introduced to Valdes as a “judge.”
- Valdes gave Blake his business card and cell phone number and told Blake to call him if Blake ever needed a favor.
- The FBI instructed Blake to see whether Valdes would provide police information in exchange for something of value.
- To set up the operation, the FBI entered five fictitious names, with fictitious addresses and license plate numbers, into a law-enforcement database.
- Blake told Valdes that certain individuals supposedly owed Blake money and asked Valdes to look them up in the police database.
- Valdes agreed to perform the first lookup; Blake gave Valdes $50, and Valdes ran the search and provided the results to Blake over the phone.
- When Blake asked what he owed Valdes, Valdes replied “just a thank you.”
- Blake later requested additional searches and suggested meeting in person to exchange the information; Blake and the FBI arranged in-person meetings so Blake could offer Valdes cash.
- Over the next week, Blake and Valdes met twice, and Blake paid Valdes $200 at each meeting while Valdes completed four additional database searches and provided the results.
- Valdes was indicted on three counts of bribery under 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(2)(A) and (C).
- A jury acquitted Valdes of bribery but convicted him on three counts of the lesser-included offense of accepting an illegal gratuity under 18 U.S.C. § 201(c)(1)(B).
- On appeal, Valdes argued that the evidence was insufficient because the government did not prove his database searches (or sharing the results) were an “official act” under § 201, and he also challenged the jury instruction defining “official act.”

## Issues

1. Whether a police detective’s paid searches of law-enforcement databases and disclosure of the results constituted an “official act” within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 201(a)(3) and § 201(c)(1)(B).
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to sustain Valdes’s illegal-gratuity convictions where the government did not identify a specific governmental “question” or “matter” on which Valdes made a “decision or action.”
3. Whether the district court’s jury instruction incorrectly defined “official act” in a manner that allowed conviction based on misuse of official position or access rather than action on a qualifying governmental “question” or “matter.”

## Decision

- The en banc D.C. Circuit reversed Valdes’s convictions for accepting illegal gratuities under 18 U.S.C. § 201(c)(1)(B).
- The court held the government failed to prove the required statutory element that Valdes accepted money “for or because of any official act.”
- Interpreting § 201(a)(3), the court concluded an “official act” requires a “decision or action” on a specific and focused governmental “question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy” that is pending, or may by law be brought, before the official.
- Valdes’s conduct—running ad hoc database queries and relaying the results for cash—was treated as misuse of access, not a governmental decision or action on an identifiable matter within the statute’s scope.
- The court also held the jury instruction was erroneous because it effectively permitted conviction for any act facilitated by Valdes’s official position, without requiring a link to a qualifying “question” or “matter.”

## Legal Principles

- Under 18 U.S.C. § 201(c)(1)(B), an illegal gratuity conviction requires proof that the defendant accepted something of value “for or because of any official act” performed or to be performed.
- Section 201(a)(3) defines “official act” as a “decision or action” on a “question, matter, cause, suit, proceeding or controversy” that is pending or may by law be brought before a public official in an official capacity.
- The “question” or “matter” must be a specific, identifiable unit of governmental business susceptible to governmental disposition; it is not satisfied by every task a public employee performs or every improper use of government resources.
- Selling access to nonpublic tools or channels (such as law-enforcement databases), without a tie to a qualifying governmental matter and a decision or action on that matter, does not meet § 201’s “official act” requirement.
- A jury instruction misstates the law if it allows conviction based on acts made possible by official status alone, without requiring action on a qualifying “question” or “matter” as the statute demands.
- Where the government’s proof does not establish an “official act” as defined by § 201(a)(3), the evidence is insufficient and the conviction under § 201(c)(1)(B) cannot stand.

## Conclusion

The en banc D.C. Circuit reversed Valdes’s illegal-gratuity convictions because the government did not show that his paid database searches and disclosures involved a “decision or action” on any specific governmental “question” or “matter” within 18 U.S.C. § 201(a)(3); without that statutory “official act,” the convictions under § 201(c)(1)(B) lacked sufficient evidentiary support, and the jury instruction defining “official act” was also legally wrong.


Valdes v. United States, 475 F.3d 1319 (2007)