United States v. Lingala

91 F.4th 685

UNITED STATES of America v. Narsan LINGALA, Appellant

No. 22-2060

United States Court of Appeals, Third Circuit

Argued on November 1, 2023

Filed: January 30, 2024

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of New Jersey (D.C. No. 3-19-cr-00110-001) District Judge: Honorable Freda L. Wolfson

Jonathan M. Petty, 22 Kirkpatrick Street, P.O. Box 915, New Brunswick, NJ 08903, Stephen Turano [Argued], 100 Riverside Drive, Room 1d, New York, NY 10024, Counsel for Defendant-Appellant

Sabrina G. Comizzoli [Argued], Mark E. Coyne, Office of United States Attorney, 970 Broad Street, Room 700, Newark, NJ 07102, Counsel for Appellee

Before: CHAGARES, Chief Judge, HARDIMAN, and MONTGOMERY-REEVES, Circuit Judges.

OPINION OF THE COURT

HARDIMAN, Circuit Judge.

A jury convicted Narsan Lingala on four counts related to the attempted murder of his ex-wife. Lingala filed this appeal claiming the District Court made jurisdictional, procedural, constitutional, and evidentiary errors. We will affirm.

I

A

In 2012, Lingala and his wife, Saroja Alkanti, divorced after more than 15 years of marriage. The divorce was contentious, and in early 2018, Lingala was arrested for failing to pay alimony and child support. While detained in Middlesex County, Lingala informed his cellmate Carlo Commesso that he wanted Alkanti dead. On his own initiative, Commesso responded by pretending to know someone named "Manny" who could kill Alkanti. Commesso acquired Lingala's New Jersey address so they could keep in touch. A few days later, Commesso contacted Lingala and asked him to send his phone number, which Lingala eventually did. Commesso then began cooperating with law enforcement. To assist them, Commesso introduced Lingala via text message to Carlos Teixeira, a detective and sergeant at the Middlesex County Prosecutor's Office, who was posing as Manny the hitman.

Between June 20 and August 18, 2018, New Jersey authorities recorded 13 phone calls and various texts between Manny and Lingala, some of which were initiated by Lingala. On July 27, Lingala, who was in Indiana at the time, told Manny he was "serious" about the murder-for-hire and asked for a "ballpark idea" on the cost to kill Alkanti. Supp. App. 15-17. In furtherance of the scheme, Lingala drove from Indiana to New Jersey on August 18 to meet Manny to discuss the details.

Lingala's girlfriend, Sandya Reddy, accompanied him to the meeting, which occurred in a mall parking lot. During the meeting, Lingala offered Manny a down payment of $1,000 to kill Alkanti. To help Manny do so, Lingala disclosed Alkanti's name, age, address, phone number, place of employment, and how she got to work. With Reddy's assistance, Lingala also provided Manny with a picture of Alkanti and her residence. Law enforcement arrested Lingala and Reddy at the scene immediately after the meeting.

B

After his arrest, Lingala was charged with murder-for-hire by the State of New Jersey. While detained on those charges, Lingala tried to prevent Reddy from testifying against him at trial. Between October 2018 and January 2019, Lingala repeatedly threatened Reddy in letters urging her not to plead guilty or testify against him. For example, Lingala wrote:

If you are going to testify against me, then I do not have any choice to defend myself and you will be in very bad shape for the rest of your life!! I will make sure your daughter gets what she deserves. Supp. App. 87 (underlining in original).

Remember if you damage me, I will not keep quiet. You will also go down with me. Supp. App. 71.

You are in danger if you take the plea. I will also be forced to use the statements you made, which will put you and your daughter in worst situation [sic]. Supp. App. 82.

You will not survive a trial against me. Do you understand???? Supp. App. 84.

All the letters the Government eventually introduced into evidence at Lingala's trial were either provided to the Government by Reddy's defense counsel or taken from Reddy's cell by the FBI after she was detained for her involvement in the murder-for-hire scheme.¹

C

Along with the threatening letters he wrote to Reddy, Lingala trained his attention on Sergeant Teixeira. Lingala enlisted fellow inmate Daryl Underwood to bribe Teixeira (or kill him if he did not accept the bribe). Lingala offered to pay Underwood $100,000 to obtain a video recording of Teixeira accepting a bribe. Lingala asked his brother in India for the necessary funds over three-way calls that Underwood's brother helped set up. Lingala's brother subsequently arranged for the delivery of $20,000 to Underwood's brother, $4,000 of which was deposited into Underwood's commissary account. This large deposit drew the attention of jail authorities, who discovered the illicit arrangement by listening to the recorded calls. Underwood pleaded guilty to misprision and agreed to assist with the investigation and testify against Lingala at trial.

D

On February 1, 2019, the United States filed a criminal complaint against Lingala for his role in the murder-for-hire scheme, so New Jersey dismissed its case. During Lingala's transfer to federal custody, FBI agents seized four envelopes in his possession containing almost 1,000 pages of documents. The FBI provided the seized documents to a "taint" team within the United States Attorney's Office to review them and remove any privileged material before turning anything over to the prosecution team.² The taint team consisted of one non-lawyer from the FBI and one Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA), neither of whom helped prosecute Lingala. After review by the FBI agent, the AUSA "provided the materials [the agent] designated as non-privileged" to the lawyer who was prosecuting Lingala. Dist. Ct. Dkt. No. 35-1, at 1. The Government admits that the production of documents by the taint team to the prosecution team included at least one potentially privileged document—correspondence "from an unknown attorney relating to an unfamiliar civil litigation." App. 38. Because of that disclosure, the prosecution team returned the documents to the taint team for further review. Following that review, the AUSA released to the prosecution team the documents he designated as non-privileged. The AUSA subsequently produced copies of all seized documents to Lingala.

Lingala moved to suppress evidence of the seized documents, claiming the seizure of his papers violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution. Further objecting to the taint team's review of his papers and unilateral determination of any privilege in the documents, Lingala urged the District Court to disqualify the prosecution team from the case because it had benefitted from viewing the documents. The Government responded that it had not used the documents seized from Lingala for any purpose—and would not do so at trial. The District Court denied the motion to suppress and to disqualify the prosecution team.

E

Following the federal criminal complaint charging Lingala with conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire, Lingala was charged in a superseding indictment with conspiracy to commit murder-for-hire (Count One) and murder-for-hire (Count Two), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1958 and 2; and witness tampering as to his co-conspirator Reddy (Count Three) and Sergeant Teixeira (Count Four), in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1512(b).

In an omnibus pretrial motion, Lingala sought both to sever the two witness tampering charges (Counts Three and Four) from the murder-for-hire charges (Counts One and Two) and dismiss the indictment for lack of jurisdiction. Lingala claimed that the witness tampering charges "d[id] not relate physically or temporally with the attempted murder charge" under Rule 8(a) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure and that their joinder was "profoundly prejudicial" under Rule 14(a) because he would be deprived of his right to cross-examine Reddy and testify on the witness tampering charges. App. 78. Lingala also argued that federal agents had improperly manufactured federal jurisdiction to prosecute a primarily local crime, relying on the Second Circuit's decision dismissing an indictment in United States v. Archer, 486 F.2d 670 (2d Cir. 1973). The District Court denied both motions.

To prove Lingala's witness tampering as to Reddy, the Government introduced into evidence letters that Lingala sent to her. Lingala objected that the letters were inadmissible. The District Court rejected each of his arguments.

After seven days of trial, the jury convicted Lingala on all four counts. The District Court sentenced him to 222 months' imprisonment and three years' supervised release. Lingala filed a timely notice of appeal, challenging only his judgment of conviction.

II³

Lingala asserts that the District Court should have dismissed the indictment because the Government manufactured federal jurisdiction. We apply a mixed standard of review to the District Court's decision not to dismiss the indictment, so we review its legal conclusions de novo and we review challenges to factual findings for clear error. United States v. Menendez, 831 F.3d 155, 164 (3d Cir. 2016).

The applicable statute prohibits traveling interstate or using any "facility of interstate or foreign commerce" with the intent to further a murder-for-hire. 18 U.S.C. § 1958(a). It also defines "facility of interstate or foreign commerce" as "includ[ing] means of transportation and communication." Id. § 1958(b)(2). The indictment alleged that Lingala had engaged in interstate travel by driving from Indiana to New Jersey and that he used multiple facilities of interstate commerce: (i) a car; (ii) a cellphone to make calls to Manny, who was in New Jersey; and (iii) the internet, along with Reddy, to retrieve photos of Alkanti and information about her. The District Court concluded that Lingala's use of these facilities of interstate commerce and his travel across state lines, as alleged in the indictment, each satisfied the...