United States v. D'Amato
United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit
39 F.3d 1249 (1994)
Facts
Armand D’Amato (defendant) practiced as an attorney in New York State. His brother, Alfonse D’Amato (Senator D’Amato), was a United States senator from New York and a member of the Senate committee overseeing defense procurement programs. D’Amato was hired by Charles Gardner to provide services to Unisys Corporation, which sold radar missile-control systems to the federal government. D’Amato’s services included lobbying his brother on behalf of Unisys. Gardner instructed D’Amato in the manner of structuring his billings, which concealed D’Amato’s relationship with Unisys and his lobbying activities. A report from a Unisys internal investigation into unethical practices stated that Gardner used D’Amato to access Senator D’Amato. At trial, the prosecution offered no evidence that D’Amato knew Gardner was not authorized to instruct him in billing, that his payments were illegal, or that he knew Gardner personally benefited from their arrangement. D’Amato was convicted of mail fraud for structuring his billings to hide his lobbying role of lobbying his brother on behalf of Unisys from those in control of corporate funds. D’Amato appealed his conviction.
Rule of Law
Issue
Holding and Reasoning (Winter, J.)
What to do next…
Here's why 707,000 law students have relied on our case briefs:
- Written by law professors and practitioners, not other law students. 44,500 briefs, keyed to 983 casebooks. Top-notch customer support.
- The right amount of information, includes the facts, issues, rule of law, holding and reasoning, and any concurrences and dissents.
- Access in your classes, works on your mobile and tablet. Massive library of related video lessons and high quality multiple-choice questions.
- Easy to use, uniform format for every case brief. Written in plain English, not in legalese. Our briefs summarize and simplify; they don’t just repeat the court’s language.
