US v. Pilarinos, 864 F. 2d 253 - Court of Appeals, 2nd Circuit 1988

Defendant-appellant Timothy Pilarinos appeals from a judgment of conviction entered after a five-day jury trial in the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Stanton, J.). Arrested for his participation in an undercover operation designed to identify taxpayers who bribe officials of the Internal Revenue Service ( IRS ), Pilarinos was charged with and convicted of (1) conspiring to violate the federal bribery laws, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 201(b) (1982 & Supp. IV 1986) and 371 (1982) (Count One), and (2) bribing 254*254 an employee of the IRS, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 201(b)(1) (1982 & Supp. IV 1986) and 18 U.S.C. § 2 (1982) (Count Two). He was sentenced to imprisonment for eighteen months and fined $20,000 on the conspiracy count; he received a suspended sentence, with a three year period of probation, on the substantive count. As a special condition of probation, the district court ordered Pilarinos to resolve any outstanding tax liabilities. Special assessments totalling $100 also were imposed. On appeal, Pilarinos challenges the district court\u27s instruction on entrapment, arguing that because the court foreclosed the jury from finding that the two middlemen in the undercover operation were government agents, he was denied a derivative entrapment defense. Pilarinos also contends that the district court erred in admitting into evidence a telephone conversation he claims occurred after the termination of the charged conspiracy. Because we find that neither the government nor the middlemen induced the defendant to pay the bribe, and that a statement made during the telephone conversation by defendant\u27s agent was admissible, we affirm the conviction