United States v. Johnny Bronco

Johnny Bronco, appellant, was found guilty of three counterfeiting charges: conspiracy, possession and passing counterfeit money. These charges resulted from two independent sets of events. Bronco contends that the District Court erred when it denied his motion to sever the trial of the charge based on one set of events from the trial of the charges based on the other set of events. We agree.

Bronco was indicted for conspiracy to sell $3,000,000 in counterfeit money from July to September 1975. In the two other counts he was charged with possession of a counterfeit $100 bill on November 20, 1975 and with passing that bill with the intent to defraud.

Bronco moved to sever the conspiracy count from the other two counts before trial. The District Court denied Bronco’s motion after the government represented that it would prove that the sample counterfeit bills used in the conspiracy and the $100 bill passed in November came from the same manufacturer.

On the day before trial, the United States Attorney conceded that the government would not be able to prove that the bills came from the same source. Bronco renewed his motion to sever and later he raised the severance question in…