United States v. Lee

MEMORANDUM *

Defendant Daniel Lee was convicted of bribery of a former public official, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 201 (c)(1)(A), and conspiracy to bribe a public official, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371 . He appeals his conspiracy conviction and challenges the calculation of his sentence. We affirm the conspiracy conviction but vacate his sentence and remand for resentencing.

There was ample evidence to convict Lee of conspiracy to bribe a public official. At trial, Leland Sustaire testified that, while he was an INS official, he entered into an agreement with Lee to take bribes in exchange for illegally obtaining and expediting green cards for Lee’s customers. Sustaire further testified that he took these bribes on what was generally a monthly basis between mid-1993 and the end of 1995. The government corroborated this testimony with evidence that Lee himself admitted in 1998 that he “in fact had been bribing Mr. Sustaire since 1993 and ... paid him between $200,000 to $300,000 in bribes.” From this evidence alone, a rational juror could easily have found beyond a reasonable doubt that Lee had been involved with Sustaire in a conspiracy to bribe a public official, and that…