United States of America v. Hosseini

Filing 55

MEMORANDUM Order: Defendant Hosseini's Rule 60(b)(3) motion 52 is denied. For further details see Memorandum Order. Signed by the Honorable Milton I. Shadur on 5/11/2016:Mailed notice(clw, )

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE NORTHERN DISTRICT OF ILLINOIS
EASTERN DIVISION

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v.
AMIR HOSSEINI,
Defendant.

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Case No. 13 C 2472
(05 CR 254)

MEMORANDUM ORDER
In the opening paragraph of the April 2016 motion (the "Motion") by pro se litigant Amir
Hosseini ("Hosseini"), which seeks to invoke the highly restricted exception provided by
Fed. R. Civ. P. ("Rule") 60(d)(3) to the limited relief allowed by the rest of Rule 60, he has
charged that the judgment entered by this Court denying his earlier motion under 28 U.S.C.
§ 2255 "was procured by fraud upon the Court." Because that most recent attack by Hosseini has
leveled extraordinarily troubling charges of government misconduct, this Court promptly issued
a memorandum opinion and order that directed the government to respond to three questions that
were clearly at the core of Hosseini's most recent attack.
All 18 pages of Hosseini's current motion ring changes (in bell ringer terminology) on the
same bell, so that the government's just-received response justifies a swift denial of that motion.
At page 16 Hosseini captions his final subsection "The Records Do Not Lie." That is indeed
true, but what the government's response demonstrates is that it is not the records but Hosseini
himself who has departed from the truth.

What the government 's response has shown, supported by copies of the documents
themselves, is a total rebuttal of Hosseini's charges. Here is what that response reflects:
1.

All of the required redactions were made in the version of the indictment
delivered to the jury for use in its deliberations (Ex. A to the government's
response) -- redactions that followed to the letter this Court's rulings
striking portions of the Superseding Indictment: Paragraph 10(d) through
10(k) in Count One of the Superseding Indictment and all of Counts Five,
Twelve and Seventy-Two of that Superseding Indictment. 1

2.

As for the jury instructions delivered to the jurors for consideration during
their deliberations, a complete set of which has been tendered as Ex. B to
the government's response, they too were unexceptionable.

After this opinion, comprising what has been said to this point plus a statement of this
Court's ultimate ruling, had been dictated and was awaiting transcription, yesterday's mail
included the attached May 10 communication from Hosseini (Attachment 1) 2 accompanied by
these three documents certified by the Clerk's Office:
1.

a January 5, 2007 filing (Dkt. No. 261, "Government's Motion To Amend
Indictment To Correct Non-Substantive Errors) and its Ex. A (Dkt. 261-2),
a redacted Superseding Indictment that had in fact eliminated some
portions that this Court had previously stricken (Counts Five and

1

As the government's response states, some 11 pages relating to forfeiture allegations
were also eliminated from the version that went to the jury.
2

Attachment 1 also refers to other unrelated grievances that are rankling Hosseini. This
memorandum order does not treat with them except for his request for counsel, which is denied
because of the extremely limited scope of Rule 60(d)(3) and Hosseini's patent disentitlement to
relief under that Rule.
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Seventy-Two), but that Hosseini still claims were wrongfully retained in
the version that went to the jury at the end of the trial a few weeks later;
2.

a January 19, 2006 filing (Dkt. No. 107), which reproduced the
Superseding Indictment and naturally included the later-redacted portions;
and

3.

a July 21, 2005 filing (Dkt. No. 66), which reproduced the original
Indictment.

Although both the second and third of those documents are obviously irrelevant to the issues
raised by Hosseini, the first document requires a brief discussion that follows.
Comparison of that document with the government's Ex. A to its current response reveals
that the former but not the latter includes Count Twelve, which this Court also struck just before
the case went to trial on January 22, 2007. But the explanation is simple: Dkt. No. 279 in the
criminal case is the January 19 motion by Hosseini's trial counsel to dismiss Count Twelve,
while Dkt. No. 289 is the government's response filed the same day. Finally, Dkt. No. 292 is this
Court's memorandum opinion and order that granted the motion to dismiss Count Twelve on
January 22.
Because all three of those events took place after Hosseini's first document was filed on
January 7, 2007, there is no reason to question the government's response as to the version of the
Superseding Indictment that was sent to the jury, as explained in the portion of that response set
out as Attachment 2 to this opinion. Thus Hosseini's "fraud on the court" contention is totally
devoid of merit. If any such offense were indeed chargeable, it would have to be placed at
Hosseini's own doorstep -- but this Court will refrain from any such ruling, recognizing instead

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that his groundless suspicions confirm the wisdom embodied in Alexander Pope's aphorism in
An Essay On Criticism:
All seems Infected that th' infected spy,
As all looks yellow to the jaundic'd eye.
In sum, Hosseini's Rule 60(b)(3) motion is denied out of hand. Finally, it does not seem
to have occurred to Hosseini that abuse of the legal system tears at the societal fabric, just as the
crimes that led to his conviction and sentencing did. This Court (and our Court of Appeals as
well) have treated all of his legal challenges as serious matters -- but there is a limit. If he were
to persist in efforts that are as frivolous -- both factually and legally -- as those advanced in his
current motion, consideration would have to be given to the imposition of appropriate sanctions.

__________________________________________
Milton I. Shadur
Senior United States District Judge
Date: May 11, 2016

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ATTACHMENT 1

ATTACHMENT 2