Viertel v. USA
Filing
11
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER OF TRANSFER: The Clerk of the Court is directed to transmit this Order and the attached motion to the Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1631. (Signed by Judge John G. Koeltl on 1/6/2012) (ab)
United States District Court
Southern District of New York
__________________________________
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
- against -
01 Cr. 571-3 (JGK)
08 Civ. 7512 (JGK)
CHRISTIAN VIERTEL,
Defendant.
__________________________________
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND
ORDER OF TRANSFER
CHRISTIAN VIERTEL,
Petitioner
- against UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Respondent.
__________________________________
JOHN G. KOELTL, District Judge:
The Court has received the attached ex parte motion by the
petitioner for “Vacatur of Judgment of Conviction grounded upon
ab ovo deficit of interstate [§ 1341] jurisdiction over
international deliverances [via air cargo export], divesting
Federal Courts of adjudicatory powers.”
As explained below, the
Court determines that the petitioner’s motion is a successive
petition for habeas corpus within the meaning of the AntiTerrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act (AEDPA), and therefore
in the interests of justice transfers the motion to the Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1631.
See Liriano v. United States, 95 F.3d 119, 123 (2d Cir. 1996).
1
I.
Under the AEDPA, “[b]efore a second or successive
application [for habeas corpus] . . . is filed in the district
court, the applicant shall move in the appropriate court of
appeals for an order authorizing the district court to consider
the application.”
2255(h).
28 U.S.C. § 2244(b)(3)(A); see also id. at §
This requirement includes applications under 28 U.S.C.
§ 2255 to vacate, set aside or correct a sentence. See, e.g.,
Negron v. United States, 394 F. App’x. 788, 792 (2d Cir. 2010);
Liriano, 95 F.3d at 122-23.
The petitioner has already filed one petition for habeas
corpus pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255, which was denied by this
Court.
See Viertel v. United States, No. 08 Civ. 7512, 2009 WL
22863 (S.D.N.Y. Jan. 5, 2009), Docket No. 3.
The Court of
Appeals for the Second Circuit denied the petitioner’s motion
for a certificate of appealability from this Court’s denial of
the petitioner’s § 2255 petition in November 2009.
See Viertel
v. United States, No. 08 Civ. 7512, Docket No. 7.
The issue is whether the petitioner’s current motion for
“Vacatur of Judgment of Conviction,” which is not explicitly
styled as a petition for habeas corpus pursuant to § 2255,
should be construed as one, such that it is “a second or
successive petition” within the meaning of the § 2244.
2
Where a
petitioner has already had a § 2255 motion denied on the merits,
a district court may construe the petitioner’s subsequent postconviction motions to vacate the petitioner’s sentence as
successive § 2255 petitions without providing the petitioner
with prior notice and the opportunity to withdraw the subsequent
post-conviction motion.
Jiminian v. Nash, 245 F.3d 144, 148 (2d
Cir. 2001) (Sotomayor, J.); see also Ching v. United States, 298
F.3d 174, 176 (2d Cir. 2002) (Sotomayor, J.).
Our Court of Appeals has explained that Ҥ 2255 is
generally the proper vehicle for a federal prisoner's challenge
to his conviction and sentence, as it encompasses claims that
‘the sentence was imposed in violation of the Constitution or
laws of the United States, or that the court was without
jurisdiction to impose such sentence, or that the sentence was
in excess of the maximum authorized by law, or is otherwise
subject to collateral attack.’”
Jiminian, 245 F.3d at 146-47
(quoting 28 U.S.C. § 2255).
The current motion plainly seeks to attack the petitioner’s
underlying conviction.
The petitioner argues in substance that
his conviction was invalid “ab ovo” because the “interstate”
element of the mail fraud statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1341, was not
satisfied in this case.
(Pet’s. Mem. at 1-7.)
The petitioner
claims that the Court lacked jurisdiction over him, and asks for
“vacatur of the [j]udgment of conviction and for vacatur of the
3
underlying indictment."
(Pet's. Mem. at 10.)
Because the
petitioner's motion is in substance a collateral attack on his
underlying conviction, it should be construed as a successive
petition pursuant to
§
2255, and transferred to the Court of
Appeals pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§
1631 for a determination of
whether the petitioner may proceed in this Court.
Liriano, 95
F.3d at 123.
CONCLUSION
The Clerk of the Court is directed to transmit this Order
and the attached motion to the Court of Appeals for the Second
Circuit pursuant to 28 U.S.C.
§
1631.
SO ORDERED.
Dated:
New York, New York
January 6, 2012
John G. Koe1tl
District Judge
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JOHN G. KOEL.TL
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3The District Court resorted to DENIAL as regression into those dark ages
which had deemed genuine and new information as sinful and as a punishable
attack on intellectual rulers~ even if axiomatic proof~ exculpatory
documents and sworn statements point otherwise contradicting the fabricated
evidence presented at trial by the ruling government~ all of them dot.gov
dependents. The Court's seriatim DENIAL of COMPULSORY/MANDATORY NOTICES OF
OPEN & CLEAN PROOF which, inter alia fact & data-driven, underscored that
mail-count-#3 was fatally corrupted~ reached Kafkaesque levels of conscious
avoidance to forego the destruction of a house of biased gov.cards:
a) unidentified "international freight company" was, in fact~ LUFTHANSA
GERMAN AIRLINES - a FAA licensed INTERNATIONAL AIRCARRIER prohibited from
providing UNITED STATES INTERSTATE CABOTAGE CARRIAGE~ thus a cargo/mail
"LuftfrachtfGhrer" entirely immune to §1341 engulfment) /con't FN Pg5
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- > 0012128057912
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5/12
EquaUy important to zee people of the United States and to non-residents and
occasional alien visitor's are to understand what "duties" hundreds of thousands
of public laws create. All U.s. diplomatic posts overseas issue VISAS, but just a
few allow access to its "public" libraries which stock less than 2% of currently
valid public laws in document format, but point to internet resources like
http://www.gpoaccess.gov!plaws/.asite. which has expired. However, some
worried public information officers at outposts point to Congress, where another
newer site: www.crs.gov reports for "mlJt ~eolllt".
http://opencrs.com/document/94-166/2010-03-26/ is such a site, which openly
excludes 18 U.S.c. §1341 from its analysis of "Extraterritorial Application of
American Criminal Law, March 26, 2010 - 94-166".
x.
Applicant- who acts as visitor pro se and is not lawyer'd-up - has warranted
reliance upon congressionaL declarations. American Jurisprudence reality is
hopelessly kept treacherous on "Staatsraison" grounds, and whether local
defense counseL competes for the ineffectiveness [lAC] trophy, or CJAs are in a
venal panic over poverty from less or no future CJA-jobs, or are spell-bound rent
seekers under hyped-up toxic "air of kowtow to federal almightiness", fact
remains that 2-branch-rich hydras constitute an adversarial government
b) DEPARTURE AIRPORT:was OUTSIDE of the Southern District of New York
inside NEWARK NJ. At Liberty Airport (no pun intended),
c) DEPARTURE DATE 6/28/1996 WAS ALSO CHARGED WRONG: LH Flight 4e3 operating
June 29, 1996 carried the "substantive document" air-cargo via Frankfurt to
Munich on LH Flight 142/3e June 1996
d) ARRIVAL AIRPORT DESTINATION was botched and not «as marked" by this
government charge, as the real arrival was NOT uOffenburg", but MUNICH
AIRPORT. Germany
e) addressee was NOT Burda Holding in Offenburg. but M&M Air-Cargo in
Munich Airport~ Germany, and
f) "originaL invoice" charged as a $8,12e (Agate Invoice) - but was not
inside that export shipment at all, because this once & only "Agat@" fake
printed by Burda Media'S scriveners and certain other ORIGINALS were kept
at Burda Media NY in expectancy of forensic auditors July 9, 1996
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apparatJ,!.s, which in this case played "clueless" what "interstate commerce"
really defines, or, argumendo, those two dot.gov branches were the type of
"scienter" Justice Sutherland calls "fouL" actors [supra] whose bad faith resulted
in powerful malfeasance.
xi.
The Supreme Court issued its conclusions which Justice Scalia's tought to the
Second Circuit in Morr;son vs National Australia Bank Ltd. Et al , SCOTUS 08·1191
of June 24, 2010: "It is a "longstanding principle of American law 'that legislation
of Congress, unless a contrary intent appears, is meant to apply only within the
territor;al jurisdiction of the United States: " EEOC v. Arabian American OJ[ Co.
I
499 U. S. 244, 248 (Aramco). When a statute gives no clear indication of an
extraterritorial application,
xii.
;t has none "(emphasis added).
"The intention of the legislature is to be collected from the words they employ.
Where there is no ambiguity in the words, there is no room for construction. The
case must be a strong one indeed, which would jusUfy a Court in departing from
the plain meaning
Of words ...
in search
Of an intention which the words
themselves did not suggest." United States v. Wiltberger, 18 U.S. 76, 95-96, 5 L.
Ed. 37 (1820) (Marshall. LJ.) was relied upon in the Second Circuit in 130 F.3d
547 (1997)
xiii.
Haines vs Kerner, 404 U.S. 519, controls here and restraints obstacles in the
procedural arsenal Federal Courts may no longer employ in its derailment of
legitimate and substantial complaints as this one, which raise a very serious
jurisdictional defect. See also: United States v. Ford, Dkt No. 03-1n4 (2d Cir.
Jan. 19, 2006) (Winter, Katzmann, Raggi): "[R1estraint must be exercised in
defining the breadth of the conduct prohibited by a federal criminal
statute."[Op.at 14, emphasis added]
xiv.
Once, as in this motion, the Court's jurisdiction over the charged "international"
deliverance on June 28, 1996 to Offenburg, Germany is challenged under §1341 's
interstate limits, Courts have "no discretion to ignore the jurisdictional
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challenge" and, moreover, when at any point in time the charging language
states claims that are plainly recognizable from afar to have crossed the sacred
line of the statute's jurisdictional fundamental boundaries of the domestic
territory of the Continental United States, it is incumbent on a Court to take
action upon such discovery notice, even if previously neglected, willfully ignored
or just overlooked, or to act
sua sponte in order to preserve the sanctity of
constitutional rights and to insure that a conviction is not the product of any
jurisdictional transgression, in particular when a case had multiple "learned"
judges either failed to detect, chose to noiselessly countenance or willfully
ignored jurisdictional violations at earlier stages. There are no time limits for
jurisdictional challenges. The law of the case is void when res judicata does not
trump facts and this jurisdictional challenge, which by itself may be brought at
any time, like right now.
Historical Background - sans
official revisionism
a) This applicant (03) was indicted4 jointly with Fritz G. Blumenberg (01), who, as the
transcript revealed, was not only an alien in an unintelligent state of mind but
remained blatantly unconvinced while being coaxed to plead guilty in 2002 of
4
Circumstances and timeline inside the Moynihan United States Courthouse on June 14,
2001 are
unreassuringly - more than murky, as Magistrate Dollinger and peers were
unavailable, were unwilling or were unable to "accept a BILL for filing" or they were not
ready to render process to a putative "TRUE BILL" outside an OPEN COURT proceeding
which therefore could not get on record of SONY reporter(s) and thus became a non-event
without calendar call ledger entry. Furthermore, due to this procedural void the loss of
OPEN COURT PROCESS became a structural error that caused more structural errors
impugning defendant's substantial constitutional protections when magistrates are
foreclosed from picking a random Article III presider from the spinning barrel-'o-chance
courts require to be uses. "Pre-ordainment" became the government's preference [for
presider JGK]. The pretense that at one D.J. is just as impartial or unfair as another, is
simply not true. That's what the barrel teaches. The barrel stood still on 6-14-2001.
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"violations" of federal criminal laws he was untrained to even grasp, nor did he gain
from VI. Amendment protections of having effective legal representation by a
professional guide to indicate whether jurisdiction and the other elements of each
"crime charged" were either satisfied or were not. His plea, in which he did not cop
any acceptance or guilt for a conspiracy charge, inter alia, was constitutionally null
and void as he later learned, and had also violated "Padilla's" lAC rules for alien
pleas in case they entail unpronounced and undisclosed collateral extra-judicial
punishments, loss of old-age-SS-benefits. Later, Blumenberg withdrew ex parte for
factual innocence of any break of federal laws once he had regained his 'intellect and
reviewed his memory, facts and records. In 2010, from his German homeland, he
effectively and irrevocably unilateral declared his withdrawal of plea for good
causes.
b) Defendant (02) was the only American, John C. Lee, charged in those same
conspiratorial "overt" acts and charged to have caused more of those deliverances
overseas just as (01) and (02), but Lee was unpremeditatedly nolle prossed in July
2002 under a veil of secrecy to hide a magic wand competent counsel waived off
stage (jurisdiction, time-barred conduct and constructive amendment) to keep the
two untenable co-conspirators from discovery of the legal validity and the
government happy. (reminder: "Equal Justice for All")
c) An original June 14, 2001 indictment had hastily charged a "conspiratorial triple ham
sandwich team" at its final hour, inter alia, with a federal criminal "vintage 1996"
interstate mail "violation" pursuant to statute §1341; subsequent super-indictments
maintained this charge while constructively adding additional charges for Lee and
Blumenberg only, but not for this applicant, while simultaneously expunging the
bogus three-way conspiracy charge. Other collateral "charges" under
§371 ,2,1343,1346 were simple "USAM boilerplate" window dressing exercises to
disguise time-barred commercial activity and are thus insignificant for this
application.
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d) The federal government's authority to charge material pecuniary fraud claims
require a fundamental prong: FEDERAL JURISDICTION. Also required are venue and a
local loss by a "domestic" complainant (a "referral"). Upon review of corporate
documents, the government found neither, because the conduct was international in
nature and lacked a genuine local victim. The official efforts to fabricate under
Color of law commenced.
e) The government supplicated an entirely untenable "micro-economic theory"
pursuant to which a "thirty plus year old New York domestic business corporation,
named Burda Media Inc. 5 conducted entirely "charitable" news-gathering just like a
"hobby" from lUxury headquarters in Rockefeller Center. With a staff of 30, this $6+
million output-worthy Burda Media Boutique was colored to be hailed by the
government as a "Not-far-Profit" outfit, despite lack of a charitable business license
and a corporate NFP resolution to fit. Rube Goldberg, Esq. helped prepping these
machinations for a Grand Jury.
f) The interstate commerce aspect of this case arises as the main prong of section
§1341 offense. If that prong cannot be satisfied - and here it is unreachable - then all
three defendants are not guilty. A nolle prossequi of just one - the hand picked
American- out of three, is unconstitutionally unfair.
g)
Also, a legislature could not plausibly be understood to have used the
specific term of "interstate" [without any other deSCription as in §1343, or like
"foreign" or "international"] if it had not meant to refer only to the specific
domestic boundaries of interstate carriers, couriers or transporters, like the USPS,
over which Congress does have dominion. Congress well understood that it holds no
a 100% subsidiary of a non-disclosed German corporation, uncomfortable for the
prosecutors, which was later discovered to have been Burda GmbH, holder of aU 200 "no
par value shares" issued January 27, 1978. Burda Holding GmbH & Co.K.G. held no shares at
any time, while it remains in the dark when the government decided to "botch" this
material fact other than for clueless reliance upon foreseeably worthless advise by biased
fellow bar members. The government often mistakes high hourly rates for integrity.
5
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authority over the Universal Postal Union [www.utu.int] which, as a United Nations
agency, manages exclusively international mail matters for 191 member Nations from
Bern, SwitzerLand. "This is not a circumstance," said Laurence H. Tribe, a Law
professor at Harvard "in which the courts have any plausibLe point of entry."
[J)
Therefore the district court had no §1341 6 jurisdiction under 18
U.S.C. 53231 et al.
f!J"eufore, appLicant moves based upon the foregoing, all the facts on record, pLain
Language of the §1341 statute and for the resulting absence of jurisdiction ab ovo for
VACATUR of the Judgment of conviction and for VACATUR of the underlying indictment.
Respectfully Submitted
Christian T Viertel, Def. 003 pro se
Copies of this submission were courtesy em ailed to
USAO Preetinder Bharara, CounseL for Fritz BLumenberg.
AdditionaL hard copy was mailed to the Pro Se Clerk
Please file on DOCKET
2 pages Appendix
The federal mail-fraud statutes are "our Stradivarius, our Colt .45, our Louisville Slugger, our
Cuisinart-and our true love," wrote former Assistant U.S. Atty. Jed S. Rakoff. "We may flirt with
[other laws] and call the conspiracy law 'darling,' but we always come home to the virtues of [mail
fraud], with its simplicity, adaptability and comfortable familiarity," Rakoff wrote. "It understands us
and, like many a foolish spouse, we like to think we understand it." And sometimes, nobody does.
More by Rakoff: "1 don't have any respect for judges who arrive at the result first, and then try to
figure out some way they can bend the law to reach their particular predilections.".
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First and Last Page of the "Indictment":
INDICTMENT
at Cr.
l)efendant3.
Conspiracy
The Grand Jury
charge~:
Sackground
1.
At all times relevant to this Indictment, Burda
Mp.dia, Inc,
(\I Burda
York, New York.
Media" J
\t!il8
a media company lOCated in New
Burda Media .....as a wholly-awned subs:idiary of
Burda HolCiinq, a German-limited pnt"tnership, whICh had its
s;
.cz::
81
~
BUl:da
Holdrrig, a GermarfTimited-par"coershlP;
which had its
principal place of business in Munich, Germany, and offices in
Offenburg, Germany.
FRITZ G. BLUMENBERG, the defendant, was the
President of Burda. Media.
2.
Burda Media contracted with numerous outside
vendors which prov1ded services to assist Burda Media's news
gathering operations.
After wo.k was performed, those vendors
submitted invoices to Burda Media seeking payment.
issued
che~ks
Burda Media
from ita bank accounts at Chaee Manhactan Bank in
New YorK, New YorK, or gave cash to the vendors baQed on the
invoices.
At the end of each month, Burda Media sent to Burda
Holding, via an lnternational freight company, the original
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Last Page (11) of the Indictment:
be sent and delivered by a private and commercial interstate
carrier, and would and did cause to be delivered by such carrier
according to the directions thereon, and at the place at which it
is directed to be delivered by the person to whom it is
addressed, such matters and things, to wit, PRITZ G. BLUMENBERG,
JO~J
C. LEE, and CHRISTIAN T. VIERTEL, the defendants.
cau~ed
Burda M@dia to send from New York, New York to Burda Holding in
Offenburg, Germany, via an inte4national freight company, phony
and inflated invoices that BLUMENBERG, LEB, and VIERT6L submitted
to :Burda Media.
(Title 16, unit.ed States Code. sections 1341 f 1346 and 2.)
~
~$~
MMi.flfj:fo
oreperson
WHITE
United States Attorney
CEtmFlED AS A TRUE COjJY (
11
TmSDATE
12
{~~~
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