United States v. Monteleone

77 F.3d 1086 (8th Cir. 1996)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

D is a thirty-four-year veteran of the Kansas City, Missouri Fire Department with a previously unblemished criminal record. Brown, a convicted felon offered to sell a .45 caliber pistol to Donna, an undercover agent working for ATF. Officers executed a search warrant on Brown's residence and found a .45 caliber handgun under a pillow in Brown's bedroom. D, Brown's half-brother, submitted to the ATF a petition for remission declaring his ownership of the seized gun and asking to have it returned to him. Special Agent Lierz scheduled a meeting with D to discuss his claim. D purchased the gun from Skip Pruitt, a Kansas resident and discovered that it sometimes jammed when fired. D subsequently informed Brown, a person known by Monteleone to be a 'career criminal,' about the malfunction, and Brown advised his half-brother to have the weapon repaired at the Sure-Shot Gun Shop. D took the gun to the recommended store, where it was eventually seized during an ATF raid; D reacquired the handgun in April of 1993. The gun continued to misfire, and Brown reportedly offered to take possession of the gun and assume responsibility for the repairs. Federal officials confiscated the weapon after Brown offered to sell it to an undercover agent. D was indicted for violating 18 U.S.C. § 922(d) by disposing of a firearm to a convicted felon. At the trial, Albert Lowe, a fellow firefighter who had worked with D for almost twenty years, testified that D possessed a good community reputation for truthfulness and lawfulness. On cross, the prosecutor inquired, over D’s objection, whether Lowe had heard that in the early 1970s D had perjured himself before a federal grand jury. D was convicted and appealed.