On July 19, 2017, in United States v. Allen, et al. (16-cr-98) (Cabranes, Pooler, Lynch), the Second Circuit issued a decision reversing the convictions of defendants Anthony Allen and Anthony Conti for wire fraud and conspiracy to commit wire fraud and bank fraud. This was the first federal criminal appeal in connection with the London Interbank Offered Rated (“LIBOR”) prosecutions, which involved allegations that various individuals and banks manipulated the LIBOR. The Court held that the defendants’ Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination were violated when testimony they were compelled to give in a foreign proceeding in the U.K. was used against them before the grand jury and at their trial in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York (Rakoff, J.). The Court also held that the defendants’ Fifth Amendment rights were violated when the government used the testimony of a cooperator who had substantial exposure to the defendants’ compelled testimony. Ultimately, because it determined that the errors in admitting this testimony before the grand jury were not harmless, the Court dismissed the indictment against the defendants.
The Court’s decision is 81 pages long, and we will post a longer discussion on the court’s opinion in the coming days. Please check back soon for more updates.
Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP represented one of the co-defendants who was indicted along with Allen and Conti.
