Aleman v. United States, 878 F.2d 1009 (7th Cir. 1989)

The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial without a hearing of Harry Aleman's § 2255 petition, which claimed the government had not disclosed that two witnesses were informants. It recounts his 1978 RICO convictions and sentences.

Date: 1989-07-10
Kind: court-opinion
Source: CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion
Retrieved: 2026-10-12
Docket: 878 F.2d 1009 (7th Cir. 1989); No. 88-2684
Rights: Opinion of a United States court. Works of the federal judiciary are in the public domain in the United States. The text was read on CourtListener.

United States Court of Appeals, Seventh Circuit, July 10, 1989, Judge Eschbach writing. Harry Aleman appealed the denial, without an evidentiary hearing, of his motion under 28 U.S.C. § 2255.

He claimed the government had failed to disclose that Robert Harder and William “Butch” Petrocelli were informants. The court recounts his 1978 convictions for RICO conspiracy, a substantive RICO violation and interstate transportation of stolen goods, with concurrent twenty-year terms and a consecutive ten years, and the trial testimony of Louis Almeida about three home robberies in 1972 and 1973. It affirmed the denial.

The opinion concerns the 1978 burglary convictions reviewed in United States v. Aleman (1979).

itemUnited States v. Aleman, 609 F.2d 298 (7th Cir. 1979)The Seventh Circuit upheld the use of RICO against a ring of home burglars led by Harry Aleman, rejecting the argument that the statute reaches only organized crime's infiltration of legitimate business. It called the enterprise 'a small business' of which 'Aleman was the proprietor.'itemAleman v. Judges of the Circuit Court of Cook County (Aleman v. Toomin), 138 F.3d 302 (7th Cir. 1998)The Seventh Circuit affirmed the denial of habeas corpus to Harry Aleman, whose 1977 bench-trial acquittal for the 1972 killing of William Logan the state courts held a sham because the judge had been bribed; there was no double jeopardy.