United States v. Bioff, 40 F. Supp. 497 (S.D.N.Y. 1941)

District Court for the Southern District of New York, decided 5 September 1941, Judge Rifkind. CourtListener lists the docket number as “Unknown,” so none is given here. Martin Conboy appeared for the defendant George E. Browne, and Mathias F. Correa, the U.S. Attorney, for the government.

The ruling is a pretrial one. “Defendant Browne, by demurrer and plea in abatement, challenges the indictment and the statute, commonly called the Anti-Racketeering Statute, 48 Stat. 980, 18 U.S.C.A. § 420a et seq., upon which it is founded.” Browne objected to the indictment’s recital “That this prosecution has been commenced upon the express direction of the Attorney General of the United States,” arguing that it told the grand jury that “Washington wants this indictment.” He also argued that the Act’s requirement of the Attorney General’s direction was an unconstitutional delegation of power.

The court rejected both points. “The argument is appealing but without merit,” it said of the first. On the second it held that “the crime is fully and adequately defined in the statute” and that the Attorney General “is given the limited choice of proceeding or forbearing in any particular instance, after the event,” a choice every prosecutor has. “Congress has made a choice of possible places to lodge that responsibility. It has not thereby offended the Constitution.”

The opinion does not describe the extortion charged, the trial, or the verdict. No court record of the 1941 verdict or sentence was opened for this archive. A House speech of 10 November 1941 says Browne and Bioff “were convicted this month,” and a Treasury report of late 1942 says Bioff was serving a ten-year sentence; both are filed in the Hollywood extortion case.