Record
Court opinion
1981-10-30
CourtListener (Free Law Project), text of the opinion
United States v. Martorano, 663 F.2d 1113 (1st Cir. 1981): new-trial motions in the race-fixing case
First Circuit opinion of October 30, 1981 affirming the denial of new-trial motions by Howard T. Winter, James Martorano and four codefendants, based on FBI reports and grand jury testimony of the Government's chief witness, Anthony Ciulla, that had not been disclosed before trial.
- Date
- 1981-10-30
- Kind
- court-opinion
- Retrieved
- 2026-10-12
- Docket
- Nos. 80-1831 to 80-1834 and 80-1846; 663 F.2d 1113 (1st Cir. 1981)
- Rights
- Opinion of a United States court. Works of the federal judiciary are in the public domain in the United States (17 U.S.C. § 105). The text was read on CourtListener, which is only the host.
United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, argued March 5, 1981 and decided October 30, 1981, opinion by Circuit Judge Bownes for a panel with Judges Campbell and Breyer. The appellants were James Martorano, Charles and James DeMetri, Howard T. Winter, Elliot Paul Price and Melvin Goldenberg. After their convictions in the horse-race fixing prosecution, they moved for a new trial under Rule 33. The First Circuit decided their direct appeals the same day in a separate opinion, United States v. Winter, 663 F.2d 1120, which this archive files with its New England records. The motions rested on four things: the “Detroit Information,” which the court describes as “several FBI reports of interviews with Anthony Ciulla conducted in 1976, 1977 and 1978 relative to race fixing in the Detroit, Michigan, area and Ciulla’s grand jury testimony in Detroit”; affidavits by Margaret McCarron; evidence about Robert Owen, who pleaded guilty during the trial; and a claim based on a prosecutor’s decision not to use Ciulla elsewhere.
The court finds that the Detroit material was exculpatory and should have been checked by the prosecutor, but that in the context of the whole record it did not create a reasonable doubt that did not otherwise exist. It affirms the denial of the motions.
On one point the opinion addresses organized crime directly. The defendants argued that Ciulla’s refusal to talk to the FBI about “the Boston La Cosa Nostra” undercut “the Government’s theory that Winter was an organized crime figure in the Boston-New England region.” The court answers that “there was no testimony in the case by Ciulla, or anyone else, that Winter was a member of the organized crime syndicate in New England,” and that at the defendants’ request the trial court had ruled it would not allow “(a)ny reference to mafia, Cosa Nostra, or organized crime by that name.”
The opinion does not use the name “Winter Hill.” Nothing in it states that Winter led or belonged to any group. The verdicts themselves are in the verdict transcript.
