United States v. Thomas, 759 F.2d 659 (8th Cir. 1985)

United States Court of Appeals, Eighth Circuit, Nos. 84-2285, 84-2286 and 84-2287, submitted January 16, 1985, decided April 11, 1985, rehearing and rehearing en banc denied May 30, 1985. Judges Bright, Arnold and Bowman sat, and Judge Arnold wrote the opinion. The appellants were Carl Wesley Thomas, Carl Angelo DeLuna and Anthony Chiavola, Sr.

It is an interlocutory appeal from an order denying a motion to dismiss an indictment on double jeopardy grounds. The court holds that “the charges alleged in the indictment are not the ‘same offence’” as the charges on which the defendants had previously been tried, and affirms.

The opinion’s background states that “From May 25, 1978, through 1980, the Federal Bureau of Investigation conducted a series of electronic surveillances to investigate hidden interests by organized crime groups in one or more Las Vegas casinos,” and that the investigation “soon focused on two objects, apparent hidden interests in the Tropicana Hotel and Country Club (Tropicana) casino and in the Argent Corporation (Argent), which owned four casinos, the Stardust, Fremont, Marina, and Hacienda.” A federal grand jury in the Western District of Missouri returned the Argent indictment on September 30, 1983. The opinion compares it with the earlier Tropicana indictment, described in United States v. DeLuna. This record states what the court said the charges were. It is not a finding that any defendant committed them.