February 14, 1994 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
No. 92-1747
UNITED STATES,
Appellee,
v.
SAMSON O. AGBOSASA,
Defendant, Appellant.
ERRATA SHEET
The opinion of this court issued on February 11, 1994, is
amended as follows.
Page 2, line 25, please insert after the word defendant
"gave did not implicate defendant in the filing".
February 11, 1994 [NOT FOR PUBLICATION]
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FIRST CIRCUIT
No. 92-1747
UNITED STATES,
Appellee,
v.
SAMSON O. AGBOSASA,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
[Hon. Francis J. Boyle, Senior U.S. District Judge]
Before
Breyer, Chief Judge,
Boudin and Stahl, Circuit Judges.
Francis R. Williams on brief for appellant.
Edwin J. Gale, United States Attorney, and Charles A.
Tamuleviz, Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for
appellee.
Per Curiam. The defendant, in the course of being
arrested and booked in connection with fraudulent income tax
claims, was asked routine booking question including his social
security number. He gave a false one and, despite his effort to
suppress the statement, was charged and convicted of deceptively
misrepresenting his social security number.
We find no merit in defendant's argument that asking
defendant his social security number "related directly to an
element of the crime the agents had reason to suspect" and
therefore was "designed to elicit incriminatory admissions"
within the meaning of Pennsylvania v. Muniz, 496 U.S. 582, 602
n.14 (1990). When defendant was arrested at the post office, he
was suspected of involvement in the submission of false tax
refund claims in the names of Micheal M. Lerner and Jose A. Silva
in violation of 18 U.S.C. 287. So far as appears, however,
defendant did not represent himself to be Lerner or Silva or to
have their social security numbers. Instead, after being advised
of his Miranda rights, defendant denied the post office box to
which the decoy refund checks had been sent was his, claimed the
box belonged to a friend, and said he did not know anything about
the refund checks. Consequently, by the time the IRS agent and
deputy marshal asked defendant his social security number, they
would not have reasonably expected that question, or its answer,
to implicate defendant in the offenses then under investigation
(the filing of false income tax claims). In fact, the answer
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defendant gave did not implicate defendant in the filing false
income tax claims charges. Instead, defendant committed a
completely separate offense -- giving a false social security
number with intent to deceive, 42 U.S.C. 408(g)(2)(1988).
Nor was asking defendant his social security number
designed to goad defendant into violating 42 U.S.C.
408(g)(2)(1988). There is no evidence the IRS agent or deputy
marshal knew defendant was an illegal alien, 20 C.F.R. 422.104
(indicating that certain legal aliens may obtain a social
security number), and, in any event, had defendant answered the
question truthfully, he would have neither implicated himself in
the offenses then under investigation (filing false refund
claims) nor violated 42 U.S.C. 408 (g)(2)(1988).
Finding no merit in defendant's argument, we
summarily affirm the judgment below. Loc. R. 27.1.
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