United States v. 6 Fox Street

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 05-2744

UNITED STATES,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v.

6 FOX STREET, WINDHAM, NEW HAMPSHIRE, LAND AND BUILDINGS WITH ALL
APPURTENANCES AND IMPROVEMENTS THEREON,
OWNED BY TIMOTHY BISHOP; ET AL.

Defendants In Rem.

TIMOTHY BISHOP

Claimant-Appellant

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
[Hon. Joseph A. DiClerico, U.S. District Judge]

Before

Boudin, Chief Circuit Judge,
Lipez, Circuit Judge,
and Shadur,* Senior District Judge.

Bernard Grossberg, for appellants.
Thomas P. Colantuono, Assistant United States Attorney, with
whom Jean B. Weld, United States Attorney, was on brief, for the
United States.

March 15, 2007

*
Of the Northern District of Illinois, sitting by designation.
 SHADUR, Senior District Judge. This appeal stems from a

civil forfeiture action brought by the United States on August 28,

2001 against eight parcels of real property, $12,187 in United

States currency, six vehicles and five financial accounts. After

Timothy Bishop (“Bishop”) filed a timely Claim and Answer as to all

in rem defendants listed in the initial Complaint, the district

court stayed the action pending the outcome of Bishop’s parallel

criminal case. On July 24, 2003 Bishop was convicted of possession

with intent to distribute marijuana in violation of 21 U.S.C.

§841(a)(1), and on September 9 of that year the district court

lifted the stay.

When the United States then moved for an interlocutory

sale of the in rem defendants located in New Hampshire based on

their deteriorating condition, the district court granted that

motion. In an amended complaint the United States added an

additional parcel of real estate plus an allegation that three of

the previously named parcels were forfeitable under 21 U.S.C.

§§881(a)(4) and (a)(6).1

On November 5, 2004 the United States filed its summary

judgment motion, accompanied by an evidentiary record comprising 12

affidavits and numerous exhibits supporting its allegations that

all of the in rem defendants were purchased with drug proceeds and

1
Further citations to Title 21 provisions will take the form
“Section --.”

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that four parcels had been used to facilitate drug trafficking.

Bishop admitted in his Partial Objection to Motion for Summary

Judgment (“Objection”) that “he cannot mount a sufficient defense

as to each asset to prove that it was acquired with untainted

money.” Bishop also asserted for the first time that the United

States’ summary judgment motion “must be denied because the

Government’s forfeiture complaint was filed outside the five year

limitations period of 19 U.S.C. §1621.”

On October 11, 2005 the district court ruled that Bishop

had waived (more accurately, forfeited) any statute of limitations

defense when he failed to raise that affirmative defense in a

responsive pleading, though the court also held that the forfeiture

proceeding was timely filed in any event. Because Bishop had also

failed to dispute the merits of the forfeiture as to the assets at

issue, the district court entered a Final Order of Forfeiture.

Bishop takes this appeal from that order, also alleging in part

that he was denied effective assistance of counsel and that the

United States perpetrated a fraud on the court. Because none of

Bishop’s arguments possess any merit, we affirm the district

court’s decision.

Background

Bishop’s involvement in drug trafficking dates back to

1975, when he and a partner began to purchase approximately ten

pounds of marijuana weekly for distribution. Bishop stored that

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marijuana at the home he shared with his parents. When he went to

college in the late 1970s, Bishop began to purchase larger amounts

of marijuana for sale to other street-level dealers. From 1986

through 1988 several tenants who rented property owned by Bishop

stored and sold marijuana from the property and paid rent to Bishop

from drug proceeds. During that time Bishop and a partner also

purchased marijuana that they sold from another of Bishop’s

properties. In the period from December 1999 to May 2001 Bishop

purchased at least 260 pounds of marijuana from Roger Pageot at

approximately $1300 per pound, then distributed the marijuana.

Beginning in 1983 Bishop’s business was so robust that he

was able to purchase numerous parcels of real property, each funded

at least partially with proceeds from his drug sales.2 Financial

records also indicated that Bishop eventually purchased a 1988

Porsche, a 1987 Honda motorcycle and a 2000 Audi A6 Quattro. While

the cost of those purchases aggregated more than $500,000, Bishop

reported taxable income of only $200,000 during that same time

period. Throughout the mid-1980's and early 1990s Bishop also

deposited over $200,000 in various financial accounts.

Bishop’s exploits began to attract law enforcement

2
Bishop bought these parcels in Lowell, Mass., Windham, N.H.
and Chelmsford, Mass. for the indicated prices: (1) in 1983, 9 to
11 Harrison Street, Lowell for $66,000; (2) in 1984, 6 Fox Street
and 18 Bell Road, Windham for $85,000; (3) in 1988, 13 Harrison
Street, Lowell for $65,000; (4) in 1989, 5 Fox Street, Windham for
$79,000 in cash; (5) in 1990, 26 Glen Avenue, Chelmsford for
$91,000; and (6) in 1998, 33 Lundberg Street, Lowell for $65,000.

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attention. On November 2, 1996 police officers executed a search

warrant at one of Bishop’s properties after surveilling the

premises. They seized an Ohaus electric gram scale, Ziploc bags,

a box of marijuana, a triple beam scale and rolling paper.

Bishop ultimately became the subject of a Drug

Enforcement Agency (“DEA”) investigation in June 2001. Through a

confidential informant (“CI”) the DEA learned that the CI had been

supplying Bishop with large quantities of marijuana since 1999. In

addition the DEA learned that Bishop had been charged with

possessing distribution amounts of marijuana in 1985 and 1996, as

well as having been convicted twice in 1987 on charges of

possessing a gun. Bishop contends that the DEA had knowledge of

his drug trafficking history before 2001, arguing that Lowell

police office Barry Goldner (“Goldner”) must have submitted

Bishop’s 1996 arrest information to the DEA’s federal database.

But because Bishop submitted that contention without any

evidentiary support despite his burden to produce rebuttal

evidence, it cannot be credited at this stage of the proceedings.

It is undisputed that in the course of its investigation

the DEA monitored and recorded meetings between Bishop and the CI.

That investigation culminated in Bishop’s arrest after the DEA

videotaped Bishop buying four blocks of marijuana from the CI. On

that same day investigators executed a search warrant at Bishop’s

address, where they recovered strong evidence of drug trafficking,

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including drugs, drug ledgers and cash. Those drug ledgers were

submitted to Special Agent Eugene Saupp (“Saupp”), a supervisory

forensic examiner with the FBI, who concluded after investigation

that the records seized at Bishop’s house contained balances for 75

accounts related to his drug business between 1983 and 1987.

According to Saupp, the records reflected a minimum total of

$2,322,014 in drug sales during those years. Saupp also opined

that some of the records related to sales in Bishop’s more recent

marijuana distribution business.

After his arrest Bishop pleaded guilty to possession with

intent to distribute of approximately 50 pounds of marijuana in

violation of Section 841(a)(1), receiving a 24 month prison

sentence. Those events gave rise to the civil forfeiture

proceedings that the district court later enforced on summary

judgment and that Bishop now appeals.

Standard of Review

We review summary judgment rulings de novo (Vives v.

Fajardo, 472 F.3d 19, 21 (1st Cir. 2007)). We will not disturb a

district court’s summary judgment ruling so long as there are no

genuine issues of material fact and the moving party is entitled to

a judgment as a matter of law (Fed. R. Civ. P. (“Rule”) 56(c)). As

Velazquez-Garcia v. Horizon Lines of Puerto Rico, Inc., 473 F.3d

11, 15 (1st Cir. 2007)(internal citations and quotation marks

omitted) has explained, “[a]n issue is genuine if the evidence is

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such that a reasonable jury could return a verdict for the

nonmoving party, and a fact is material if it has the potential to

affect the outcome of the suit.” We have relatedly observed in

Griggs-Ryan v. Smith, 904 F.3d 112, 115 (1st Cir. 1990) that “[a]

genuine issue of material fact does not spring into being simply

because a litigant claims that one exists.” Griggs-Ryan, id.

(internal citation omitted) further instructs that “[n]either

wishful thinking...nor conclusory responses unsupported by evidence

will serve to defeat a properly focused Rule 56 motion.” Thus the

nonmoving party must produce “hard evidence of a material factual

dispute” (id.) to survive a summary judgment motion.

Government’s Burden of Proof

Since the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act of 2000

(“Act,” amending 18 U.S.C. §§981-9863) the Government’s burden to

prove that certain property is subject to forfeiture was

“increased...from mere probable cause (the old standard) to the

preponderance of the evidence” (United States v. Lopez-Burgos, 435

F.3d 1, 2 (1st Cir. 2006)). Act §983(c)(1) states:

[T]he burden of proof is on the Government to
establish, by a preponderance of the evidence,
that the property is subject to forfeiture.

Act §983(c)(3)(emphasis added) goes on to provide:

[I]f the Government’s theory of forfeiture is
that the property was used to commit or
facilitate the commission of a criminal

3
Further citations to the Act will take the form “Act §--,”
omitting the prefatory “18 U.S.C.”

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 offense, the Government shall establish that
there was a substantial connection between the
property and the offense.

Bishop argues that the Government failed to satisfy its burden of

proving that there was a sufficient nexus between the drug proceeds

and Bishop’s ownership of the property. We disagree.

At the outset we note that Bishop conceded that all in

rem defendants were purchased, at least in part, with drug

proceeds. Here is Bishop’s concession, set out in his Objection:

Therefore, for purposes of this proceeding
only, Bishop will not contest the allegations
that all 21 assets were purchased at least in
sufficient part with drug-tainted money (or,
in the case of liquid assets, include drug-
tainted money) to make them subject to
forfeiture.

That brings the in rem defendants within the ambit of Section

881(a)(7), which renders forfeitable:

All real property, including any right, title
and interest (including any leasehold
interest) in the whole of any lot or tract of
land and any appurtenances or improvements,
which is used, or intended to be used, in any
manner or part, to commit, or to facilitate
the commission of, a violation of this
subchapter punishable by more than one year’s
imprisonment.

Bishop’s concession removes any possibility of a genuine

issue of material fact that could dispute the forfeitability of the

properties. That being so, his objection to the district court’s

grant of summary judgment based on the Government’s asserted lack

of proof falls of its own weight. But even without Bishop’s

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concession, the United States provided ample additional evidence of

a substantial connection between Bishop’s drug trafficking and his

properties.

For example, the Government demonstrated that five

parcels of real property were forfeitable by virtue of their role

in facilitating drug transactions. As to the 6 Fox Street

property, the Government submitted evidence that the Windham, N.H.

police officers discovered marijuana and drug paraphernalia there

in early 1986, then found two plastic bags containing marijuana and

a large scale when responding to a burglar alarm there a year

later. Then in 2001 police seized from the location marijuana,

drug paraphernalia and cash, as well as drug records reflecting 20

years of drug distribution.

Undisputed facts also confirm that the property where

Bishop lived during his high school years, 9 to 11 Harrison Street

in Lowell, was used for marijuana storage and distribution. In

November 1996 officers seized items used to facilitate drug

trafficking from that property, and again Bishop has admitted that

he stored and distributed marijuana from that location.

As to the parcel next door, 13 Harrison Street, both

Bishop’s partner and his tenants distributed marijuana from that

property. Evidence that a guitar case bearing 20 seven-pound

bricks of marijuana was seized at that location offers ample proof

that the connection between the property and drug trafficking was

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indeed substantial.

Finally, the residence at 33 Lundberg Street in Lowell

was also used for Bishop’s drug activities. Bishop initially

purchased that property using drug proceeds, then rented it to

tenants who in turn bought marijuana from Bishop.

In sum, in light of the undisputed material facts that

conclusively establish the requisite substantial connection between

each of those properties and drug sales, the district court

properly granted summary judgment forfeiting them to the United

States. Bishop’s challenge as to those parcels fails.

In addition to the real property, in rem defendants that

were also subject to forfeiture include items covered by Section

881(a)(6):

All moneys, negotiable instruments,
securities, or other things of value furnished
or intended to be furnished by any person in
exchange for a controlled substance or listed
chemical in violation of this subchapter, all
proceeds traceable to such an exchange, and
all moneys, negotiable instruments, and
securities used or intended to be used to
facilitate any violation of this subchapter.

On that score Bishop did not dispute that his legitimate income

since the early 1980s never sufficed to support the purchase of the

properties at issue. Moreover, a brief review of the evidence

demonstrates that the Government’s case did not at all rest on mere

inferences from that fact.

For example, in August 2001 officers found in Bishop’s

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freezer $2,193 in United States currency that reeked of marijuana

stored in the same freezer. In that same month Bishop transmitted

a $10,000 down payment for 50 pounds of marijuana to a seller

cooperating with the Government. Without question those funds met

the requirements of Section 881(a)(6).

As for the remaining properties, the Government submitted

evidence that Bishop’s legitimate employment as a car salesperson

could not support his lavish spending. For example, in 1996 and

1997 Bishop contributed $2,000 to an investment fund even though he

reported no taxable income whatever. In 1998 he reported taxable

income of $3,451, yet he opened a Charles Schwab money market

account with two cashier’s checks for $10,000 and $6,093.67. In

2000 Bishop also made a $15,000 cash down payment to purchase an

Audi, and in 2001 he made a $5,600 cash payment toward the purchase

of a Porsche. Bishop also maintained other cars and motorcycles by

paying for repairs in cash.

In light of that congeries of facts, it was more than

rational for the district court to determine that all of the

properties were bought, at least in part, with proceeds from drug

sales. Bishop conceded as much and, indeed, failed to offer any

countervailing evidence. Under the circumstances the district

court really had no choice but to grant summary judgment in the

Government’s favor.

Unable to contest forfeiture on the merits, Bishop falls

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back on a request for a remand to enable him to present evidence

that the DEA necessarily had knowledge of his illegal activities

before 1996 and that he earned lawful income to support his

lifestyle during the period in question. But Bishop’s opportunity

to proffer additional facts has come and gone, for he failed to

produce any such facts when responding to the United States’

summary judgment motion. With that not having been done at the

district court level when it was appropriate to do so, Bishop

cannot properly salvage the issue now (see such cases as States

Resources Corp. v. Architectural Team, Inc., 433 F.3d 73, 85 (1st

Cir. 2005)).

Ineffective Assistance of Counsel

Bishop first advanced an asserted statute of limitations

defense in his response to the Government’s motion for summary

judgment. There he contended that the Government had failed to

file the action within the limits imposed by 19 U.S.C. §1621:

No suit or action to recover any...forfeiture
of property accruing under the customs laws
shall be instituted unless such suit or action
is commenced within five years after the time
when the alleged offense was discovered, or in
the case of forfeiture, within 2 years after
the time when the involvement of the property
in the alleged defense was discovered,
whichever was later....

That claim was rejected by the district court, which found that

Bishop had forfeited that defense by failing to raise it in a

responsive pleading. And even were that not the case, the district

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court held that the proceeding was not time-barred in any event.

During this litigation Bishop changed legal

representation time and again. Given his ever-shifting parade of

lawyers, it is not entirely surprising that Bishop would argue that

an asserted failure to receive effective assistance of counsel

caused the statute of limitations defense to go unpleaded.

Bishop urges that he was first failed by original counsel

Michael Natola (“Natola”), who was initially retained by Bishop’s

girlfriend. Despite not yet being named as counsel of record,

Natola filed an answer on Bishop’s behalf in November 2001--a

pleading that did not raise a limitations-based affirmative

defense. In October 2002 Bishop moved to have Natola withdraw and

successfully asked leave for Philip DesFosses (“DesFosses”) to

represent him. Then in January 2004 DesFosses filed a motion to

withdraw, although the docket sheet does not reflect whether that

motion was granted. Shortly thereafter Bishop filed a pro se

motion to set aside the forfeiture, which claimed that the

Government had failed to provide notice and briefly mentioned a

possible statute of limitations issue. That motion was denied.

When the United States thereafter filed its motion for

summary judgment and accompanying brief, Bishop filed a motion

requesting that counsel be appointed to represent him. Mary

Notaris was initially appointed, but when she failed to respond to

the district court’s orders Michael Sheehan (“Sheehan”) was

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appointed to replace her. It was Sheehan who filed the Objection on

behalf of Bishop and raised the statute of limitations defense,

though he did not move to amend Bishop’s pro se answer to include

the statute of limitations defense even after the Government had

highlighted that procedural defect in its reply.

When the district court then held that the statute of

limitations defense had been forfeited because it was never pleaded

in Bishop’s answer, he included an ineffective assistance of

counsel claim in the current appeal. But that claim is deficient

in more than one respect.

First, the Sixth Amendment’s guaranty of effective

assistance of counsel in criminal proceedings (see, e.g., Evitts v.

Lucey, 469 U.S. 387, 395 (1985)) does not extend to civil

proceedings. Like our sister circuits that have considered the

issue, we have consistently rejected the availability of such a

claim in civil forfeiture proceedings (see, e.g., United States v.

One Lot of $25,721 in Currency, 938 F.2d 1417, 1422 (1st Cir. 1991)

and cases cited there).

Indeed, Bishop’s attempted chief support for his

ineffective assistance claim, Glenn v. Aiken, 569 N.E.2d 783, 787

(Mass. 1991), has taught that “[a] failure of a defendant’s counsel

in a civil case to plead an obviously winning affirmative defense

would be a proper basis for a malpractice claim.” If then Bishop

had a valid limitations defense that was lost because of the

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inadequacy of counsel, his remedy would have to be found in such a

claim, not in the Constitution.

But no potentially viable claim of ineffective assistance

exists in any event, for Bishop is wrong on the merits as well.

Bishop contends that the United States’ forfeiture action was based

on his criminal activities from 1983 through 1987, which he urges

would have barred the forfeiture action because it was brought in

2001, well beyond the statute’s five-year limit. Bishop argues

that information gathered and known in the 1980s by state and local

police agencies should be imputed to federal investigators. But

under 19 U.S.C. §1621 the statute of limitations is triggered only

when the United States itself discovers that a particular asset is

involved in an offense.

On that score Bishop did not produce even a shred of

evidence supporting his claim that federal officers were aware of

his criminal activity before 2001. While he contends that a local

police officer submitted his 1996 drug arrest information to the

DEA database, even if that were the case the Government’s 2001

filing date would still fall within the statute of limitations.

On this issue as well, then, Bishop’s fundamental failure

to provide any proof beyond mere conclusory statements dooms his

attack on the district court’s grant of summary judgment. Hence

the district court’s conclusion that the forfeiture action was

timely filed stands as well.

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 Fraud on the Court

Bishop seeks to draw one final arrow from his quiver,

asserting that the judgment against him below was obtained by

“fraud on the court” in violation of Rule 60(b)(6), which permits

relief from a final judgment for any reason “justifying relief from

the operation of judgment.” In that respect Simon v. Navon, 116

F.3d 1, 5 (1st Cir. 1997) has explained that an “[a]ppellant faces

formidable hurdles in pursuing a 60(b)(6) claim. There must exist

‘exceptional’ circumstances that justify ‘extraordinary’ relief.”

Simon, id. further describes the “extraordinary circumstances”

exception to the normally limited scope of Rule 60(b)(6) as a

“small escape hatch”--one that is unavailable to Bishop here. To

mix metaphors, Bishop simply cannot surmount the high bar that is

set for relief under that provision.

According to Bishop, the Government’s attorneys

perpetrated a fraud on the court when they submitted affidavits

from local New Hampshire law enforcement agents swearing that there

was no contact between them and federal agents about Bishop’s drug

activities before 2001. Bishop cites the absence of any mention in

those affidavits of local officer Goldner’s having purportedly

submitted information about his 1996 arrest to the DEA national

database pursuant to 28 C.F.R. (“Reg.”) §0.101.4 Bishop attempts

4
Goldner authored the November 1996 search warrant
reflecting that local police officials had information that Bishop
stored marijuana at his home in New Hampshire and had an extensive
history of selling large amounts of marijuana over a 15 year

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to draw on two provisions within Reg. §0.101 to conclude that the

Government had to have known what the local law enforcement

officials knew back in 1996. Those provisions make the DEA

responsible for “(a)...cooperation with State and local Governments

in the enforcement of their drug abuse laws” and “(b) development

and maintenance of a National Narcotics Intelligence system in

cooperation with Federal, State and local officials....”

But Bishop relies solely on the regulatory language,

without any corroborating evidence, to assert that information that

local officers obtained in 1996 “would have necessarily been

submitted to and recorded by the [DEA].” Simply because the

Government never submitted any information about Bishop from the

DEA’s database, he attempts to draw “the inescapable inference of

either willful blindness or deliberate concealment of such [DEA]

records from the mid-1980's and 1996.”

Even apart from the point made earlier that if Goldner

had submitted information about Bishop to the DEA database in

November 1996, the filing of the forfeiture action in August 2001

would still have been timely, Bishop’s claim is also fatally flawed

because he failed to present a Rule 60(b)(6) motion to the district

court. In that regard such cases as Roger Edwards, LLC v. Fiddes

& Son Ltd., 427 F.3d 129, 132 (1st Cir. 2005) instruct that “Rule

60(b) permits a district court to reopen a final judgment for any

period.

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of six stated reasons,” the sixth and last of which embraces what

is called “fraud on the court.” And “[n]ominally, the standard of

review for decisions granting or denying Rule 60(b) motions is

abuse of discretion.”

Here there is no district court decision to review.

Having failed to raise the issue before the district court, Bishop

cannot now do so before us. As Toscano v. Chandris, S.A., 934 F.2d

383, 386-87 (1st Cir. 1991) has explained to the appellants there:

[I]f Rule 60(b) was to be invoked while the
case was on appeal, they should follow the
procedure limned in Commonwealth of Puerto
Rico v. SS Zoe Colocotroni, 601 F.2d 39, 42
(1st Cir. 1979)(if an appeal is pending, a Rule
60(b) motion should first be filed in the
trial court, and the district judge, if
inclined to allow it, may then request
remand).

Just as was true of the appellants in Toscano, Bishop has come to

a dead end for having failed to follow the proper procedure for

bringing a Rule 60(b)(6) motion.

But there is still another--and dispositive--ground for

holding Bishop’s final arrow broken as well. Even if he could

establish his now-unsupported allegations about the Government’s

actions, they would still not meet the standard that Roger Edwards,

427 F.3d at 133 has confirmed for parties wishing to overturn a

judgment based on “fraud on the court”:

The cases have struggled, usually without
great success, to provide a useful definition
of “fraud on the court.” One common version,
drawn in part from language in Hazel-Atlas

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 [Glass Co. v. Hartford-Empire Co., 322 U.S.
238 (1944)], refers to “an ‘unconscionable
scheme calculated to interfere with the
judicial system’s ability impartially to
adjudicate a matter’ involving an officer of
the court.”

Even such an offense as perjury may not suffice--instead the type

of conduct that would qualify as “fraud on the court” must be

something on the order of bribing a judge (see id.).

By contrast, Bishop’s unsupported assertions in this

area, even if he could buttress them with some factual support (as

he has not), are--like the allegations in Roger Edwards, 427 F.3d

at 133--“at most the routine stuff of claims under Rule 60(b)(3)

and are weak examples even of that.” Bishop never sought relief

under Rule 60(b)(3), and his fallback claim under Rule 60(b)(6) is

unavailing.

Conclusion

Bishop has failed to meet his burden to defeat the United

States’ motion for summary judgment. We therefore affirm the

district court’s grant of summary judgment.

AFFIRMED.

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