Opinion
Nos. 6398, 6399, 6404.
December 9, 1938.
Appeal from the District Court of the United States for the Western District of Pennsylvania; Frank P. Schoonmaker, Judge.
Louis Klee, Edward Schindler and Anthony Louis Zambrano were convicted of conspiring to violate the internal revenue laws of the United States of America in that they sold and dealt in distilled spirits without paying a tax thereon, and they appeal.
Judgment reversed and causes remanded with directions.
Warren H. VanKirk, of Pittsburgh, Pa., for appellant Klee.
Adam B. Shaffer, of Pittsburgh, Pa., for appellant Schindler.
Joseph A. Rossi, of Pittsburgh, Pa., for appellant Zambrano.
Blair M. Ilderton, of Philadelphia, Pa., and Charles F. Uhl, U.S. Atty., and John D. Ray, Asst. U.S. Atty., both of Pittsburgh, Pa., for the United States.
Before BUFFINGTON, DAVIS, and BIGGS, Circuit Judges.
The record of these causes dicloses that the judgments of conviction against the respective appellants can be sustained only upon evidence procured by federal officers' intercepting intrastate telephone communications. This testimony was introduced in evidence by the United States during the course of the appellants' trial in the court below, federal officers testifying to the intercepted communications. If such testimony is held to be inadmissible, the judgments of conviction of the respective appellants must be reversed.
The decision of this court in Jake Sablowsky v. United States, 3 Cir., 101 F.2d 183, governs the appeals at bar.
Accordingly the judgments of conviction of the appellants are reversed and the causes are remanded for further action in accordance with this opinion.