ABOVE: U.S. Attorney Alice Martin

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The Alex Latifi saga continues. As we have reported in detail here on Export Law Blog, Mr. Latifi was acquitted on charges that emailing a drawing of a Blackhawk helicopter part to a Chinese supplier violated the Arms Export Control Act. The acquittal appears to have been based, at least in part, on the availability of that drawing on the Internet.

Latifi’s attorney, Henry Frohsin, indicated on Friday that he has filed a complaint with the Department of Justice’s Office of Professional Responsibility against Alice Martin, the U.S. Attorney involved in the prosecution. A copy of the complaint is not publicly available, but another attorney in Frohsin’s firm told the Birmingham News that the complaint alleges that the government had exculpatory evidence that it failed to provide to the defense team. The precise nature of that exculpatory evidence was not revealed to the newspaper.

Alice Martin told the Birmingham News that her office has been the unsuccessful target of earlier complaints and that she was certain that her side would prevail again.

ABOVE: Vibro-Meter Pressure
Indicators

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A story by Dan Browning in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune alerted me to an investigation of Global Engineering Associates (“GEA”), a company located in a Minneapolis suburb. According to a recently unsealed search warrant (which Dan Browning was kind enough to send to me), GEA is being investigated for alleged shipments of pressure indicators and radio mounts to Singapore.

A search warrant needs to show probable cause for all elements of the crime and, of course, the scienter element of the violation — i.e. evidence that the defendant knew that the exports were in violation of the law — is, as usual, the hardest part to establish. The affidavit supporting the search warrant places its main emphasis on a visit made to GEA by agents of Immigration and Customs Enforcement under “Project Shield America,” a national outreach program initiated by ICE to inform exporters of export licensing requirements. According to the affidavit:

Special Agent Cramsey and Leff [the CEO of GEA] discussed the Project Shield America program in detail and exchanged business cards. Leff was given copies of the Project Shield America brochures for his review. Leff stated that he would be happy to review the literature to ensure his company was in compliance with all US export laws and regulations.

I don’t think I’m being too much of a cynic to suggest that this is a thin reed upon which to base scienter, and it’s not the first time that ICE has tried to use Project Shield America as a basis for claiming that export violations were willful. There is no question that the project teaches exporters that licenses are required for military and dual-use items. The problem is it provides little guidance to exporters in how to determine whether items are military or dual-use items.

In this case, the items in question aren’t obviously military items. Vibro-Meter, the manufacturer of the pressure indicators in question, produces pressure indicators for both civil and military aircraft. Nor does a “radio mount” have anything about it that inherently suggests that it is a military item. Indeed, ICE needed to request a specific determination from the Directorate of Defense Trade Controls to get the information necessary to conclude that these were military items on the USML. So, a friendly visit from ICE agents and a short brochure aren’t going to establish that GEA knew that these items were military items and therefore subject to export licensing requirements.

There are two other facts alleged in the affidavit that might support probable cause on the scienter element. First, there is a claim that the invoice inside the shipping packages differed from descriptions of the items in the shipping documents. However, it appears from the affidavit that the enclosed invoice simply had more detail than the descriptions in the shipping document, not necessarily an indication of criminal intent by the exporter. Second, the affidavit indicates that GEA never inquired about the two shipments containing the allegedly export-controlled items, both of which were seized by customs. That is, admittedly, somewhat more suspect, but there could be a number of innocent explanations.

The important consideration here is an issue that increasingly needs to be addressed. Export prosecutions have begun to veer from prosecution for exports of items that reasonable people would clearly realize were export-controlled — guns, tanks, night vision and the like — to less obvious items such as involved in this case. Some procedure needs to be implemented to assist exporters in determining export classification, and the current commodity jurisdiction procedure, which can take a year or more, is broken and not the answer.

The saga of the government’s ill-fated prosecution of Alex Latifi and his company Axion Corporation continues. The federal district court judge delivered yet another forceful gavel whack to the hands of the prosecutors and awarded the acquitted defendants legal fees, filing costs and expert witness fees and costs incurred in defending the prosecution. Latifi and Axion were accused of violating the Arms Export Control Act by emailing to a Chinese company technical drawings of a part used in the Black Hawk helicopter. The defense successfully argued that the drawing was available on the Internet and subject to the public domain exception under the International Traffic in Arms Regulations.

This is the first time, at least that I am aware of, where the U.S. government has been ordered to reimburse legal fees and costs incurred by defendant during an unsuccessful prosecution for export violations. Sources close to the case cited statements by prosecutors that they didn’t care whether the prosecution was successful and that their only goal was to put Latifi and Axion out of business.

There’s an interesting angle to the award aside from its uniqueness. We had previously noted that the defense team filed a motion under the Hyde Amendment (18 U.S.C. § 3006A Note) for recovery of attorneys’ fees, but in fact the court awarded the fees under the Civil Asset Forfeiture Reform Act (“CAFRA”) which provides for larger recoveries by acquitted defendants and a looser standard for recovery. Under the Hyde Amendment the acquitted defendant must prove that the prosecution was “vexatious, frivolous, or in bad faith.” Additionally, legal fees recovered under the Hyde Amendment are subject to the $125 per hour fee cap provided in 28 U.S.C. § 2412(d)(2)(A). CAFRA, on the other hand, imposes no such fee limit and provides for recovery in a forfeiture proceeding in which the defendant “substantially prevails.”

The reason that CAFRA was deemed applicable in this case was because the prosecutors included civil forfeiture counts in the indictment. This has been an increasing practice where prosecutors seek forfeiture of all profits related to the illegal exports. The decision of the district court in the Axion case to use the forfeiture claims as a basis for awarding all costs incurred by the defendant as a result of the forfeiture claim may cause prosecutors to rethink including such claims in the indictment.

(Full disclosure: I was interviewed and quoted in the linked article about the award of attorneys’ fees to the defendants in the Axion case)

ABOVE: Endevco 7270A-200K accelerometer

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We’ve posted here previously about the indictment of Qing Li for allegedly attempting to export Endevco 7270A-200K accelerometers without a license to China. That case is proceeding to trial, and the trial court rejected* Qing Li’s claim that the United States Munitions List, as applied in her case, was unconstitutionally vague.

The court characterized defendant Qing Li’s argument as follows:

Defendant argues that the court should dismiss the indictment because the [Arms Export Control Act] and its implementing regulations are unconstitutionally vague as applied to her. Specifically, Defendant argues that a person of ordinary intelligence could not determine that the Endevco accelerometer device is a “military accelerometer” requiring an export license. In support of this argument, she attaches to her motion two pages of manufacturer-provided “public information” regarding the Endevco accelerometer. She argues that “[a] person of ordinary intelligence would likely deem that data sheet incomprehensible,” and that the sheet does not indicate whether the device is for military or weapons use. (Mot. at 3.) She also emphasizes the allegation that even prosecutors must request information from the State Department to determine if an item is on the list.

I haven’t looked at the trial court record but the Endevco “public information” regarding the accelerometer is presumably this data sheet which, admittedly, doesn’t state that the item is on the USML or is export-controlled. And, of course, I’m sure that the argument that even the prosecution had to ask the State Department whether this accelerometer was USML or not elicited some sympathetic nods.

The court quite properly declined to make this a case about whether the USML description of military accelerometers is unconstitutionally vague, stating:

The court notes that not only does Defendant fail to cite a single case in which the court found the AECA unconstitutionally vague, her argument emphasizes the premature and misdirected nature of her challenge. Because the charging statute contains a scienter requirement (willful violation), innocent, accidental, or unknowing exportation of a proscribed device cannot support a conviction. Therefore, the relevant inquiry consists not of an abstract analysis of constitutional vagueness, but what Defendant knew. Such an inquiry will be undertaken by a jury and based on the evidence adduced at trial. See Lee, 183 F.3d at 1032-33 . Here, the factual record has yet to be developed. Until an evidentiary record is created, the court cannot determine whether Defendant “in fact had fair notice that the statute and regulations proscribed [her] conduct.” Hsu, 364 F.3d at 196. Application of these cited controlling authorities, in essence, renders Defendant’s constitutional challenge moot at this juncture.

Readers of this blog with sharp memories may recall, as we discussed here, that the indictment alleged some facts that suggest that Qing Li might indeed have known that the accelerometer was indeed covered by the USML. The undercover agent from whom Ms. Li was trying to purchase the accelerometer allegedly told her that the export required a license and he didn’t think one could be obtained. And although she appeared to walk away from the transaction at that point, citing the “risk” involved, the indictment alleged that she continued to direct the negotiations between the undercover agent and a contact in China.

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