No published criminal decisions today from the 9th, so I have time to share an interesting case from the 11th Circuit.
In United States v. O'Steen, --- F.4th ---, No. 22-13569 (11th Cir. 2025), the Court vacated the defendant's convictions.
This appeal is the last chapter of a lengthy FBI investigation of the State Attorney for the Third Judicial Circuit of Florida, Jeffrey Alan Siegmeister. The investigation began in August 2018, after Andy Tong, whom Siegmeister was prosecuting for maintaining a gambling house in violation of Florida law,2 told the FBI that his attorney, Marion Michael O’Steen, would have to pay Siegmeister $50,000 for a favorable disposition of the case. The investigation concluded in February 2021, when a Middle District of Florida grand jury returned a twelve-count indictment against Siegmeister and O’Steen. Siegmeister was charged in eleven counts, O’Steen in four. Relevant here are Counts One through Four .
The Court's Hobbs Act discussion is particularly interesting.
In his Rule 29 motion for acquittal at trial, O’Steen argued that he could not be convicted of Hobbs Act extortion because the extorted property must be the “actual property” of the victim.The Hobbs Act defines “commerce” to include all “commerce over which the United States has jurisdiction.” 18 U.S.C. § 1951(b)(3). In other words, the statute reaches only as far as Congress can exercise its constitutional authority over interstate commerce. See U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3. In order to establish the required “interstate nexus,” the Government must “show a realistic probability of an effect, or some actual de minimis effect, on commerce.”Although this Court has never squarely considered whether the Government can prove Hobbs Act extortion where the extorted property was provided solely by law enforcement, the Sixth Circuit addressed precisely that question in United States v. DiCarlantonio, 870 F.2d 1058 (6th Cir. 1989). In that case, like here, the allegedly extorted money had been provided to the victim by the FBI. See DiCarlantonio, 870 F.2d at 1060. And the Sixth Circuit held that “the mere receipt of government funds” could not create the requisite effect on interstate commerce. Id. at 1060–61; see also United States v. Rindone, 631 F.2d 491, 494 (7th Cir. 1980).We agree. Although the use of government funds as bribe money depletes the funds available to the government, it does not “deplete[] the assets of an individual who is directly engaged in interstate commerce.” See Diaz, 248 F.3d at 1084–45 (emphasis added). Therefore, evidence of an alleged extortion involving purely government money cannot establish even the minimal effect on interstate commerce that is required by the Hobbs Act.
