Circuit Judge José Cabranes
American citizen Getto was sentenced to 150 months in prison and restitution of $8.2 million after being convicted of conspiring to commit mail and wire fraud through a telemarketing scheme operated from "boiler rooms" in Israel. Under a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, the FBI requested that Israel's National Police (INP) investigate the conspiracy. District court denied suppression of evidence obtained by the INP. Declining to adopt the "joint venture" doctrine, Second Circuit held that ongoing collaboration between American law enforcement and its foreign counterpart in the course of parallel investigation does not—absent American control, direction or intent to evade the Constitution—give rise to a relationship sufficient to apply the Fourth Amendment's exclusionary rule to evidence obtained abroad by foreign law enforcement. U.S. officials neither controlled nor directed the INP's independent, parallel investigation. Thus, Second Circuit affirmed conviction. However, it remanded the case for resentencing after concluding that district court erred by inadequately explaining the sentence imposed. Among other things, district court did not make particularized findings as to the conspiracy's scope or the foreseeability of Getto's conduct.
