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Lugo v. State2/20/2003
pports the enterprise element of the RICO statute.
Specifically, testimony regarding the militaristic nature in which Lugo, Doorbal, and others conducted the abduction and extortion in connection with Schiller proves an association for illicit purposes regarding that event. The common purpose and continual functioning of the organization were further shown by the testimony describing the coordinated but ultimately aborted plan to abduct and seize the assets of Winston Lee a few months after the Schiller episode. The culmination of the organization's common purpose and continual functioning was the careful planning and execution of the abductions of Griga and Furton. Jorge Delgado testified that Doorbal had developed a plan to kidnap and extort money from "a Hungarian couple." Lugo later confirmed Doorbal's plan to Delgado. Lugo and Doorbal subsequently ingratiated themselves with both Griga and Furton while plying Griga with visions of enormous profits from their bogus scheme to invest in phone lines in India . As in the abduction of Marc Schiller and the hoped-for abduction of Winston Lee, the abductions of Griga and Furton were, most assuredly, not random, spur-of-the-moment events lacking a common purpose and organizational structure. Rather, the events surrounding the involvement of Lugo and his team of evil with Schiller, Lee, Griga, and Furton evince a common purpose of carefully targeting specific victims for abduction and extortion. Moreover, in each instance at least one plan to abduct each victim was aborted or never executed, further evincing the non-random nature of the organization with which Lugo was associated. Lugo and his organized group planned their crimes in advance and employed devices they had acquired to facilitate those crimes. Therefore, " jury could reasonably conclude that [Lugo] and his associates shared the requisite common purpose of an ongoing organization," Gross, 765 So. 2d at 47, thereby establishing the first subelement of the enterprise element.
The State also proved that the organization with which Lugo was associated functioned as a continuing unit, thus satisfying the second subelement of the enterprise requirement. "Continuity [of an alleged RICO enterprise] exists where an unchanging pattern of roles is necessary and utilized to carry out the predicate acts of racketeering." Id. at 46. Lugo contends that the State's evidence failed to show an unchanging pattern of roles. We disagree. Stevenson Pierre testified that Lugo directed the Schiller abduction in militaristic fashion. Jorge Delgado testified that Lugo coordinated the surveillance of Winston Lee's townhouse in preparation for an abduction attempt that never materialized. Delgado's testimony also established that while the initial plan to kidnap and obtain the assets of Griga and Furton may have been Doorbal's, Lugo was heavily involved in the planning and was a primary participant in the execution of the Griga-Furton abduction. Lugo participated in several conversations with Griga prior to the kidnaping, in which Lugo and Doorbal floated their contrived plan for phone lines in India. Lugo and Doorbal also jointly lured Griga and Furton out of Griga's home on May 24, 1995, with the intent of implementing their kidnaping and extortion plan. Moreover, Lugo subsequently not only injected Furton with Rompun but also directed Doorbal to do so-acts which independently or in concert contributed to Furton's death. Based on these facts, competent, substantial evidence supports the conclusion that Lugo assumed and carried out a managerial function in the three major undertakings of an organization whose purpose was to kidnap carefully targeted victims and to extort money from them. Doorbal was literally his part
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