United States v. Joseph Barletta, United States of America v. Thomas Fontanello

HENLEY, Circuit Judge.

In 1975 Joseph Barletta and Thomas Fon-tanello, along with Nicholas Civella, Anthony Thomas Civella and Frank Anthony Tou-sa, were convicted in the United States District Court for the Western District of Missouri1 of having unlawfully conspired to violate 18 U.S.C. §§ 1084 and 1952.2 Their convictions resulted from their involvement *987in a large scale illegal bookmaking gambling operation in Kansas City prior to 1970. The government’s case against the five men consisted largely of tape recordings of telephone conversations that had been intercepted under an authorizing…