United States v. Thomas Trigilio

Defendant has appealed from a judgment finding him guilty of criminal contempt of court, 18 U.S.C.A. § 401, and sentencing him to three months imprisonment for refusal to answer questions put to him before a federal grand jury, after the court directed him to answer them. The issue presented by the appeal is whether the district court was correct in ruling that appellant did not have reasonable cause to fear that answering the questions might tend to incriminate him.

The federal grand jury was investigating bank robberies in Buffalo, New York, in which Frank Coppola was suspected of having…