Full opinion text
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER HAIGHT, Senior District Judge. Roy William Harris petitions this Court pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 for'a writ of habeas corpus setting aside his prior conviction, and under Rule 33, Fed.R.Civ.P. for a new trial. The government resists Harris’s applications in their entirety. PART I. Procedural Background On September 9,1992, a grand jury sitting in this district returned a 24-count superseding indictment charging Roy William Harris with conspiracy to commit wire and bank fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371, wire fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1343, bank fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1344, money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2), conducting a continuing financial crimes enterprise (“CFCE”) in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 225, and making a false statement on a loan application in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1014. Prior to trial, Harris moved to dismiss certain counts of the indictment and also to sever Count 23, which charged him with making a false statement on a loan application. This Court granted Harris’s motion to sever Count 23, but denied his motion to dismiss those counts charging him with wire fraud, bank fraud, and engaging in a continuing financial crimes enterprise. See United States v. Harris, 805 F.Supp. 166 (S.D.N.Y.1992). A jury was empaneled on November 9, 1992. On December 14, 1992, the jury found Harris guilty on all counts tried. On March 26, 1993, Harris filed motions for a judgment of acquittal, pursuant to Rule 29, Fed.R.Crim.P., and for a new trial, pursuant to Rule 33. This Court denied Harris’s motions in their entirety. See United States v. Harris, 1993 WL 300052 (S.D.N.Y.). Prior to sentencing, Harris moved for downward departures from the United States Sentencing Guidelines. This Court denied those applications after conducting an evidentiary hearing. See United States v. Harris, 1994 WL 688429 (S.D.N.Y.). On December 22, 1994, this Court sentenced Harris to a 188-month term of imprisonment, a 5-year term of supervised release, and a direction that Harris pay $200 million in restitution. In an opinion dated February 28, Í996, the Second Circuit upheld Harris’s conviction and sentence, except for the restitution order, which the Court of Appeals remanded to this Court for further proceedings. See United States v. Harris, 79 F.3d 223 (2d Cir.1996). On October 7, 1996, the Supreme Court denied Harris’s petition for a writ of certiora-ri. See Harris v. United States, — U.S. -, 117 S.Ct. 142, 136 L.Ed.2d 89 (1996). On March 18, 1997, Harris filed this petition pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 2255 and Rule 33, for habeas corpus setting aside his conviction and for a new trial. PART II. Timeliness of the Petition Against this procedural background, I must consider the timeliness of Harris’s petition in light of the Anti-Terrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996 (“AEDPA”), effective April 24,1996. Because the timeliness of a habeas corpus petition is jurisdictional in nature, I raised the question sua sponte in an opinion dated February 13, 1998, familiarity with which is assumed, and directed the parties to address it. They have done so. I am now satisfied that Harris’s petition is timely. The Court’s February 13,1998 opinion incorrectly stated at slip op. 1 that Harris did not petition the United States Supreme Court for a writ of certiorari. As the preceding Part of this opinion notes, Harris did file such a petition, which the Supreme Court denied on October 7, 1996. I therefore conclude that Harris’s judgment of conviction did not become final for purposes of the one-year period of limitation contained in 28 U.S.C. § 2255 until that date. By that time the AEDPA had become effective. Harris’s petition, filed on March 18, 1997, was within the one-year statutory time limit. Accordingly the Court will consider the petition on its merits. PART III. Factual Background The facts of this case are set forth in detail in the cited opinions of this Court and the Court of Appeals, familiarity with which is assumed. I recount the facts in this opinion to the extent necessary to explicate the grounds for decision. At the pertinent times petitioner Roy William Harris was the president and chief executive officer of two corporations that I will on occasion collectively refer to as the “Aro-Chem Companies” or “the Companies.” One of these, AroChem International, Inc. (“International”), operated a petroleum and petrochemical refinery complex in Puerto Rico. The other, AroChem Corporation (“Aro-Chem”), which maintained its principal offices in Greenwich, Connecticut, provided management services to International, including supervising the inventory and trading activities of International and marketing petrochemicals and petroleum products. Harris was also the sole shareholder and managing director of a third entity, Aro-Chem International, Ltd. (“Limited”), which engaged in trading and financing of crude oil and petroleum products. In January of 1990 a consortium of banks, led by Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A. (“Chase”), and including Bank Brussels Lambert (“BBL”), Swiss Bank Corporation, Ban-que Indosuez (“BI”), and later, Skopbank (collectively “the Banks”, or “the Chase Group of Banks”), entered into a revolving credit agreement (“the RCA”) with the Aro-Chem Companies. The RCA permitted the AroChem Companies to borrow up to $245 million as needed for their business operations. Loans made under the RCA were secured by the Companies’ inventory of petroleum and petroleum products and by their receivables and cash. The initial credit agreement expired in January of 1991, and was extended thereafter six times through November 30, 1991. Ultimately the Aro-Chem Companies defaulted on their obligations under the RCA. They owed the Banks about $200 million when, on February 14, 1992, the Banks filed a petition to force the Companies into bankruptcy. The government conducted a criminal and grand jury investigation, using the resources of the Office of the United States Attorney for this district and the FBI. The grand jury’s indictment was filed on May 27, 1992. To support its charges of conspiracy and substantive violations, the government alleged in the indictment a three-part fraudulent scheme: “conceal[ing] the true financial condition of the AroChem Companies from the Chase group of banks and the AroChem Companies’ independent auditors”; misappropriations by Harris of “monies belonging to the AroChem Companies for his own personal benefit”; and “concealfing] from the Chase group of banks excessively speculative trading practices prohibited by the [RCA].” Indictment, ¶ 7. According to the indictment, the first part of the fraudulent scheme consisted of creating false and fictitious contracts, invoices, receipts, wire transfers, and other documentation, including a series of “borrowing base reports” (“BBRs”), which were intended to identify the crude oil inventory and forward purchases of inventory by the AroChem Companies for refining at International’s refinery in Puerto Rico. The second part of the fraudulent scheme consisted of Harris engaging in petroleum product trading practices which repeatedly caused the AroChem Companies to hold net open positions far in excess of the one million barrel net trading position limitation imposed by the RCA, and concealing those trading practices from the Banks, with the result that Harris exposed the Companies and the Banks to excessive trading risk. The third part of the scheme involved the diversion by Harris of assets belonging to the AroChem Companies to his personal accounts. According to the government’s theory of the case, Harris made use of Limited to perpetrate the scheme by utilizing Limited to finance oil cargoes in transit and other trading activities. Limited had accounts at Ban-que Paribas (Suisse) and Credit Lyonnais (Suisse) in Geneva, Switzerland (the Swiss Banks”). The government alleged that, in order to conceal and disguise the nature, location, source and ownership of funds, Harris transferred approximately $7.5 million from the AroChem Companies’ accounts at Chase through the Union Trust Company in Connecticut and into Limited’s accounts at the Swiss Banks, for the purpose of concealing from the Chase Group of Banks the extent to which Harris was utilizing Limited to finance cargoes in transit and trading activities. The Second Circuit’s opinion affirming Harris’s conviction described these three components of the fraudulent scheme as “The Companies’ Fraudulent Practices,” “Violations of Financial Covenant,” and “Money Laundering,” respectively. 79 F.3d at 226-28. In addition to the government’s indictment of Harris, the AroChem Companies’ default on their obligations under the RCA also generated a welter of civil litigation. I need not recite all the details. It is sufficient for present purposes to say that virtually everyone involved is suing everyone else: banks are suing Harris; banks are suing Ernst & Young, the AroChem Companies’ independent auditors at the relevant times; banks are suing other banks; the AroChem bankruptcy trustee is suing banks; and so forth. I may not have referred to all the litigation pairings, but it does not really matter. Most of this litigation is pending in this district, consolidated before District Judge McKenna and Magistrate Judge Ellis, although eases are also pending in other courts. The relevance of all this civil litigation to the ease at bar is that the civil actions have, not surprisingly, generated vast amounts of pre-trial discovery, consisting of depositions and production of documents. Habeas counsel for Harris, who did not represent him at the trial, in post-trial proceedings, or on appeal, fasten upon this discovery as the basis for Harris’s habeas corpus petition. “The extensive discovery in those civil law suits has disclosed that Mr. Harris’s conviction was the result of perjury, false and misleading evidence, and suppression of testimony and evidence which would have exonerated him.” Initial affidavit of John B. Conway, Esq., sworn to on March 12, 1997, at ¶ 2. Counsel attaches to his affidavit as exhibits voluminous excerpts from depositions given during the civil litigation and many documents produced as exhibits. Harris expands upon that theme in his main brief at 5: The facts upon which Harris was convicted, and the facts upon which his conviction was affirmed, are now provably false. As a result of massive discovery taken after Harris’ trial in civil litigation brought by the RCA lenders, the real AroChem story has unfolded. Following the production of approximately four million pages of documents and the taking of depositions for approximately 400 days, the truth has come out. The truth is that Harris’ conviction resulted from government misconduct which violated Harris’ right under the fifth amendment to due process of law and a fair trial. Since the petition at bar was filed, there have been a number of additional submissions of briefs and exhibits by counsel for Harris and for the government; a number of hearings before the Court at which counsel argued various points of law; the promulgation of written cross-interrogatories to an attorney formerly with the Harris defense trial team; an exchange of written requests to admit by counsel for Harris and the government’s responses thereto; and the examination by the Court in camera of all the grand jury testimony in the case, as well as documents from the files of the government and the Milbank Tweed law firm, which represents Chase, counsel for Harris having sought to obtain discovery of such documentation in this proceeding. I have dealt with the issues arising out of that requested document discovery in opinions dated December 80, 1997, January 23, 1998, February 5, 1998, and March 6, 1998, familiarity with all of which is also assumed. I now turn to a more detailed consideration of the various bases for relief that Harris urges in his petition. PART IV. Harris’s Present Contentions Harris does not contend on this petition that the conduct of the AroChem Companies’ business was entirely untainted by fraud. The principal contentions of habeas counsel are: (1) The chief architect of any fraud perpetrated at AroChem was Vincent J. (“V.J.”) Dispenza, the Companies’ chief financial officer, aided and abetted primarily by Dean Seniff, the comptroller. (2) (a) Harris did not participate in any fraud at AroChem, and was unaware of any fraudulent acts on the part of his fellow corporate officers, Dispenza and Seniff. (b) To the extent that Dispenza or Seniff testified that Harris knew or should have known of or participated in fraud at Aro-Chem, they committed perjury, and the government knew or should have known they were doing so. (3) (a) Chase, and perhaps other members of the Chase Group of Banks, knew and approved of the AroChem Companies’ practice of consistently holding a net unhedged position in oil greatly in excess of one million barrels, the covenanted limit in the RCA (b) To the extent that Bank witnesses at the trial testified that the one million barrel limit was vitally important to the Banks, and that the Banks did not know it was being exceeded, they committed perjury, and the government knew or should have known they were doing so. (4) (a) Chase, and perhaps other members of the Chase Group of Banks, knew and approved of all oil trading activities engaged in by Limited with the financial assistance of the Swiss Banks. (b) To the extent that Bank witnesses testified at trial that they were unaware of Limited’s trading activities, and would have disapproved had they known, they committed perjury, and the government knew or should have known they were doing so. (5) (a) Chase, and perhaps other members of the Chase Group of Banks, knew and approved of the full extent of Harris’s speculative trading in oil futures. (b) To the extent that Bank witnesses testified at trial that they were unaware of Harris’s trading activities, and would have disapproved had they known, they committed perjury, and the government knew or should have known they were doing so. (6) The trial testimony of the government’s expert witness, Robert Lynch of the accounting firm of Arthur Andersen, with respect to the AroChem Companies’ accounting records and the conclusions to be drawn from them, was perjurious, and the government knew or should have known that it was. (7) The government violated its obligation under Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), to advise Harris and his trial counsel of exculpatory material, and its obligation under Giglio v. United States, 405 U.S. 150, 92 S.Ct. 763, 31 L.Ed.2d 104 (1972), to advise Harris and his trial counsel of impeachment material. (8) The government intimidated potential defense witnesses for the improper purpose of preventing them from testifying. Trial counsel for Harris based his defense primarily upon contentions (1) and (2)(a). Harris did not testify at trial and the defense called no other witnesses. Trial counsel attacked the credibility of Dispenza and Seniff, and challenged the conclusions drawn by Lynch. Trial counsel did not attempt to demonstrate at trial, as habeas counsel now contend, that the Banks knew all along about the Companies’ exceeding the one million barrel net open position limit, or about the speculative oil trading activities of Limited and Harris. With the issues thus posed, the Court directed counsel to address the question whether, in addition to the hearings previously conducted, the circumstances of this case required an evidentiary hearing to which witnesses would be called to testify. Harris and the government both take the position that no evidentiary hearing is necessary, but for diametrically opposite reasons. Harris contends that the present record entitles him to habeas relief and a new trial. The government contends that the present record requires dismissal of the petition. Counsel have briefed these contentions and argued them at the most recent hearing. Thus the present procedural posture of the case is analogous to cross-motions for summary judgment. PART V: The Requisite Showings to Establish that Evidence is “Newly Discovered” It frequently occurs that petitions for ha-beas corpus under § 2255 and motions for a new trial under Rule 33 are based upon what the applicants characterize as “newly discovered evidence.” Indeed, in the case at bar, that is a central theme stressed by habeas counsel for Harris, who contend, as noted, that the truth as they perceive it emerged only during the course of the civil litigation that followed the criminal trial. The question therefore arises: what must be shown to qualify evidence as “newly discovered?” I address that question in this Part of the Opinion. That question is often presented in the context of allegedly perjured trial testimony, and so I begin the analysis with such cases. Perjury Harris contends that the government knowingly presented perjured testimony and false evidence going to material issues. Without that perjured testimony, Harris argues, he could not have been convicted on any component of the fraudulent scheme charged against him. In those circumstances, Harris concludes, he is entitled to relief on two grounds. First, this corruption of the fairness of the trial process violated his Fifth Amendment right to due process of law, a claim cognizable under the habeas statute, 28 U.S.C. § 2255, which covers cases where a federal sentence was imposed “in violation of the Constitution or laws of the United States.” Second, perjured prosecution testimony is a recognized ground for a new trial under Rule 33, Fed.R.Civ.P. There is authority that supports both grounds urged by Harris. As for the habeas statute, in Mooney v. Holohan, 294 U.S. 103, 112, 55 S.Ct. 340, 79 L.Ed. 791 (1935), upon which Harris places principal reliance, the Supreme Court made it clear that “if a state has contrived a conviction through the pretense of a trial which in truth is but used as a means of depriving a defendant of liberty through a deliberate deception of court and jury by the presentation of testimony known to be perjured,” that conviction must be regarded as “inconsistent with the rudimentary demands of justice ... ” Mooney construed the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution. More recently the Court has said, in a case construing the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which “will apply equally to the comparable clause in the Fourteenth Amendment applicable to state trials,” that “a conviction obtained by the knowing use of perjured testimony is fundamentally unfair, and must be set aside if there is any reasonable likelihood that the false testimony could have effected the judgment of the jury ...” United States v. Agurs, 427 U.S. 97, 103-04, 107, 96 S.Ct. 2392, 49 L.Ed.2d 342 (1976). In the Rule 33 context, the government’s use of perjured testimony, knowing or unknowing, is a commonly urged basis for a new trial under the rule. Each case turns on its own circumstances. Sometimes the motion succeeds, as in United States v. Wallach, 935 F.2d 445 (2d Cir.1991); sometimes it fails, as in United States v. Torres, 128 F.3d 38 (2d Cir.1997). In the most recent round of briefing, I directed counsel to address the question whether, to succeed on the basis of either statute or rule, Harris must show not only that the government obtained his conviction by the knowing use of perjured testimony, but also that he and his counsel were unaware of the facts demonstrating the perjury at the time of trial, and could not have discovered them by the exercise of due diligence. I now conclude that the question must be answered in the affirmative, in the contexts of both statute and rule. Treating those contexts in inverse order, analysis of what must be shown to obtain a new trial begins with the wording of Rule 33. The rule provides in pertinent part: A motion for a new trial based on the ground of newly discovered evidence may be made only before or within two years after final judgment, but if an appeal is pending the court may grant the motion only on remand of the case. A motion for a new trial based on any other grounds shall be made within 7 days after verdict or finding of guilty or within such further time as the court may fix during the 7-day period. These time limits are jurisdictional. Given the chronology of the case, “the ground of newly discovered evidence” is the only Rule 33 ground available to Harris, and that is the ground he urges, purportedly based, as noted supra, upon post-trial revelations in the civil litigation. “Newly discovered evidence,” as that phrase is used in Rule 33, has a well-established meaning in the Second Circuit. A recent expression appears in United States v. Torres, 128 F.3d 38, 48-49 (2d Cir.1997): “When a motion for a new trial rests on newly discovered evidence, the defendants must show: (1) that, with due diligence, they could not have discovered the evidence during trial; (2) that the evidence is material; and (3) that the evidence is non-eumulative” (citations omitted). The defendants in Torres, as does Harris, based their Rule 33 claim upon perjury by a government trial witness. The Torres defendants had no difficulty satisfying the due diligence requirement, since it was not until their original motions for new trials were pending that “the government notified the court and [defendants] that one of its witnesses had committed perjury at trial. The government learned that this witness had withheld from the government about $80,000 in cash proceeds from his heroin business, in direct contradiction to his trial testimony that he had not hidden any money.” 128 F.3d at 48. United States v. Moore, 54 F.3d 92, 99 (2d Cir.1995), presents the same circumstance (“Moore learned of the alleged perjury only during a fortuitous post-trial conversation with Timothy Cyrus’ counsel in a separate proceeding.”). In both Torres and Moore, it was apparent that the Rule 33 movant claiming perjury by a government witness did not know, and could not have known, of the perjury at the time of trial. However, contrary to Harris’s contention, where at the time of trial a Rule 33 movant knew or by the exercise of due diligence could have discovered (and consequently demonstrated) a government witness’s perjury, he cannot satisfy the first of the three requirements articulated in Torres, and the evidence of perjury is not “newly discovered” under the rule. In United States v. Helmsley, 985 F.2d 1202, 1206-08 (2d Cir.1993), the Second Circuit explained: Normally the requirement that a collateral attack must be supported by evidence not available by reasonable diligence at trial applies to claims of a prosecutor’s knowing use of false testimony .... We have never permitted a successful collateral attack for a prosecutor’s knowing use of false testimony based entirely on evidence of which the defendant was aware, or in the exercise of reasonable diligence should have been aware, at trial, and we have permitted such an attack to succeed, despite the existence at trial of some basis for the defendant to suspect the prosecutor’s knowing use of false testimony, only where the prosecutor was directly involved in the falsity. In United States v. White, 972 F.2d 16 (2d Cir.1992), the Second Circuit said in the context of a motion for a new trial based on perjured testimony that “the motion will not be granted unless the newly discovered evidence’ could not with due diligence have been discovered before or during trial.” ■ 972 F.2d at 20. While the court did not deny the motion on that ground, id. (“[sjinee it is not the use of the drugs but the alleged denial of use that would make this evidence material, it is difficult to evaluate whether defense counsel could have, or should have, developed this point prior to Smith’s testimony”), White makes it clear that in this circuit, the due diligence requirement applies to Rule 33 motions for a new trial based upon the perjury of government witnesses. I conclude that the same requirement applies to statutory habeas corpus petitions based upon trial perjury. In that context Harris places primary reliance upon Mooney v. Holohan, supra, but fails to quote in his briefs this passage from the Court’s per cu-riam opinion: [Petitioner] alleges that he could not by reasonable diligence have discovered prior to the denial of his motion for a new trial, and his appeal to the Supreme Court of the State, the evidence which was subsequently developed and which proved the testimony against him to have been perjured. 294 U.S. at 110, 55 S.Ct. 340. While as stated at footnote 2, supra, in Mooney the Supreme Court did not pass upon the merits of the petition, on the ground that it must first be presented to the state courts, there is no reason to suppose that the petitioner would have alleged his exercise of due diligence or the Court have explicitly referred to it, if due diligence was not an essential requirement for relief. In United States v. Agurs, supra, which reached the merits and turned upon the Due Process clause of the Fifth Amendment, the parties litigated the due diligence issue. See 427 U.S. at 101, 96 S.Ct. 2392 (the government, opposing relief, argued inter alia “that the evidence was readily discoverable in advance of trial and hence was not the kind of ‘newly discovered’ evidence justifying a new trial”); id. at 102, 96 S.Ct. 2392 (the court of appeals “found no lack of diligence on the part of the defense”). While Agurs involved a claim of prosecutorial nondisclosure of exculpatory evidence, rather than use of perjured testimony, there is no principled reason to apply the due diligence requirement in one context but not in the other; and Agurs cites Mooney as one of three situations which “involves the discovery, after trial, of information which had been known to the prosecution but unknown to the defense.” Id. at 103, 55 S.Ct. 340 (emphasis added). In addition to Mooney v. Holohan, Harris cites United States v. Wong, 78 F.3d 73 (2d Cir.1996), and United States v. Gambino, 59 F.3d 353 (2d Cir.1995), to support the contention “[t]he knowing use of false testimony compels the reversal of a conviction.” Brief of Petitioner for Judgment Setting Aside his Conviction Based Upon the Evidence Before the Court at 32. That contention materially overstates the holdings of these cases, both of which assumed governmental use of perjured testimony but denied new trials. See Wong, 78 F.3d at 82 (“The circumstances do not suggest that the undisclosed evidence of Teixeria’s perjury would have affected the result.”); Gambino, 59 F.3d at 365 (“Even assuming Gravano perjured himself and assuming perjury in other trials would be relevant to Gravano’s testimony in this trial, we do not believe the Conte letter material in the constitutional sense. Had defense counsel had access to the letter, we do not believe it would likely have affected the outcome of the trial ... ”). But more pertinent to the present discussion, it is apparent from both Wong and Gambino that the evidence relied upon to establish perjury was truly “newly discovered” by the defense. The perjury of the paid informant Teixeria in Wong arose out of inconsistent testimony about his tax returns, given in prior unrelated cases of which the prosecutor had knowledge but defense counsel had none. The “Conte letter” referred to in Gambino constituted Brady material which the Second Circuit said should have been made available to the defense. There is nothing in either of these cases, or indeed in any other, to suggest that the evidence used in a post-trial motion to demonstrate trial perjury need not be newly discovered. The policy reason for that requirement is plain enough. A defendant must use available evidence to attack the credibility of government witnesses at trial. He cannot fail or omit to do so at trial and then, in the event of a conviction, use such evidence to mount a collateral attack upon it. Were the rule otherwise, the finality of judgments would be compromised and litigation could be endless. United States v. Siddiqi, 959 F.2d 1167 (2d Cir.1992), reflects the operation of that policy. This was a prosecution for Medicare fraud. The decisive question of fact was whether the defendant, a physician, prepared the fraudulent claims forms. Defendant said he could not have done so because he was out of the country at the times the forms underlying the counts of conviction were completed. Following his conviction by the jury, defendant moved under Rule 33 for a new trial, proffering as newly discovered evidence a hospital “physicians away list” which tended to show that defendant was indeed away from the hospital on the key dates. The district court denied defendant’s Rule 33 motion. On direct appeal, the Second Circuit remanded the ease for further proceedings with respect to this evidence. The court of appeals concluded that if the document in question had been before the jury, “the jury probably would have acquitted Siddiqi on the five counts which are the subject of his appeal.” Id. at 1172. But the court of appeals did not order a new trial; rather, it remanded the case to the district court for further proceedings to determine whether the document qualified as “newly discovered” evidence, and was admissible. The Second Circuit’s instructions on remand are noteworthy: On remand, the district court should determine (1) whether the document could have been discovered before or during trial with the exercise of due diligence, and (2) whether the document is admissible into evidence. If it could have been discovered, or if it is not admissible for lack of authenticity or other reasons, then the convictions shall stand, since we find Siddiqi’s challenges to the jury charge meritless. However, if the document is both new and admissible, then in light of our conclusion that it probably would have led to an acquittal if presented to the jury, the district court shall order a new trial on counts 31, 33, 40, 42, and 43 of the indictment. Id. at 1174. Siddiqi thus holds that even if a defendant proffers evidence on a Rule 33 motion that would probably have resulted in acquittal, it avails him nothing if “the evidence could have been discovered before or during trial with the exercise of due diligence.” For the reasons set forth above, I hold that, whether the procedural context be a petition under § 2255 or a motion under Rule 33, the perjury of a government witness cannot be a ground for successful collateral attack upon a conviction unless the defendant shows that the facts demonstrating that perjury were not known to the defense at trial, and could not have been discovered by the exercise of due diligence. Documentary Evidence Habeas counsel for Harris also claim that documentary evidence exists which, if called to the attention of the jury, would have led to a different trial result. I think it is plain that, even if such claims are not coupled with charges that government witnesses perjured themselves, they stand upon the same footing with respect to newly discovered evidence. That is to say, documents cannot be so characterized, and consequently cannot form the basis for habe-as or Rule 33 relief, unless the applicant can show that the documents in question were not known to the defense at trial, and could not have been discovered by the exercise of due diligence. I will now apply these holdings to certain of the claims Harris asserts in this proceeding. PART VI: The One Million Barrel Covenant In its opinion affirming Harris’s conviction, 79 F.3d at 227, the Second Circuit summarized the evidence on this aspect of the fraudulent scheme the government charged against Harris: The agreement between the AroChem Companies and the banks prohibited the Companies from holding a net unhedged position in oil of more than one million barrels. However, the Companies regularly violated this covenant. For instance, the Companies’ net unhedged position was in excess of one million barrels approximately 80% to 85% of the time during the period January, 1990 through January, 1991. By November of 1990, the AroChem Companies were maintaining net unhedged positions of up to 10 million barrels of oil. The Companies never informed the banks that they were engaged in such highly speculative trading. Habeas counsel for Harris correctly assert that witnesses employed by the Banks gave material evidence in support of these propositions. They were Suzanne Durney and Mi-chiel van der Voort, employees of Chase, and Alexander “Sasha” Dinell, an employee of BBL. Of these, Durney was the most important witness, and is the witness against whom habeas counsel assert the most vehement accusations of perjury. Durney testified that the net open position covenant was a very significant issue for Chase, intended to insure that AroChem was not entering into speculative positions, which the Banks wished to prevent lest the Companies’ capital base be exposed to the volatility of the oil markets; that she relied upon the BBRs to make sure that the Companies were in compliance with the net open position covenant; and that she never knew that Aro-Chem had net open positions exceeding one million barrels. Durney testified that Chase “relied very heavily” on the information in the BBRs, “to insure that the company had sufficient collateral to support the loans and to insure that the company was not violating its trading net open position.” Trial Tr. 494. She testified further that Chase was never told that the Companies “had positions as much as 10 or 15 million barrels long or short”; and that “[i]f we had known that the company was taking those kinds of positions, we never would have made the loan in the first place. If we had found out after we made the loan, we probably would have demanded payment and probably would have tried to foreclose on our collateral.” Id. at 546-47. Dinell and van der Voort gave consistent testimony with respect to the importance of the covenant, the use the Banks made of the BBRs, the reliance placed upon them, and the Banks’ ignorance of the Companies’ net unhedged open positions. It is useful now to describe in more detail the RCA’s one million barrel covenant and the information contained in the BBRs. RCA § 8.22 provided that the AroChem Companies “would not permit their Net Open Position at any one time to exceed 1,000,000 barrels if their Net Open Position is a positive number, or less then a negative 1,000,000 barrels if their Net Open Position is a negative number.” RCA § 1.01, captioned “Certain Defined Terms,” defined “Net Open Position” as meaning “the number of barrels equal to (i) the sum of the volumes of: (a) Inventory [excluding certain substances] and (b) Inventory that the Obligors are obligated to purchase under Forward Contracts or Futures Contracts or that the Obligors have the right to purchase under Call Options,” minus “(ii) the sum of the volumes of Inventory that the Obligors are obligated to sell” under such contracts or “have the right to sell under Put Options.” The BBRs which AroChem filed with Chase on a near-weekly basis purported to show the Company’s current trading positions. Such a document was called a “Borrowing Base Certificate,” to which a “Position Report” was attached. The parties’ briefs telescope these captions, referring to the document as a “borrowing base report,” and so will I; hence the abbreviation “BBR.” The BBRs do not contain the phrase “Net Open Position,” which as noted appears in the RCA. Rather, the BBRs conclude with the notation “NET INV. POS.,” which Dur-ney testified in her analysis of a typical BBR, for May 26, 1991, GX 59, showed that “the Company on this particular date was long 598,000 barrels of inventory.” Trial Tr. 492. In other words, on the government’s trial theory the entry for “NET INV. POS.” represented the net open position specified by the covenant in RCA § 8.22 and defined in RCA § 1.01. The BBRs typically listed “forward purchases of inventory” which were marked “variable.” Durney testified that such contracts “were not included in the long position of the company because they don’t put the company at any price risks, since the prices on these barrels hadn’t been set.” Trial Tr. 485. If “variable” contracts were included in AroChem’s long position, then every BBR would show a net open position greatly in excess of the one million barrel limitation. The contention now put forward by Harris’s habeas counsel (although not by his trial counsel) is that “variable” forward purchases of inventory should have been included in the long position and that Durney knew this. If the BBRs are read in that fashion, they consistently showed non-compliance with the covenant. Accordingly, the habeas argument proceeds, Durney’s trial testimony on the point constituted perjury, as the government knew or should have known. The bottom-line contention for Harris in this proceeding is that Chase knew Harris and AroChem were speculating in oil futures, went along with it gladly, and then needed to set up Harris as a scapegoat when AroChem lost heavily and defaulted on the loans. In short, habeas counsel contend, the Banks were not defrauded with respect to the Company’s non-compliance with the net open position covenant, as the government charged in the indictment. Moreover, habeas counsel contend, the excessive net open positions should have been readily apparent to “anyone who knew how to read the borrowing base reports.” Reply Brief at 30. That is because “[t]his precise phenomenon appeared on every single borrowing base report given to the RCA lenders under the RCA; that is, on every single borrowing base report the number of barrels shown next to ‘NET INV. POS.’ did not include the barrels listed for contracts listed ‘variable’ but on which the price was fixed.” Id. at 32. While in this proceeding Harris charges the government with failing to produce or identify certain documents in violation of its Brady and Giglio obligations, see Part X, infra, there appears to be no doubt that the BBRs were furnished to the defense team prior to trial, and were in fact admitted as exhibits at trial. Thus as enclosures to a letter dated June 4, 1992, Assistant United States Attorney Howard M. Shapiro sent to lead counsel for Harris “[t]he borrowing base certificates and attached position reports to the Chase Group of Banks by the AroChem Companies between April 1990 and December 1991.” Shapiro Affidavit Ex. A. This occurred five months before the trial began, the jury having been empaneled on November 9, 1992. Any lingering doubt on this point was dispelled during oral argument on the motions for summary disposition on February 2, 1998. Habeas counsel for Harris had just finished discussing what the BBRs show about net open positions, reiterating the claim that Dispenza and Dumey had perjured themselves in their relevant testimony. See Tr. 127, 138. In order that I might fully understand the evidentiary basis for that contention, I put a question to counsel for Harris: THE COURT: All right. I guess ah I’m really getting at and the question I just put to you was whether we call it perjury or misrepresentation or artful dodging or misleading or whatever, the evidence which you now say brands this testimony as one or the other is evidence which, in order to make the argument, you must demonstrate to be newly discovered evidence under Rule 33. Do you accept that proposition? MR. CONWAY: Newly discovered within the evidence — within actual exhibits and testimony at trial, your Honor. THE COURT: Okay. All right. MR. CONWAY: I will not refer, I don’t believe, I don’t think I mil be referring to anything that wasn’t either an exhibit or testimony at trial. Tr. 138-39 (emphasis added). This acknowledgment gives the game away with respect to this aspect of the case. How evidence “newly discovered within the evidence” adduced at trial can be “newly discovered evidence,” as that phrase is used in habeas and Rule 33 cases, passes all understanding. The most that can be said for Harris, with respect to the one million barrel covenant, is that his present counsel are advancing arguments based upon trial exhibits which trial counsel might have made but did not.. That cannot possibly fit within the rubric of newly discovered evidence, as the Second Circuit held in the closely analogous ease of United States v. Slutsky, 514 F.2d 1222 (1975). The defendants in Slutsky were convicted of attempted income tax evasion in connection with their operation of the Nevele, a Catskills resort hotel. After affirmance of their conviction on direct appeal, the defendants moved for a new trial under Rule 33 on the basis of newly discovered evidence. That evidence came to the attention of new attorneys engaged to prepare a petition for a writ of certiorari to the Supreme Court. “While conducting an independent examination of the facts relating to their clients’ case, the lawyers came across financial statements of the Nevele Acres, another enterprise owned and operated by the Slutskys.” 514 F.2d at 1224. The transactions between the hotel and this second enterprise gave rise to a potential explanation for the discrepancy between the size of bank deposits and reported income, upon which the government had based its charge of tax evasion. But the Second Circuit held, affirming the district court, that such evidence could not qualify as “newly discovered” under the rule: In short, although the new attorneys retained by the Slutskys may have uncovered evidence that seemed startling to them, there is no doubt that their clients knew, or at the very least with the exercise of due diligence should have known, of the existence of any such exculpatory evidence and its ramifications. It is far too late for seasoned businessmen with a thorough knowledge of their operations and access to all pertinent records to claim that they were unable to comprehend the nature of the case against them or to decide what evidence might be helpful to their cause. Had the appellants and their able trial counsel been inclined to present the evidence which is now claimed to be “newly discovered,” they clearly had the tools to do so at the time of the trial. One can only speculate why they did not. Perhaps they did not care to subject the other Slutsky enterprise to audit. Id. at 1225-26: see also United States v. Parness, 408 F.Supp. 440, 443 (S.D.N.Y.1975) (where, following conviction for acquiring control of casino-hotel through a pattern of racketeering, defendants moved for new trial under Rule 33 on ground that a government trial witness modified his trial testimony at a subsequent civil deposition, but deposition testimony relied upon work sheets received as government exhibits at criminal trial, “[defendants’ present calculations and conclusions are based solely on the same exhibits and do not constitute newly discovered evidence.”). In the case at bar, Harris seeks to avoid the thrust of the common-sense analysis of such cases by contending, through his habeas attorney’s offer of proof, that “he did not review the borrowing base reports and that he did not understand them at the trial,” Offer of Proof at ¶ 7; that he “devoted virtually all of his time to opportunistic trading and did not spend time preparing or reviewing AroChem’s reporting requirements under the RCA, all of which he delegated to Dis-penza, as AroChem’s Chief Financial Officer,” id.; that “he did not understand, until the trial, that the government, through Dur-ney, Dispenza, and Lynch would claim that NET INV. POS. on the BBRs was supposed to be the same as net open position as defined in the RCA,” ¶8; that the facts revealed by the BBRs “were not apparent to Harris and would not have been apparent to anyone other than a person like Durney with a detailed knowledge of the RCA,” ¶ 19; and that “as a result of the government’s seizure of his assets before trial, he did not have the funds necessary to retain an accountant to assist in his trial preparation although he sought to retain an accountant,” ¶ 11. This proffered testimony by Harris is entirely insufficient to qualify his present contentions as based upon newly discovered evidence. The protestation of the president and chief executive officer of a corporation that he could not understand operating inventory documents generated by that corporation is inherently implausible. But I do not decide the issue on that basis because, even assuming that Harris never understood the RCA, never saw the BBRs while AroChem was generating them, and remained baffled by the RCA and the BBRs during the five months prior to trial and the five-week trial, there were resources available to him to make the confrontational arguments which habeas counsel now makes: namely, Harris’s experienced trial counsel, and a forensic accountant if trial counsel could not understand these documents either. I can give no weight to Harris’s assertion that he could not afford to hire an accountant. Defendants who as the result of governmental seizure of their property cannot afford the costs of their defense routinely apply to the trial judge for a partial release of assets; trial judges routinely grant such applications; and Harris made no such application to this Court. In addition, prior to sentencing I held a five-day evidentiary hearing to evaluate Harris’s claim that I should depart downward from the Sentencing Guideline range because he suffered from a diminished mental capacity due to a pathological gambling disorder. See United States Sentencing Guidelines § 5K2.13. At that hearing Harris was represented by new counsel (who also represented Harris on appeal but not in this proceeding) who has a very considerable reputation at the Bar; the presumption arises that he did not represent Harris pro bono. In addition, Harris called as a witness at the sentencing hearing an expert in gambling addiction who had examined Harris and submitted a lengthy written report, and whose services are subject to the same economic presumption. In these circumstances, I find it impossible to accept the suggestion that at a trial upon which his liberty depended, Harris lacked the resources to retain the services of a forensic accountant. But even if Harris suffered to that extent from financial deprivation, he could have applied for relief to the trial court. The briefs of counsel debate at length the proper definition of “Net Open Position” under the RCA and what the BBRs show or do not show on that subject. I need not resolve those issues, because assuming everything that Harris says is correct, the documents with which to confront and confound Dispen-za, the Banks’ witnesses, and Robert Lynch (the government expert witness who prepared a chart to reflect the net open position as shown on the BBRs) were trial exhibits, and had been furnished to the defense five months before the trial began. Accordingly Harris’s present contentions with respect to the one million barrel covenant cannot be characterized as based upon newly discovered evidence. In no discernible way are those contentions based upon evidence first generated by the subsequent civil litigation. They are based instead upon trial exhibits whose import would be apparent, in the phrase of habeas counsel, to “anyone who knew how to read the borrowing base reports”; and assuming arguendo that Harris and his trial counsel all failed that literacy test, resources were available to meet the need. In these circumstances, I need not reach the questions of whether the testimony in question was perjurious, or if so, whether it was material in the constitutional sense. Harris is not entitled to habeas or Rule 33 relief on this aspect of the ease. PART VII: The Activities of Limited Harris created Limited in October 1990 and was its sole shareholder. The indictment charged that Harris availed himself of Limited in order to further two aspects of the fraudulent scheme. 1. Misappropriation of AroChem’s Funds In Count One, the conspiracy count, the indictment alleged at ¶ 7 that “[a]s a further part of this scheme, Harris incorporated monies belonging to the AroChem Companies for his own personal benefit.” The manner in which he did so was more particularly described in ¶ 12, captioned “Fraudulent Diversion of Funds,” which read: As a further part of the scheme, the defendant ROY WILLIAM HARRIS, a/k/a “Will Harris,” with the assistance of the other officers and employees of the Aro-Chem Companies, also, diverted assets belonging to the AroChem Companies to his personal accounts. On four occasions between June and October 1991, at a time when Limited owed money to the Aro-Chem Companies, HARRIS transferred a total of approximately $3.7 million from Limited’s accounts in Switzerland to HARRIS’S personal account at the Bank of New York. The amount transferred from Limited to HARRIS far exceeded Limited’s net equity at the time. The flow of funds from Limited’s accounts in the Swiss Banks to Harris played a vital part in the government’s prosecution of Harris for conducting a continuing financial crimes enterprise (“CFCE”) in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 225 (the so-called “Kingpin statute”). The government was required to prove, inter alia, that Harris “receive[d] $5,000,000 or more in gross receipts from such enterprise during any 24-month period.” § 225(a)(2). The government offered proof at trial to the effect that during the period from April 1990 through December 1991, Harris received a total of $7,333,758 in funds generated by the AroChem Companies and Limited, of which $5,718,709 came from Limited: $4,875,089 paid to Harris, and $843,620 paid to Starwood Corporation, which sum the government argued should also be ascribed to Harris. , The government characterized these payments as a diversion of AroChem funds to Harris, thereby defrauding the RCA Banks, because at that time,.on the government’s theory, Limited owed comparable amounts to AroChem. Specifically, Robert Lynch, the government’s expert accounting witness, testified that on the basis of his examination of. the documents available to him, as of November 30,1991 the AroChem Companies “were owed approximately 4.3 million” by Limited. Trial Tr. 2536. 2. Concealment of AroChem’s Speculative Trading Secondly, the government offered proof purporting to show that Harris used Limited and the Swiss Banks to finance AroChem’s speculative oil trading while concealing that trading from the Chase Group of Banks. In its opinion on direct appeal the Second Circuit identified that aspect of the case as “Money Laundering,” and summarized the government’s evidence as follows: In October of 1990, Harris formed a new company, AroChem International, Ltd., (“Limited”) in order to gain financing to support a contract that the companies had entered into with the Nigerian government and to assist the Companies with financing when their credit became tight. The banks were aware of Limited’s formation and were informed that Limited would be financed by Credit Lyonnais and Banque Paribas of Switzerland (together, the “Swiss Banks”). However, the banks required the Companies to obtain their permission before entering into financial transactions with Limited. From October of 1990 through December of 1991, the Companies entered into numerous transactions with Limited without seeking the banks’ permission. By the summer of 1991, the Swiss Banks were financing $100 to $200 million of the Companies’ trading in oil markets. Dispenza testified that he and Harris discussed how such financing violated the agreement’s financial covenants. As a condition to providing financing, the Swiss Banks required a cash deposit as margin before they would issue letters of credit to finance Limited’s transactions. According to Dispenza, in order to supply the cash, Dispenza and Harris decided to move money from the Companies’ accounts at Chase Manhattan Bank, N.A. (“Chase”) n New York to their accounts at Union Trust Company (“Union Trust”) in Connecticut, and then transfer the funds to the Swiss Banks. The purpose of routing the money through Connecticut was to conceal from the banks that the financing they were supplying was being used by the Companies to acquire additional financing from the Swiss Banks. From April of 1991 through September of 1991, excluding the amount used for operating needs, $7,420,-000 was moved from Chase to Union Trust, and $7,723,344.90 was then moved in the same period from Union Trust to the Swiss Banks. The Companies never informed the banks of these transactions. 79 F.3d at 227-28. This proof formed the basis for Count Nine of the indictment, charging money laundering in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2), and for Counts Ten through Twenty-one, each charging wire fraud in violation of § 1343 and referring to a particular transfer of funds between AroChem’s Chase and Union Trust accounts during the period April 12 through September 19,1991. Harris’s Present Contentions As to the first of these fraudulent uses Harris made of Limited, habeas counsel contend that Limited was not indebted to the Companies at the time of Limited’s payments to Harris; and that those payments represented legitimate trading profits earned by Limited, to which Harris was entitled as Limited’s sole shareholder. As to the second, habeas counsel contend that the transfers from Union Trust in Connecticut to Limited’s Swiss Banks were of a legitimate commercial nature; and that the witnesses from the Chase Group of Banks, principally Durney and Dinell, committed perjury when they denied knowledge of Limited’s extensive oil trading activities. Placing aside for the present Harris’s charges of perjury against the Bank witnesses, the problem he faces with the rest of these contentions is that he cannot show they are based upon newly discovered evidence. As previously noted, the focal point of Harris’s contention that Limited was not indebted to AroChem at the time Limited made payments to Harris is the asserted perjury of Lynch, the government’s expert accounting witness, who testified to the contrary. The accessibility of pertinent documents to Harris and his trial defense counsel is discussed more fully under Part X, infra, in the context of the claims of habeas counsel that the government violated, its Brady and Giglio obligations. For present purposes it is sufficient to say that, as demonstrated in that discussion, Harris and his trial defense team had access to all the documents that would have permitted them to challenge Lynch’s testimony and economic calculations in the respects that habeas counsel now undertake to do. Several quotations from Harris’s most recent brief, in support of summary disposition, will suffice to make the point. Harris argues, SDB at 72, that “[tjhere was no document introduced at trial which even suggested that [Limited] owed AroChem $4.3 million as of 11/30/91 or at any time thereafter.” Assuming arguendo the truth of that assertion, no reason appears why trial counsel could not have confronted Lynch with that lack of documentation on cross-examination. It is also said that “[t]he government did not designate as Brady material the 9/30/91 balance sheet of [Limited] which showed no debt owed to AroChem.” Id. at 74-75. Since the government made “open file” pretrial discovery of all its AroChem files available to Harris, see Part X, infra, and Harris also had access to any additional AroChem documents in the hands of the Companies’ bankruptcy trustee, there is no reason to suppose that this document was not available to or discoverable by the defense for whatever purpose it might have served at trial. It is also said that “[a] document from Aro-Chem’s files indicates that, as of 12/31/91, AroChem owed [Limited] $6,719,356.78.” Id. at 75 (emphasis in original). While this document might have been used by the defense to confront Lynch at trial, under the rationale of a case such as Slutsky, supra, it is difficult to characterize it as newly discovered-evidence. It is also said that “[a]lthough Lynch testified that the $4.3 million debt was still owing as of the date of his testimony in December 1992, he and the government knew that, in February 1992, BPS had transferred from [Limited’s] account to AroChem’s account at Chase the sum of $2.3 million in settlement of an interpleader action filed by Chase,” which amount, according to Harris’s habeas argument, should be applied to reduce the $4.3 million indebtedness from Limited to AroChem testified to by Lynch. Id. at 74 (emphasis added). The implication in this assertion, that Harris did not know what “[Lynch] and the government knew” about this transaction, is baffling. The document Harris cites in support of the assertion, Conway Ex. 190, consists of a Settlement Agreement dated as of February 4, 1992, and Stipulations of Settlement attached thereto as exhibits, which disposed of several statutory interpleader actions arising out of contracts AroChem Corporation entered into to purchase and sell West Texas Intermediate Crude Oil. Chase (as “Intercreditor Agent” for the Chase Group of Banks) and BPS had each claimed that, in respect of those contracts, its security interest and other claims were superior to the other’s. The Agreement and its attached Stipulations were signed on behalf of AroChem Corporation and (on some documents) also on behalf of AroChem International, Inc. by Gregory B. Classon, the AroChem Companies’ General Counsel and Secretary. Presumably Classon was known to Harris, the CEO of the Companies, and obtained Harris’s authority before signing these significant legal documents. And so the same obstacle to habeas relief arises: whatever the potential utility of these transactions in challenging Lynch’s testimony, they were surely fully known to Harris or discoverable by him at the time of trial, and so cannot be characterized as newly discovered evidence. To the extent that Harris’s habeas petition relies upon documentary evidence to justify the transfers of funds to him, in derogation of the money laundering accusation, the same problem is present. The problem is illustrated by the contentions habeas counsel make on the point. They argue: The internal accounting and wire transfer records of AroChem, combined with the documents produced by CLS and BPS pursuant to the government’s request for judicial assistance, prove that the total amount transferred to the two Swiss banks by AroChem was $7.4 million. These documents also prove that the Swiss Banks transferred back to AroChem approximately the same amount of money. Indeed, during the very period reflected on GX 1021 [a government trial exhibit for which habeas counsel reserve particular scorn], there were transfers back from the Swiss Banks to Union Trust and then to Chase of sums equal to or greater than the sums Harris was allegedly siphoning out of AroChem behind Chase’s back. For example, GX 1021 shows transfers from Chase to Union Trust to CLS of approximately $670,000 on April 12, 1991. However, it doesn’t show that, on April 2,1991, [Limited] had transferred from its account at CLS to Union Trust the sum of $573,-459, and that, on the same day, AroChem had transferred that precise amount back to Chase. AroChem Corporation’s bank statement from Chase explains that entry as a “Brent bookout.” Similarly, GX 1021 fails to reflect a July 3, 1991 entry on the Chase statement for AroChem International, Inc. of a transfer from Union Trust of $500,000 with an explanation “Brent bookout.” The government does not deny that it knew of these entries on the Chase statements. SDB at 68 (emphasis added; citations to exhibits omitted). But no more can habeas counsel deny that Harris knew of or had trial access to these en