How have the courts allowed evidence of bribery and corruption to be admitted under Rule 403?

We next turn to the question whether the evidence should have been excluded under Rule 403. The other crimes evidence offered in the Government's direct case, which squarely implicated Gubelman as a meat inspector on the "take," was strongly probative on the identification issue. That two other men specifically remembered having paid appellant bribes substantially supported the testimony of the two main Government witnesses, whose ability to identify appellant had been questioned. Moreover, testimony concerning extremely similar acts is not inflammatory in the way that an unrelated violent crime might be. Thus, since it is not clear that the prejudice attending such testimony "substantially outweighed" its considerable probative worth, the district court had discretion under Rule 403 to admit the evidence. See United States v. Grady, 544 F.2d 598, 605 (2d Cir. 1976); United States v. Deaton, 381 F.2d 114, 117-18 (2d Cir. 1967). However, we would not have faulted the trial judge if he had regarded the "necessity" for the disputed evidence as questionable, and had excluded it as an exercise of what we perceive to be his substantial discretion under Rule 403. See 2 Weinstein's Evidence P 404(10) (1976).