United States v. Qattoum, No. 15-2176 (8th Cir. 2016)
Annotate this CaseDefendant appealed the district court's denial of his motion to withdraw his guilty plea after pleading guilty to conspiracy to distribute and possess with intent to distribute controlled substances and analogues of controlled substances, and conspiracy to commit money laundering. The court concluded that the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant’s motion to withdraw his guilty plea where the record contains sufficient circumstantial evidence of defendant's knowledge that he knew the product that he was selling was illegal, that he knew it was a controlled substance, or that he knew the chemical composition of the product. Furthermore, given the nature of the product and the fact that defendant and his suppliers structured the transactions using money orders, which do not create records of the transactions, the district court could reasonably conclude that there was at least a “tacit understanding” between defendant and his suppliers to launder money. Accordingly, the court affirmed the judgment.
Court Description: Wollman, Author, with Arnold and Shepherd, Circuit Judges] Criminal case - Criminal law. There was a factual basis for defendant's guilty plea to the charge of conspiracy to distribute synthetic drugs as he knew that the substances he possessed were controlled substances; there was also a factual basis for his plea on a money-laundering conspiracy charge as the district court could reasonably conclude on the basis of the record that there was tacit understanding between defendant and his suppliers to launder money.
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