United States v. Velazquez-Fontanez, No. 18-1188 (1st Cir. 2021)
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The First Circuit confirmed the convictions of Carlos Velazquez-Fontanez and Jose D. Resto-Figueroa for various criminal offenses related to La Rompe ONU, a drug trafficking organization that operated in San Juan, Puerto Rico, and vacated the convictions of Ruben Cotto-Andino, holding that, as to Cotto-Andino, the court committed reversible error.
Specifically, the First Circuit held (1) the evidence against all three defendants was sufficient to support their RICO conspiracy convictions, their 21 U.S.C. 846 convictions, and their 18 U.S.C. 36(b)(2) convictions; (2) the district court's limitation of Cotto-Andino's rebuttal of the government's uncharged murder evidence exceeded the bounds of the court's discretion, was not harmless, and required that Cotto-Andino's convictions be vacated; (3) the remainder of Cotto-Andino's challenges to the admission of evidence were unavailing; (4) an error in the transcript did not warrant reversal of the district court's denial of a mistrial in favor of Resto-Figueroa; and (5) there was no error in the jury instructions.
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