United States v. Falcon-Nieves, No. 20-2189 (1st Cir. 2023)
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The First Circuit vacated in part and reversed in part the judgment of the district court convicting Defendants, sisters Ivonne Falcon-Nieves and Marielis Falcon-Nieves, on various federal charges relating to the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico's alleged public corruption, holding that the evidence was insufficient to support some of Ivonne's convictions.
Specifically, the First Circuit held (1) the evidence was sufficient to support one of the counts of honest services wire fraud with which Ivonne was charged, Ivonne's convictions for conspiracy to commit honest services wire fraud or federal program bribery, and Marielis's conviction for aiding and abetting extortion; (2) the evidence was insufficient to support Ivonne's conviction for federal program bribery, her other two convictions for honest services wire fraud, and her aiding and abetting extortion conviction; (3) one of Ivonne's conspiracy convictions must be vacated due to a prejudicial variance; and (4) the remaining convictions must be vacated because the district court erred in denying the sisters' motions for severance of their trials.
The court issued a subsequent related opinion or order on September 1, 2023.
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