US v. Eduardo Puentes, No. 09-4611 (4th Cir. 2011)
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UNPUBLISHED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT No. 09-4611 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff - Appellee, v. EDUARDO PUENTES, a/k/a Carlos, a/k/a The Columbian, Defendant - Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Maryland, at Greenbelt. Alexander Williams, Jr., District Judge. (8:08-cr-00043-AW-6) Argued: January 26, 2011 Decided: March 1, 2011 Before MOTZ, KING, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges. Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion. ARGUED: Marc Gregory Hall, HALL & CHO, PC, Rockville, Maryland, for Appellant. Christen Anne Sproule, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Rod J. Rosenstein, United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellee. Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. PER CURIAM: A jury convicted Eduardo Puentes of conspiracy to violate the Mann Act for his role in a prostitution ring based in Prince Georges County, Maryland. The district court sentenced Puentes to 41 months in prison followed by three years of supervised release. Puentes sentence. appeals, challenging his conviction and We affirm. I. At a evidence seven-day that jury Puentes trial, conspired the with Government others, introduced including Aida Pereira, to transport at least one hundred women from out of state to Maryland for the purpose of employing them as prostitutes, in violation of the Mann Act, 18 U.S.C. § 371. The Government and offered evidence of extensive phone records transcripts from wiretapped phone conversations between the coconspirators, as well as two handguns Pereira, the leader of the conspiracy. found in the home of Puentes testified on his own behalf, asserting his innocence. At the conclusion of the trial, the district court gave the jury a willful blindness verdict finding Puentes sentencing Puentes, the instruction. guilty of district the court The jury charged applied returned offense. a a In two-level sentencing enhancement based on his false testimony at trial and 2 sentenced him to 41 months imprisonment, followed by three years supervised release. Puentes noted a timely appeal, asserting three arguments. II. First, Puentes contends that the district court erred in admitting evidence of the two handguns. Puentes moved in limine to bar the admission of the handguns, which were found pursuant to a search of Pereira s home. lacked relevance probative value. and that Puentes contended that the guns their prejudice outweighed their Specifically, he maintained that the guns were neither directly connected to him nor recovered from properties related to him, and that the court should therefore prohibit their admission at his trial. The Government countered that the handguns were relevant to and probative of the conspiracy charge because evidence showed that the guns were a tool in furtherance of the conspiracy. The Government proffered eyewitness testimony that Puentes played a security role in defending the brothels from robbery and that a recorded call revealed Puentes referring to whereabouts. Pereira s guns as toys and discussing their The court admitted the handguns, determining that they were relevant and that their prejudicial effect did not outweigh their probative value. 3 A trial court possesses broad discretion in ruling on the admissibility of evidence, and we will not overturn evidentiary ruling absent an abuse of discretion. an See United States v. Hedgepeth, 418 F.3d 411, 418-19 (4th Cir. 2005). We need not reach the issues of relevance and prejudice, however, when the admission of the evidence in question is harmless. See United States v. Weaver, 282 F.3d 302, 313 (4th Cir. 2002) ( To properly answer the question before us, we need not discuss the merits of [the prejudice] defendant s] because harmless. ). We the have claims admission frequently [about of relevance evidence the declined to and was decide whether evidence was properly admitted because its admission would be nonetheless harmless. Hedgepeth, 418 F.3d at 421. This is such a case. In determining harmless, we inquire whether whether the it admission is of probable evidence that the was error could have affected the verdict reached by the particular jury in the particular circumstances of the trial. United States v. Simpson, 910 F.2d 154, 158 (4th Cir. 1990) (internal quotations omitted). In this case, three former prostitutes testified that Puentes worked with or otherwise assisted Pereira, whom they identified as the head of the prostitution ring. identified Puentes in court; one testified Two of them that Puentes delivered condoms and did accounting work for the prostitution 4 business. Testimony and wiretap transcripts also demonstrated that Puentes rented the apartments that functioned as brothels; transported women who were working as prostitutes; served as a lookout to protect the brothels from robbery; purchased and insured three 15-passenger vans used to transport prostitutes between New York and New Jersey, where they lived, and Maryland, where they worked as prostitutes; purchased a car that Pereira used to transport herself and pick up the women ; delivered condoms; and spoke about working with ring in order to pay off his debts. Pereira s prostitution Wiretap evidence further revealed that Puentes was in regular contact with Pereira and the other co-conspirators throughout the period of the strong case evidence was conspiracy. In short, establishing the Government Puentes s presented guilt. The a very handgun harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence against Puentes. Weaver, 282 F.3d at 314. III. Puentes also maintains that the district court erred in its jury instruction. Over his objection, the court gave the jury the following willful blindness instruction: You may infer that the defendant acted knowingly from circumstantial evidence or from proof that a defendant deliberately closed his eyes to what would otherwise 5 have been obvious to him. Stated another way, a defendant s knowledge of a fact may be inferred from willful blindness to the existence of that fact. On appeal, Puentes argues that the facts of his case do not warrant the instruction. The decision of whether to give a jury instruction and the content of an instruction are reviewed for abuse of discretion. United States v. Abbas, 74 F.3d 506, 513 (4th Cir. 1996). willful blindness instruction is warranted where . . . A the defendant asserts a lack of guilty knowledge but the evidence supports an inference of deliberate ignorance. v. Mir, 525 F.3d 351, 358-59 (4th Cir. United States 2008) (internal quotations omitted). A willful blindness instruction is appropriate if: (1) the defendant asserted a lack of guilty knowledge, and (2) the evidence supported an Abbas, 74 F.3d at 514. inference of deliberate ignorance. If both predicates are present, a jury could find that [the defendant] consciously closed his eyes to the fact that he was involved in the charged crime, and the trial court does not err in giving the jury a willful blindness instruction. Id. Puentes argues that the willful blindness instruction was unwarranted in his case because he never asserted a lack of guilty knowledge. He maintains that he admit[ted] knowledge of 6 Pereira s prostitution involvement. business and simply denie[d] his Br. of Appellant at 15. The record offers no support for this contention. Rather, at trial, Puentes repeatedly, and under oath, asserted his lack of guilty knowledge. He testified that he did not conclude that Pereira was in the business of prostitution until around 2005. * He conceded that he had heard rumors that Pereira was in the prostitution believed business, her when but she that told housecleaning company. Pereira him that denied she this had a and he small Indeed, in response to questions at trial as to whether he den[ied] any knowledge whatsoever about Ms. Pereira s criminal conduct, Puentes replied in the affirmative, claiming that he realize[d] too late what she was doing. The evidence also deliberate ignorance. supports an inference of Puentes s According to his own testimony, Puentes allowed Pereira to move in with him, saw huge boxes of condoms at their apartment, but claimed not to know what they were, and purchased large passenger vans for Pereira s use but never . . . ask[ed] her their purpose. In sum, as in Abbas, there was sufficient evidence from which the jury could find that * [the defendant] consciously The jury convicted Puentes of conspiracy to violate the Mann Act between September 2003 and November 2005. 7 closed his eyes, 74 F.3d at 514, and the district court therefore did not abuse its discretion in giving the willful blindness instruction. IV. Finally, Puentes contends that the court erred in applying a two-level sentencing enhancement for obstruction of justice under United States Sentencing Guidelines Puentes s false testimony at trial. § 3C1.1 based on Puentes argues that United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87 (1993), and United States v. Smith, 62 F.3d 641 (4th Cir. 1995), obligated the sentencing court to make specific findings as to elements of perjury in order to support the enhancement, which it failed to do. Puentes misreads the law. that a district court must Although Dunnigan and Smith hold review the evidence and make independent findings necessary to establish a willful impediment to or obstruction of justice, or an attempt to do the same, under the perjury definition, they explicitly direct that such findings must be made only if the defendant objects before the trial court to the obstruction of justice enhancement. 62 F.3d at 647 (quoting Dunnigan, 507 U.S. at 95). case, Puentes enhancement. did not object Accordingly, before Smith support. 8 and the Smith, In this trial court to the Dunnigan offer him no Because Puentes failed to object to the enhancement in the district court, we review for plain error. See United States v. Rooks, 596 F.3d 204, 212 (4th Cir. 2010). Under the plain error standard, Puentes bears the burden of showing that (1) an error occurred, (2) the substantial rights. 732 (1993). error . . . lies error was plain, and (3) it affected his See United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, If he makes such a showing, the correction of such within unless the our discretion, error which seriously we do affects not the exercise fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. Id. (internal quotation marks and alterations omitted). Here, Puentes has demonstrated no error. We have held that to apply the obstruction of justice enhancement based on false testimony, a sentencing court must find three elements: (1) the defendant gave false testimony, (2) concerning a material matter, (3) with the willful intent to deceive (rather than as a result of confusion, mistake, or faulty memory). United States v. Sun, 278 F.3d 302, 314 (4th Cir. 2002) (citing Smith, 62 F.3d at 646). In this case, the sentencing court made specific findings as to Puentes s false testimony at trial, concluding that his testimony was incredible and contrary to what the transcript reflected. The court also made implicit findings as to the materiality of Puentes s misstatements, for example when Puentes 9 never recalled picking up any money or making any deliveries despite that the transcript involved in the business. reflected him significantly Finally, the court found Puentes s deception intentional, i.e., just a lie. The court concluded that Puentes was simply not telling the truth when he flat out denied his participation in the prostitution business. Having made the requisite findings, the district court did not err - plainly or otherwise - in applying the two-level sentencing enhancement for obstruction of justice. V. For all of these reasons, the judgment of the district court is AFFIRMED. 10
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