United States v. Puentes

UNPUBLISHED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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.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 appeals, challenging his conviction and
sentence. We affirm.
I.
At a seven-day jury trial, the Government introduced
evidence that Puentes conspired with others, 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 offered evidence of extensive phone records and
transcripts from wiretapped phone conversations between the co-
conspirators, as well as two handguns found in the home of
Pereira, the leader of the conspiracy. Puentes testified on his
own behalf, asserting his innocence.
At the conclusion of the trial, the district court gave the
jury a willful blindness instruction. The jury returned a
verdict finding Puentes guilty of the charged offense. In
sentencing Puentes, the district court applied a two-level
sentencing enhancement based on his false testimony at trial and
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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. Puentes contended that the guns
lacked relevance and that their prejudice outweighed their
probative value. 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 Pereira’s guns as “toys” and discussing their
whereabouts. The court admitted the handguns, determining that
they were relevant and that their prejudicial effect did not
outweigh their probative value.
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A trial court possesses broad discretion in ruling on the
admissibility of evidence, and we will not overturn an
evidentiary ruling absent an abuse of discretion. 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 defendant’s] claims [about relevance and
prejudice] because the admission of the evidence was
harmless.”). We have frequently declined to 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 whether the admission of evidence was
harmless, we inquire whether it “is probable that the 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. Two of them
identified Puentes in court; one testified that Puentes
delivered condoms and did accounting work for the prostitution
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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 Pereira’s prostitution
ring in order to “pay off his debts.” Wiretap evidence further
revealed that Puentes was in regular contact with Pereira and
the other co-conspirators throughout the period of the
conspiracy.
In short, the Government presented a very strong case
establishing Puentes’s guilt. The handgun evidence “was
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
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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). “A
willful blindness instruction is warranted where . . . the
defendant asserts a lack of guilty knowledge but the evidence
supports an inference of deliberate ignorance.” United States
v. Mir, 525 F.3d 351, 358-59 (4th Cir. 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 inference of deliberate ignorance.”
Abbas, 74 F.3d at 514. 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
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Pereira’s prostitution business and simply denie[d] his
involvement.” 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 business, but that Pereira denied this and he
believed her when she told him that she had a “small
housecleaning company.” 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 supports an inference of Puentes’s
deliberate ignorance. 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.
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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 § 3C1.1 based on
Puentes’s false testimony at trial. 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. Although Dunnigan and Smith hold
that a “district court must 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. Smith,
62 F.3d at 647 (quoting Dunnigan, 507 U.S. at 95). In this
case, Puentes did not object before the trial court to the
enhancement. Accordingly, Smith and Dunnigan offer him no
support.
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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 error was plain, and (3) it affected his
substantial rights. See United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725,
732 (1993). If he makes such a showing, the correction of such
error lies within our discretion, which we do “not exercise
. . . unless the error seriously affects the 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
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“never recalled picking up any money or making any deliveries”
despite that “the transcript reflected him significantly
involved in the business.” 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.
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