U.S. v. Edouard, 05-15808.

• Decision Date: 11 May 2007
• Docket Number: No. 05-15808.,05-15808.
• Citation: 485 F.3d 1324
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Serge EDOUARD, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

485 F.3d 1324

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Serge EDOUARD, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 05-15808.

United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.

May 11, 2007.

Charles A. Murray, Naples, FL, for Serge.

Lisette M. Reid, Anne R. Schultz, Asst. U.S. Atty., Miami, FL, for U.S.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Before BARKETT, KRAVITCH and STAHL,^* Circuit Judges.

KRAVITCH, Circuit Judge:

Serge Edouard appeals his convictions and sentence for conspiracy to import cocaine, conspiracy to commit money laundering, and money laundering. He argues, inter alia, that the district court failed to comply with the Court Interpreters Act. For the reasons that follow, we affirm.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Offense Conduct and Trial

During Edouard's trial, the Government introduced the testimony of several witnesses, many of whom were admitted co-conspirators testifying in exchange for immunity from prosecution for their roles in Edouard's charged offenses and/or a possible reduction in their sentences. The evidence established the following:

At Edouard's direction, his brothers, Hughes and Hubert Edouard, began smuggling cocaine from Haiti into the United States from 1995 to 1996 by concealing it in their clothing and their shoes. Hughes and Hubert also hired others, at Edouard's behest, to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. using this method. In 1996, Hughes and Hubert began smuggling Edouard's cocaine by hiring couriers to carry the cocaine in suitcases and fly as passengers on commercial airliners from Port-au-Prince, Haiti to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport ("JFK"). Hughes and Hubert purchased cocaine in Haiti with money provided by Edouard, who lived in New York at this time. The brothers loaded the cocaine into suitcases and gave them to couriers who took the suitcases to the Port-au-Prince airport, where Haitian police officers and airport security workers, paid by Edouard, would ensure that the couriers and the suitcases went through security without difficulty. Once the suitcases arrived at JFK, an airline employee, also paid by Edouard, would surreptitiously retrieve the suitcases and deliver them to Edouard, who would then sell the cocaine for approximately $22,000 to $24,000 per kilogram. Hughes and Hubert each received approximately $10,000 to $15,000 per shipment. According to the brothers, Edouard smuggled one or two suitcases, twice per month, each packed with twenty-one to twenty-three kilograms of cocaine.

In 1997, Edouard and his brothers stopped using suitcases to smuggle cocaine and began using cargo boxes shipped via American Airlines' cargo service. At some point in 1997, Edouard returned to Haiti and asserted greater control over the Haitian end of his operation. Shortly thereafter, Jacques Jean Louis took over the cargo shipments in New York from Hughes and Hubert while Edouard received the proceeds in Haiti.

During 2000, Hughes became re-involved in the airline cargo shipments by collecting the proceeds from the cocaine sales in New York and sending them back to Edouard in Haiti. According to Hughes, he sent approximately $500,000 to $1,000,000 to Edouard three to four times per month via American Airlines employees and other couriers who concealed the money in their carry-on bags. Hughes estimated that from 1997 to 2000, Edouard shipped between 3,000 and 5,000 kilograms of cocaine via cargo boxes smuggled through American Airlines' cargo service.

In May 2000, Edouard encountered Clifford Sibilia during a party in Haiti at the home of drug-trafficker Jacques Ketant. Sibilia had first met Edouard in 1998 while they were both in federal custody in Miami, Florida. During the party, Edouard, Sibilia, and Ketant discussed various methods of smuggling cocaine from Haiti into America. According to Sibilia, the men devised a plan to use a cargo boat to ship poultry products from the United States to Haiti in a shipping container equipped with a secret compartment.

In September 2000, Sibilia returned to Florida to establish "Cool Beverage," the company that would serve as the "legitimate" front for the smuggling operation he, Edouard, and Ketant had discussed in Haiti. After establishing Cool Beverage, Sibilia returned to Haiti where Edouard gave him money to purchase a forty-foot shipping container and the poultry products to be shipped inside the container. After purchasing the container in the U.S., Sibilia brought the container to Haiti. There, Edouard hired workers to construct a twenty-foot-long, secret compartment in the top of the container. Edouard and Ketant purchased twenty-five kilograms of cocaine, which they, along with Sibilia, concealed in the secret compartment. They then placed the container on a cargo boat headed to Port Everglades, Florida.

Using binoculars, Sibilia watched the boat's arrival at the shipyard in Port Everglades and noted that the container had cleared U.S. Customs without any delay. Sibilia had the container delivered to the yard of the poultry supplier, and during the night, he retrieved the cocaine from the secret compartment. Sibilia then sold the cocaine for $500,000, taking $100,000 for himself and shipping $400,000 back to Haiti for Edouard and Ketant via the secret compartment of the now poultry-filled container. Once the container arrived at the shipyard in Haiti, Edouard retrieved the $400,000.

After the success of this initial venture, Sibilia, Edouard, and Ketant shipped 90 to 100 kilograms of cocaine to Port Everglades via this cargo-boat method in October and November 2000. In December 2000, however, U.S. Customs officials discovered the secret compartment during an inspection and seized 100 kilograms of cocaine. Upon noticing that the container took longer than usual to clear Customs and that Customs officials had followed the container to the poultry supplier, Sibilia notified Edouard and abandoned the load.

In November 2000, Sibilia learned that Edouard was also smuggling cocaine from Haiti to New York via commercial airliners. Sibilia testified regarding the details of this aspect of Edouard's operation based on information he had received from Edouard. Sibilia also claimed that he twice sent cocaine through Edouard using this method and that he was paid by Hughes after the cocaine was sold in New York.

Sometime in late 2000 or early 2001, Edouard ceased using American Airlines' cargo service to smuggle his cocaine, and instead began using the metallic boxes that the airlines use to store suitcases ("airline containers"). The night before a shipment was to leave the Port-au-Prince airport, Romaine Lestin, the chief of airport security, and other Haitian police officers would unlock an airport warehouse so that someone hired by Edouard could gain access to the airline containers. Once inside the warehouse, Edouard's employee would construct a secret compartment in an airline container and fill the compartment with cocaine. The container was then loaded with suitcases and placed onto a flight headed for JFK. In addition to Lestin, Edouard also received help from Oriel Jean, the chief of security for Haiti's then-president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Jean testified that he provided Edouard with a palace security badge so that the Haitian police would not search his person or vehicles, thus allowing Edouard to transport cocaine and money to and from the airport without police interference. In exchange for the badge, Jean received a share of the proceeds from Edouard's cocaine sales, either directly from Edouard or from others in Edouard's organization (including Lestin). In total, Edouard smuggled between 10,000 and 12,000 kilograms of cocaine into the U.S. using this method.

In August 2001, Edouard shipped 100 kilograms of cocaine from Haiti to Miami International Airport via three suitcases ticketed to travel to Europe. Once the suitcases arrived in Miami, airport workers, paid by Edouard, changed the tags on the suitcases to ensure that they did not go through Customs and on to Europe. Hughes and Hubert, who had traveled from Haiti, along with Max LaFontan went to the Miami airport to retrieve the suitcases on August 28, 2001. Phone records showed that from August 26th to August 28th, approximately forty phone calls had been made between Hubert's cell phone and Edouard's phone number in Haiti. After retrieving the suitcases, Hubert brought them to his apartment in Doral, Florida and gave twenty kilograms of the cocaine to Richard Scutt. Shortly thereafter, Hubert and Scutt were arrested. Hubert was ultimately convicted of conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine.

Eddy Aurelien worked in Edouard's drug-trafficking operation as a courier from 1999 to 2003. According to Aurelien, at Edouard's direction, he would pick up suitcases containing cocaine from a hotel in Haiti and deliver them to Edouard two or three times per month, with each delivery containing between thirty and sixty kilograms of cocaine. In return for Aurelien's services, Edouard would ship three or four kilograms of cocaine for Aurelien to New York, Miami, or Canada, where it would be sold. The proceeds from the sales were shipped back to Haiti on commercial airliners arriving at the Port-au-Prince airport. Aurelien estimated that he received between $14,000 and $15,000 per kilogram of cocaine sold. Aurelien also testified about the roles Lestin, Jean, and Hughes had played in Edouard's operation.

In addition to his cocaine-trafficking operation, Edouard also owned and operated Perseverance Borlette ("Perseverance"), a lottery business that he had inherited from his father. Hughes, Hubert, and Sibilia testified that Edouard used the lottery business as a front to launder the proceeds from his drug-trafficking operation. According to Hughes and Hubert, customers would purchase lottery tickets from Perseverance in Haitian currency (gourds), and from 1993 until 1999, the company made approximately 6,000 gourds (or $1,000...