United States v. Fonseca
| Decision Date | 08 September 2022 |
| Docket Number | 19-1791 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. LAWRENCE ANDERSON FONSECA, f/k/a Lawrence Anderson Fonseca-Garcia, Defendant, Appellant. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — First Circuit |
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO [Hon. Jay A. Garcia-Gregory, U.S. District Judge
Jose R. Olmo-Rodríguez for appellant.
Thomas F. Klumper, Assistant United States Attorney, Senior Appellate Counsel, with whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, and Mariana E. Bauza-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, were on brief, for appellee.
Before Barron, Chief Judge, Selya and Lipez, Circuit Judges.
Lawrence Anderson Fonseca and four co-defendants were charged with conspiring to import cocaine into the United States, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 959, 960 and 963, and money laundering to promote this conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(A). Following the denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment, Fonseca pleaded guilty to the conspiracy count. He subsequently filed several motions to withdraw his plea, each of which was denied by the district court. On appeal, Fonseca argues that he should be allowed to withdraw his guilty plea and that the indictment against him should be dismissed. Although our rationale on the plea withdrawal request differs somewhat from that of the district court, we affirm.
Fonseca is a citizen and resident of the British Virgin Islands ("BVI"). As set forth in the statement of facts incorporated into his plea agreement, Fonseca and his codefendants conspired, from approximately May 2012 to July 2014, to import at least five kilograms of cocaine into the United States. The statement of facts identifies several overt acts committed in the United States in furtherance of the conspiracy, although ultimately no drugs were ever imported into the country. The government has not disputed that Fonseca lived in the BVI throughout the relevant timeframe.
Fonseca first moved to dismiss the indictment in October 2015. Relying on principles of extraterritorial jurisdiction, he argued that the district court lacked subject matter jurisdiction over the case because he was a citizen and resident of the BVI and, he claimed, had taken no actions with an actual or intended effect in the United States. He also argued that any overt acts undertaken in the United States by his co-conspirators were too insignificant to support subject matter jurisdiction over him. Finally Fonseca argued that the court lacked personal jurisdiction over him because he had been unlawfully transported to Puerto Rico after being detained by United States agents in the Dominican Republic, and that the court should, at a minimum, hold an evidentiary hearing on this issue. The district court denied these claims in March 2016.
Fonseca pleaded guilty in August 2016 with the assistance of counsel. As described above, the plea agreement incorporated a statement of facts, which Fonseca "adopt[ed] . . . as his own testimony." In this statement, he acknowledged that he had conspired to import cocaine into the United States and that he or his co-conspirators had engaged in several overt acts involving money transfers to or from the United States. The transactions included Fonseca's receipt of a $5,000 wire transfer from California, sent by his co-defendant Terrence Edwards, and a $35,000 transfer of funds from co-defendant Justin Gumbs to the United States bank account of Fonseca's wife and co-defendant, Sharon Rodriguez. The plea agreement also included a waiver of appeal provision, in which Fonseca agreed that if his sentence was consistent with (or more lenient than) the recommendation set forth in the plea agreement, he "knowingly and voluntarily waive[d] and surrender[ed] his right to appeal the judgment and sentence in this case." On the recommendation of a magistrate judge, the district court accepted his guilty plea.
B. Fonseca's Plea Withdrawal Motions
In March 2017, several days before his scheduled sentencing date, Fonseca filed his first pro se motion to withdraw his plea, as well as a motion to "withdraw" his counsel from the case. In the plea withdrawal motion, he argued that he was innocent, claiming that his involvement in the conspiracy was "[i]nconclusive," and that his attorney had misled and pressured him into pleading guilty and had not adequately investigated the allegations.
The district court postponed the sentencing hearing pending a decision on these motions and referred the attorney withdrawal motion to a magistrate judge for disposition, who denied it after a hearing. The district court denied the plea withdrawal motion, finding that Fonseca had pleaded guilty knowingly, voluntarily, and intelligently. The court noted that Fonseca's "general, unsubstantiated" statement that he was innocent was not entitled to any weight and that he had not explained why he had adopted the statement of facts in his plea agreement admitting to the offense conduct. The district court also found that Fonseca had not proffered any evidence that he had been confused about the accusations or had been unduly pressured into pleading guilty. Finally, the court found that the delay of more than seven months between Fonseca's guilty plea and the motion weighed against withdrawal, as did the prejudice to the government if withdrawal were permitted (i.e., the court's belief that the government would be prejudiced by the additional cost to prepare for trial).
In May 2017, Fonseca again moved pro se to withdraw his guilty plea and asserted various defenses. Several months later, before that motion was decided, he filed a third pro se motion raising similar arguments and emphasizing the court's purported lack of personal jurisdiction over him. The court denied both motions in November 2017, concluding that Fonseca had not put forth any new arguments.
In February 2018, four days before Fonseca's rescheduled sentencing date, new counsel for Fonseca appeared and filed a request to again continue sentencing, which the court granted. Following several more postponements allowed by the court, Fonseca filed a fourth motion to withdraw his guilty plea.
In support of his new request, Fonseca cited statements made by his co-defendant Edwards, who had testified at the sentencing hearing of co-defendant Gumbs. At this sentencing hearing -- which occurred in August 2017, between Fonseca's second and third plea withdrawal requests -- Edwards made several comments that Fonseca claims are exculpatory as to him. First, Edwards testified that he had traveled to the BVI in October 2012 to help Fonseca and Gumbs obtain narcotics but found that "there was nothing" when he arrived. Edwards also stated that, at several points during the conspiracy, Edwards had told Gumbs that he believed Gumbs was lying about whether Gumbs and Fonseca would ultimately procure drugs. Fonseca argued that this testimony showed that Fonseca's communications with his co-defendants about importing drugs were actually part of a scam to steal money from them -- and, hence, that Fonseca had not taken part in any actual conspiracy to import drugs.
The new request was referred to a magistrate judge, who found that Fonseca's assertion that he is innocent and the timing of his request -- which was made after he learned of Edwards's testimony -- weighed in favor of withdrawal. However, the magistrate judge found that Fonseca's plea had been knowing and voluntary and that Edwards's testimony was not new, nor was it exculpatory -- findings that weighed against withdrawal.[1] The magistrate judge then considered the question of prejudice to the government and concluded that the government would not be significantly prejudiced by withdrawal. Weighing these factors together, the magistrate judge recommended that the district court grant Fonseca's motion.
The district court took a different view. Although it agreed with the magistrate judge's assessment of several of the factors militating for and against withdrawal, it disagreed that the timing of the request favored withdrawal. The district court also found that Fonseca had not adequately explained either the nearly one-year gap between Edwards's testimony and Fonseca's fourth withdrawal motion, or the initial seven-month delay between the plea itself and his first withdrawal motion in March 2017. Further, the district court found that the government would be prejudiced by withdrawal. It therefore denied Fonseca's request to withdraw his plea.
Fonseca filed two motions for reconsideration, both of which were denied. In June 2019, he was sentenced to 120 months' imprisonment, which was consistent with the recommendation set forth by the government in his plea agreement. This appeal followed.
Fonseca raises three arguments on appeal. He claims that the district court (1) abused its discretion by denying his request to withdraw his guilty plea,[2] (2) erred in denying his motion to dismiss for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, and (3) erred in denying his motion to dismiss for lack of personal jurisdiction.
Before turning to the merits of Fonseca's plea withdrawal claim we briefly address the waiver-of-appeal provision in his plea agreement, which prohibits an appeal from the "judgment and sentence" in his case. Unlike most other circuits, we have never squarely addressed whether an appeal from the denial of a motion to withdraw a plea constitutes a challenge to a defendant's "judgment" or "conviction" as a matter of law.[3] If it does, then Fonseca's motion would fall within the scope of the appeal waiver, and we would ordinarily enforce this provision so...
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