United States v. Ibrahim, Case No. CR-11-0811 EMC
| Decision Date | 27 September 2013 |
| Docket Number | Case No. CR-11-0811 EMC |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. HASAN IBRAHIM, Defendant. |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of California |
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff,
v.
HASAN IBRAHIM, Defendant.
Case No. CR-11-0811 EMC
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
Dated: September 27, 2013
Pending before the Court are Defendant's three post-trial motions. Docket Nos. 158, 160, 161. In June and July of 2013, Defendant stood trial on nine counts of attempted placement of destructive substances on an aircraft, one count of transportation of hazardous materials without shipping papers, nine counts of transportation of hazardous materials without labels, one count of failure to file export information, and two counts of attempted smuggling of goods. On July 3, 2013, the jury returned a verdict of guilty on all counts. Docket No. 153. Defendant now brings a motion for acquittal under Rule 29 and for new trial under Rule 33, asserting insufficiency of evidence and legal errors on several points. Docket Nos. 158, 160. He additionally brings a motion to dismiss Counts 2-9 of the indictment, arguing that they are duplicative with Count 1. Docket No. 161.
The original indictment in this matter was filed on November 1, 2011. The following summary of the government's allegations is drawn from the superseding indictment filed on September 18, 2012. Docket No. 47.
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Defendant was the owner and president of Medchem Corporation, a business based in South San Francisco, California that exported chemicals, medical equipment, and diagnostics to Constant Trading Activity ("CTA"), a Saudi Arabian company. Superseding Indictment ("SI") ¶¶ 1-2. Until one of Defendant's sons became involved in the business around June 2010, Defendant was Medchem's sole employee. SI ¶ 2. He was also a founder of CTA and served as CTA's vice president. SI ¶ 2. In order to export chemicals and other goods to Saudi Arabia, Defendant contracted with World Air and Ocean Services ("WAOS"), a freight forwarder located in South San Francisco, California. SI ¶ 1.
The criminal charges in the indictment arise out of a June 4, 2010 attempted shipment of various chemicals, which the government alleged to be hazardous. SI ¶¶ 12-15. The government alleged that prior to June 4, Defendant had caused boxes of goods containing the chemicals to be delivered to WAOS. SI ¶ 12. The shipment contained sixty-four boxes on five pallets; none of the boxes was properly labeled as containing hazardous material. SI ¶ 14. Defendant emailed WAOS invoices for the shipment; each of them contained the statement "this shipment does not contain . . . hazardous substances." SI ¶ 13. The shipment also contained a Barnstead Fistreem distiller with a value of $7,800.39. SI ¶ 19.
Based on this shipment, the government brought a total of twenty-two charges against Defendant. Counts 1-9, brought under 18 U.S.C. § 32(a)(2), (a)(8), charged Defendant with attempted placement of a destructive substance on an aircraft. SI ¶¶ 20-21. Each count was based on one specific chemical that had been part of the June 4, 2010 shipment. SI ¶ 21. Count 10 charged Defendant with transportation of hazardous materials without shipping papers in violation of 49 U.S.C. § 5124(c) and (d), and was based on Defendant's alleged failure to prepare proper shipping papers for some 35 chemicals that were in the June 4 shipment. SI ¶¶ 22-23. Counts 11-19 charged Defendant with transportation of hazardous materials without labels in violation of 49 U.S.C. § 5124(c) and (d), and was based on Defendant's alleged failure to properly label numerous boxes in the shipment, many of which contained multiple hazardous chemicals. SI ¶ 24-25. Count 20 of the indictment charged Defendant with failure to file export information for the Barnstead Fistreem distiller in violation of 13 U.S.C. § 305(a)(1). SI ¶¶ 26-27. Counts 21 and 22 charge
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Defendant with attempted smuggling of goods in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 554(a); Count 21 is based on Defendant's alleged attempt to ship various chemicals without proper shipping papers and labeling, and Count 22 is based on the attempted shipment of the Barnstead Fistreem distiller without filing proper export information. SI ¶¶ 28-31.
Though the original and superseding indictments named both Defendant Ibrahim and Medchem Corporation as Defendants, the Court granted the government's motion to dismiss Medchem as a defendant on June 21, 2013. Docket No. 137. Additional facts and disputed evidence are discussed below where relevant to the analysis on Defendant's motions.
Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29, a defendant may file a motion for a judgment of acquittal after a jury verdict. A Rule 29 motion is basically a challenge to the sufficiency of evidence. "In ruling on a Rule 29 motion, 'the relevant question is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.'" United States v. Alarcon-Simi, 300 F.3d 1172, 1176 (9th Cir. 2002) (quoting United States v. Bahena-Cardenas, 70 F.3d 1071, 1072-1073 (9th Cir. 1995)) (emphasis in original). "[I]t is not the district court's function to determine witness credibility when ruling on a Rule 29 motion." Id.
Under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 33, a "court may vacate any judgment and grant a new trial if the interest of justice so requires." Fed. R. Crim. P. 33(a). The Ninth Circuit has indicated that a motion for a new trial should be granted if an error, "in any reasonable likelihood, [could] have affected the judgment of the jury." United States v. Butler, 567 F.2d 885, 891 (9th Cir. 1978).
The Ninth Circuit has also noted that a motion for a new trial may be granted where there is a sufficiency-of-the evidence problem. As suggested by the language of the rule, where sufficiency of the evidence is at issue,
[a] district court's power to grant a motion for a new trial is much broader than its power to grant a motion for judgment of acquittal. "The district court need not view the evidence in the light most favorable to the verdict; it may weigh the evidence and in so doing evaluate for itself the credibility of the witnesses." "If the court
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concludes that, despite the abstract sufficiency of the evidence to sustain the verdict, the evidence preponderates sufficiently heavily against the verdict that a serious miscarriage of justice may have occurred, it may set aside the verdict, grant a new trial, and submit the issues for determination by another jury."
United States v. Alston, 974 F.2d 1206, 1211-12 (9th Cir. 1992) (emphasis added). In short, a motion for a new trial should be granted "only in an exceptional case in which the evidence weighs heavily against the verdict." United States v. Merriweather, 777 F.2d 503, 507 (9th Cir. 1985); see also United States v. Camacho, 555 F.3d 695, 706 (8th Cir. 2009) (stating that "a new trial motion based on insufficiency of the evidence is to be granted only if the weight of the evidence is heavy enough in favor of acquittal that a guilty verdict may have been a miscarriage of justice[;] [n]ew trial motions based on the weight of the evidence are generally disfavored"); United States v. Martinez, 763 F.2d 1297, 1312-13 (11th Cir. 1985) (stating that "[t]he court may not reweigh the evidence and set aside the verdict simply because it feels some other result would be more reasonable[;] [t]he evidence must preponderate heavily against the verdict, such that it would be a miscarriage of justice to let the verdict stand" (emphasis added)). See, e.g., United States v. Acosta, No. C 11-00182 CRB, 2012 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 10383, at *28 (N.D. Cal. Jan. 30, 2012) (granting Rule 33 motion where court found it "absolutely implausible" that the defendant's false statement was material to ICE).
A. Rule 29 Motion
Defendant moves for an acquittal under Rule 29, arguing that the government introduced insufficient evidence to support conviction on any of the charged counts. In essence, Defendant raises four main issues on which he claims there is insufficient evidence to support the convictions: (1) Defendant cannot be convicted because there is insufficient evidence of his personal involvement in packaging the boxes for shipment; (2) there is insufficient evidence that Defendant took a "substantial step" towards completing the crimes, or that the boxes were "offered for transport"; (3) there is insufficient evidence that any of the substances that form the basis for Counts 1 through 9 were destructive substances within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 32(a)(2); and (4) there is insufficient evidence that Defendant knew that the chemicals in question were destructive substances.
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1. Evidence of Defendant's Direct Involvement
Defendant argues that he should be acquitted on all charges because there is insufficient evidence of his personal involvement in packaging the boxes in question for shipment. Docket No. 158 at 3-6, 15, 17-19. Defendant argues that each count required some proof of action on his part, and that the government produced no evidence that he personally was involved in repackaging or labeling the boxes in the June 4, 2010 shipment. He concedes that there was evidence that Medchem prepared portions of the shipment, but argues that there was no evidence tying him personally to the alleged deficiencies in the shipment's preparation.
Defendant also argues that the evidence shows that there were no problems with previous shipments that had been prepared before his son began working with Medchem, thus suggesting that any irregularities with the packaging and labeling were his son's fault.
There was, however, sufficient evidence upon which a rational trial of fact could have relied to conclude Mr. Ibrahim as personally involved in packaging the boxes for shipment. For instance,...
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