United States v. Ramos-Baez
| Docket Number | 20-1240,20-1275,20-1276,20-1283,20-1287,21-1641 |
| Decision Date | 03 November 2023 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. LUIS DANIEL RAMOS-BAEZ, a/k/a Danny Power; EDUARDO ROSARIO-ORANGEL, a/k/a Barba, a/k/a Cholon; AVELINO Millán-MACHUCA, a/k/a El Fuerte, a/k/a Viejo, a/k/a Gordo; LUIS H. Quiñones-SANTIAGO, a/k/a Hiram; JUAN J. CLAUDIO-MORALES, t/n Juan Jose Claudio-La Viera, a/k/a Claudio Canales, a/k/a Claudio El Gordo; JOSE RAFAEL SANCHEZ-LAUREANO, a/k/a Veterano, Defendants, Appellants. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (1st Circuit) |
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO [Hon. Timothy S. Hillman, U.S. District Judge]
Jose Luis Novas Debien, for appellant Luis Daniel Ramos-Baez.
Javier A. Morales-Ramos, for appellant Luis H Quiñones-Santiago.
Alejandra Bird Lopez, with whom Eric Alexander Vos, Federal Public Defender, and Franco L. Pérez-Redondo Assistant Federal Public Defender, were on brief, for appellant Avelino Millán-Machuca.
Kendys Pimentel-Soto, with whom Kendys Pimentel-Soto Law Office LLC was on brief, for appellant Eduardo Rosario-Orangel.
Anita Hill Adames, for appellant Juan J. Claudio-Morales.
Tim Bower Rodriguez, with whom Tim Bower Rodriguez, P.A. was on brief, for appellant Jose Rafael Sanchez-Laureano.
Alexander Louis Alum, with whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, and Francisco A. Besosa-Martínez, Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief, for appellee.
Before Barron, Chief Judge, Thompson, Circuit Judge, Burroughs, District Judge. [*]
These consolidated appeals are the latest to come to us in connection with a federal investigation of an organization -- referred to by the government as La Asociación ÑETA ("ÑETA") -- that operated throughout Puerto Rico's prisons and was allegedly involved in trafficking drugs and carrying out murders-for-hire. In the wake of that investigation, each of the six appellants was convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico of conspiracy to violate the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization ("RICO") Act, see 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d), and conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute a controlled substance, see 21 U.S.C. § 846. Each appellant now challenges those convictions.
Given the number of appellants, there are a broad range of challenges for us to address, although not all the appellants bring all of them. The challenges target the sufficiency of the underlying indictment, the sufficiency of the evidence at trial to support the convictions, and a slew of claimed trial errors. Two of the appellants also challenge the procedural reasonableness of their sentences. But, although there is no shortage of challenges for us to address, we conclude that there is merit only to one challenge, which is brought by three of the appellants and takes aim at an asserted trial error.
In that challenge, the three appellants contend that hearsay statements by alleged coconspirators were admitted into evidence at trial in violation of United States v. Petrozziello, 548 F.2d 20 (1st Cir. 1977). We conclude that this challenge requires a remand to the District Court because no finding was made below as to whether the statements at issue were made in furtherance of the alleged conspiracy. Moreover, our ruling in this regard leads us to reject the claim of cumulative error brought by Avelino Millán-Machuca, who is among the three appellants who advances the Petrozziello challenge, without prejudice to his raising the cumulative error challenge again in the wake of the ruling on the Petrozziello challenge on remand. We otherwise affirm all the rulings that are before us in these appeals.
The charges underlying the convictions were set forth in a sweeping indictment that named fifty defendants. The defendants were charged with various federal crimes that related to their alleged involvement with the entity that the indictment refers to as "ÑETA."
The indictment described ÑETA as a "criminal organization whose members and associates engaged in drug distribution and acts of violence, including murder." According to the indictment, the organization was originally founded by prisoners "in order to collectively advocate for the rights of" those in Puerto Rico prisons. But the indictment alleged that this entity "[i]n time . . .evolved . . . [into] a criminal organization whose members numbered in the thousands."
Among the defendants named in the indictment are the six appellants: Millán-Machuca, Juan J. Claudio-Morales, Luis Daniel Ramos-Baez, Eduardo Rosario-Orangel, Luis H. Quiñones-Santiago, and Jose Rafael Sanchez-Laureano. Each was charged with two criminal counts.
The first count charged each of the appellants with RICO conspiracy in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1962(d). In doing so, the count charged each appellant with conspiring to violate 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c), which makes it "unlawful for any person employed by or associated with any enterprise engaged in, or the activities of which affect, interstate or foreign commerce, to conduct or participate, directly or indirectly, in the conduct of such enterprise's affairs through a pattern of racketeering activity . . . ." 18 U.S.C. § 1962(c).
Section 1961(5) of the RICO statute defines a "pattern of racketeering activity . . . as two or more 'racketeering acts' that were related, occur within ten years of one another, and pose a threat of continued criminal activity." United States v. Millán-Machuca, 991 F.3d 7, 18 (1st Cir. 2021); see 18 U.S.C. § 1961(5). Qualifying "racketeering activity" includes "dealing in a controlled substance." See 18 U.S.C. § 1961(1). Two instances of the same type of racketeering "act" may satisfy the definition of a pattern of racketeering activity. Millán-Machuca, 991 F.3d at 18 (citing United States v. Rodríguez-Torres, 939 F.3d 16, 29 (1st Cir. 2019)). As relevant to our analysis in these appeals, the indictment alleged that each appellant conspired to participate in the affairs of the entity described as ÑETA through a pattern of racketeering activity involving the trafficking of cocaine, heroin, and marijuana.
The second count charged each appellant under 21 U.S.C. § 846 with conspiracy to violate 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). Section 841(a)(1) makes it "unlawful for any person knowingly or intentionally . . . to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, or possess with intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, a controlled substance." This count alleged that the appellants engaged in a conspiracy to traffic over one kilogram of heroin, five kilograms of cocaine, and 100 kilograms of marijuana based on the same factual allegations that undergird the count that charges each of these appellants with RICO conspiracy.
Following a fourteen-day trial, the jury found each appellant guilty on both the RICO conspiracy charge and the federal drug-trafficking conspiracy charge. The District Court imposed concurrent prison sentences of at least 10 years on each of the appellants for each of their convictions. These timely appeals followed and were then consolidated.
We start our analysis with the challenges that take aim at the convictions based on an asserted problem with the indictment. These challenges are brought solely by Quiñones-Santiago and concern only his RICO conspiracy conviction.
Quiñones-Santiago first contends in this regard that, in charging him with participating in the alleged RICO conspiracy, the indictment failed to identify an entity that qualifies as an "enterprise" within the meaning of 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4). His argument proceeds as follows.
Section 1961(4) defines an "enterprise" to "include[] any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity." The indictment defines the "enterprise" as: "La Asociación Pro Derechos y Rehabilitación del Confinado, also known as La Asociación Pro Derechos de los Confinados, and La Asociación ÑETA (hereinafter referred to as La Asociación ÑETA or the 'enterprise'), including its leadership, membership, and associates."
Quiñones-Santiago asserts that, by defining the enterprise in this manner, the indictment defined it to be a "mixture of a small portion of the ÑETAs (those indicted which constitute a subset of the ÑETAs), . . . the ÑETAs (the 5,000 plus membership)[,]" and two corporate entities, "the Asociación Pro Derechos y Rehabilitación del Confinado, Inc., and the Asociación Pro Derechos del Confinado, Inc." He contends that such an entity cannot qualify as an "enterprise" because, as a matter of law, an "enterprise" cannot be the product of such a mixture.
Quiñones-Santiago does not appear to have moved under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 12(b)(3) to dismiss the indictment on this basis. But, even if we were to treat the challenge as preserved, it would fail on de novo review given the limited nature of the arguments that Quiñones-Santiago makes.
The text of § 1961(4) is written in expansive terms, as it provides that an "'enterprise' includes any individual, partnership, corporation, association, or other legal entity, and any union or group of individuals associated in fact although not a legal entity." 18 U.S.C. § 1961(4) (emphasis added). Moreover, the Supreme Court of the United States has explained that, because § 1961(4) "does not purport to set out an exhaustive definition of the term 'enterprise,'" it "does not foreclose the possibility that the term might include, in addition to the specifically enumerated entities, others that fall within the ordinary meaning of the term 'enterprise.'" Boyle...
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