both sides and miss joelson and mr hari we see that you've been representing your client pursuant to the criminal justice act and you do an admirable job on behalf of your client we thank you for your service case of the submitted clerk may call the america versus locking him in others arguments not to exceed thirty minutes to be shared by the defendants thirty minutes for the plaintiff mr goodwin for the  they please the court your honors my good when i'm going to argue for thirteen minutes in the reserve additional five minutes for rebuttal request out of the court then mr olasky is going to argue on behalf of his client i'm going to address two issues which i think apply to all of the defendant conspiracy to commit murder or marriage fraud which allegedly lasted over ten years missing married larry here were the united states citizen and at the time she married him and on september twenty sixth two thousand and two she was twenty two years old she had two children she was widow her husband had died seven months earlier in fact the same week as her second child was born she met mr hibbard on the day that she married him she didn't speak any english he didn't speak any compare which she spoke so they were able to communicate the marriage was arranged it was arranged by an individual who was and this is consistent with with all the defendants and all pelletier the marriage was arranged by a coordinator one of six that different coordinators that the government alleged were in this grand conspiracy and when she was married the american citizen who married her got paid the person who arranged the marriage got paid and after the wedding the american citizen went back to united states and live there years later miss received paperwork for to immigrate to united states on a special visa and came over to an american or to a member of this jury that sounds like a sham marriage and that was the government's argument it doesn't fit our our american concept of a marriage so it's a shame and then argued that it was for the purpose of  immigration laws it also demonstrates the significance of the court's decision to exclude the defendant's expert i think that's the clearest cut issue before you honor's requiring reversal these convictions well i mean and i understand you want to do that experts testify about this supposed practice of arranged marriages in cambodia that yes absolutely nuts is that that's pretty much the gist of the witnesses testimony well the proposed expert witness was a sociologist who worked for the un and had expertise in societal customs and norms in family and marriage in cambodia he would not just testify that a lot of marriages were arranged in cambodia but rather provide some historical and cultural perspective on marriages in that country  more directly to the point not just that a lot of her marriage is or arranged which some of the government's witnesses conceded that point at trial to us on cross examination so you got that point in  very limited exposure to a very limited extent three very uncredible uncredible and untrustworthy witness much of what the government says you know you got some of this evidence and it's not prejudicial the evidence came in through  was the star witness for the government and he was one of these alleged six coordinators and mr knew of was an admitted human traffickers he on the stand said i'm engaged in human trafficking that's what i'm doing he admitted that to the court in his pl agreement he stipulated that that's what he was doing he was had made hundreds of thousands of dollars he was a repulsive figure for the jury it wouldn't be fair for us to say and he was he was not credible he frankly his his testimony was inconsistent with itself all over the place that's for the jury absolutely but he was being in it and not a credible witness and only able to touch on the very surface of what our expert would have been able to testify to is the reason that it was so prejudicial to not have the expert witness well i guess it doesn't it doesn't seem to follow to me the importance of this testimony because i mean sure perhaps they have arranged marriages over there but that doesn't mean that it doesn't encompass the idea of entering into a fraudulent marriage to come to the united states i mean that's that's not part of their cultural tradition that he would testify about absolutely not there was no evidence at trial through the government witnesses that the that policeman saying i believe all the they came when women knew or were informed that it was fraudulent the american participants said we knew it was fortunate we got paid they told us that i mean and so for this arranged marriage testimony to help you i mean you would then have to say ok and my clients thought this was just another arranged marriage that was that fair for example even though you know this guy's coming over on a plane from america and he's got a girlfriend and and i'm paying somebody you know thousands of dollars for this i mean doesn't that start to take us outside of the cultural practice of arranged marriages actually does not the expert would have testified that seventy eight percent of women in cambodia met their spouse on the day of the wedding that seems like a a crazy fact for an american let me ask you let me ask you this let's not proffer what this expert would have said had he been allowed to or if there was a record there was a notice of his i think there were two notices of the expert opinion that provided his opinion on the basis for his opinions i can i can cite some of the information for the court if you'd like and then the government moved to exclude him pretrial so he never actually testified at trial we don't know we don't know what his testimony would have when it was it was alleged in the notice of the expert your honor he he would have testified as  to to forty three percent of marriages were arranged in cambodia the seventy eight i guess i understand that but you know normally arranged marriages have something to do with the parents arranging marriages and their children and not i mean but what in the world would have gotten out of this if it wasn't the ability to come to the united states they certainly didn't live in a marital relationship this doesn't look like an arranged marriage in the in the traditional sense to me you know the facts that didn't come into before the court but the doctor he will and would have testified to would be one of that it's common to perceive marriage in cambodia as basically a a a business proposition where one spouse hopes to and that one family wants to marry up and certainly this would be a a very successful marrying up to get the spouse and united states she thought she was getting a spouse united states not a not a job or she had to work off a debt but he was so he would be able to testify to that perspective and how common that is throughout cambodia he would have also been able to to testify that it's extremely common for a third party to be hired to go out and arrange the marriage he would have so that was not at all unusual to have some third party get paid to find me a spouse he would have been able to to testify that it is common for spouses to live apart after the marriage because one has to go seek work it's a very poor country so it's very common for one to say there's a really good job in korea the united states and immediately go there in the spouses would be apart for some extended period time again concepts that are very foreign to the united states to our jury  but would have been particularly crucial for this jury to hear from an intelligent educated credible witness who would have been our expert now your client married mr yes ron and he testified that your it's all the long day long ceremony that's consistent with her tradition if there if in her mind it's a sham why get her religion involved why bring in her family because she's being duped as well she believes she's getting the spouse should move to united states and be able to live with him eventually isn't that more consistent with the belief that he's going to get to go to the united states some of the conditions in poverty  cambodia i mean it seems to me that that's the that's that we're consistent belief there's there's no doubt that she that that that's part of the reason you're marrying up and that's one of the benefits of doing that would be the objective well but if that's the case she wasn't leaving or emigrating for years so there's not it's not a going away party for her it's a it's a traditional marriage for her it's just the same type of marriage arranged paid up with someone to coordinate it and all those things as her mother her sister her friends all went through the same same type of marriage that they but they didn't end up in  and family not her mother but but other certainly in her community did it was common to marry and go to the united states that was certainly ok very briefly the other issue that i think is particularly clear meriting a reversal here is that the government failed to prove a single conspiracy here these individuals miss and the other defendants before the cork well basically the in consumer at the end they if we take the like in the evidence in the light most favorable to the government and assuming argue window that these marriages were somehow fraudulent at most they were individual conspiracies involving the cambodian woman the the american gentleman the coordinator of the the marriage ceremony they did not join any greater and there's no evidence that they joined any any greater conspiracy that lasted some ten years missing was it was married in court and says that when you have one of these these or a or a will conspiracy there still has to be a common goal that all the defendants join in ok not just similar conduct or committing the same crime multiple times with the same with with some defendant but rather a common goal that everyone joins into and then also some interconnectedness between the parties there wasn't that here these different marriages didn't have a common goal other th a an individual who ran a garden shop and he sold to a bunch of different defendants i know you're out of time and you can sort of address that more in your in your rebuttal but thank you and are we going to hear from your co counsel at this point other three opponents here ok we share some of the same issues regarding the expert in this and other issues that are raised but for the purpose of this a presentation i saw the court to focus on what i think is the most important part of my client's case which  of or was involved in a conspiracy to commit marriage fraud before she got married and the instructions in the last state that the government has to prove that she entered into them and that you we entered into the marriage and that she did so for the purpose that the marriage was entered into that's the key word was entered into for the purpose of evading the immigration laws and that the fact that the government never proved that she was aware of the conspiracy or involved in it is fatal to their case and this ducktails into it exacerbates the problem number two which is the government's misconduct in it opening statement in its closing statement where they manufactured or made up evidence in order to establish the existence of a conspiracy in the knowledge element prior to the wedding ceremony prior to the as the government recognizing its closing her case was a little different as actually was a lot different mr mcallister he traveled to cambodia with his father which is important because i've asked the court to think of this in the light of sosa perspective because it is a subjective test it's a mode of test that the court or the jury had to consider when determining whether whether she committed the conspiracy fraud unintentionally committed conspiracy so she showed mcallister showed up at the airport with his father in the country was there with her mother with her father with other relatives and most importantly with an interpreter so she was there armed to be armed and a relationship pursuant to her culture and see if this was someone that she could marry because her family was interested in putting this arranged marriage together and the defense for mr and mrs so we didn't put on any evidence everything that i'm presenting here comes from the government's the government's presentation of proof and it came primarily from mr mcallister himself but he testified that he met her at the airport they spent virtually every day together on the and enjoyed each other and then ultimately had the engagement party and after that mr mcallister return to the united states and he made plans to go to obtain a fiance visa in order to return to cambodia in bring his future bride to the united states and during that period which was over a year he continued regular contact with the current pace so through postcards love letters and phone calls so as i said earlier if you look at this from so she thought this was the real deal and this is very different from the proof that the government introduced at trial from the other three defendants regarding arguably the sham was was recognize from the start there was in the government never ask never asking mr mcallister never provided any proof or any evidence whatsoever that he told so i'm only doing this for the money or that no intention of living with you or that i'm going to abandon you shoot soon as you hit american soil and to the contrary what he what he did was he enjoyed her and he got engaged to it but the from the government's perspective they realized that was a problem ok and i prepared the case based on the discovery that i received pretrial discovery indicated it that he never told miss so while during their time in cambodia that he had a girlfriend in fact the proof that obduracy was a he told ms so about his girlfriend on the second visit when she was on a plane headed the united states that by the way during the engagement period i had an affair with my brother's girlfriend she's pregnant and she's living with me and my baby so she's on the plane expecting to get married the next day and gets hit with that that's of quite a zinger on her way to the altar the government recognize that so they open up sit in the courtroom and i hear their opening statement which is to go to the u s attorney says the jury and you'll hear proof that wanted to be strong with the jury on that mr mcallister is going to be a witness that's going to be favorable to pull to the defense because he's going to concede that he played the role of on his super for for my client that he never told her that this was fraudulent i hear the government's open so that if they change gears he's going to he's going to say something inconsistent with what he's told the the authorities in his marriage interview and what i've learned in my investigation so i better be ready for well that i was ready for but never came but then when i cross examined i had to rip out some of my cross examination because i certainly didn't want to make the most elementary mistake a lawyer can do which is do more damage on cross and i didn't want to open the door i didn't want to ask him is it true that you didn't you didn't tell them because the government didn't call them down that road said become a non issue even though the government made it an issue in opening what were the real damage was done in this case was in closing i made the motion for directed verdict in front of judge mckinley and i basically presented my closing argument to the court in the prosecution was standing there and i told him to my client how to do directed verdict because the government failed to prove that my client was aware of or knew of or was part of a conspiracy before she said i do on u s soil a second day and in this country and at that point the judge said that's a fine closing argument  premature motions to not make that argument to the jury which i did mr kimmitt could give the first closing and that went they were free i did not object it was a clean there were no low blows i made my closing and presented the issues in much greater detail than i present your honors today then the error occurred let me ask you a question at what point in time does your client would your client need doing had the the the agreement the subject of understanding of a sham marriage is it when she's in cambodia and make gets an engagement visa or is it any time before she says i do i think it's it any time any time the statute says it's a crime of marriage fraud for an immigration purposes is as was entered into when the marriage was entered into did did she do so for the purpose of evading the me before it can be minutes before i kind of understand what you're getting there i appreciate your candid answer i mean that does make it harder for you doesn't it because she does find out these things under your you know you're telling before she gets married right it does but i think you know sometimes we're all guilty of being too loyally and spectate things based just on checking in the inbox checker but from a relationship standpoint don't we always want to tell him we want to believe  when we don't want to believe that there is still i want to believe there is no other boyfriend when my wife tells me that i'm going to believe it i want to believe my wife really wants to marry me even though i've hear stuff and i want to believe it even when i see things so and it's i think it's really difficult for the quarter or anybody to les that's that subjective test on this so considering she's in another country without any or that what the jury had to do here and they did it right they did it but they did it with the benefit of a low blow what makes this particularly egregious i mean really egregious is the fact that this was a long trial and i i really sat sat quietly almost the whole trial because the government's case was only focused on my case at the most twenty five percent of the time we had three four defendants so i sat there as they went through in they did a fantastic i was amazed at the job it really was i was a maid it was a great lawyer and i learned a lot in the presentation of the end when the when the u s attorney says to the so it says to the jury in the rebuttal that we have all sorts of evidence as a slight maybe paraphrase all sorts of evidence that she knew of the girlfriend when they had zero then nothing except except what do i think a good well i mean but i just wanna make sure i understand you are conceding they had evidence that she was told shortly before the marriage i guess on the plane all right i  can't get around it that's the proof she did know that what the what was the flow below that you think did you and that you didn't know they were as good as they were you didn't know what the low blow was the jury the jury he all this proof from the about the three other marriages which were the proof of the fraudulent circumstances of the marriage were really really strong was for us you know the the the wives and girlfriends being at there and all stuff that wasn't present in this case but in order to to move the companies closer to all of the damaging evidence of the codefendant they had to create evidence that didn't exist and that was where the prosecutor said in opening statement because i thought i thought the government was going to put was going to do the most macassar get on the stand and said i told that to the immigration officials but i lied to try to protect the marriage now i'm telling the truth and and she knew that it that this was phony from the start i expected that they were going to improve their jury opening statement is not evidence so if the government made that statement which you say was not true in opening and the court told the jury opening statement it's not evidence wasn't that harmless know i think i think i would be more receptive to that position if it weren't for the follow up on the robot of closing where the u s attorney says you for all sorts of evidence that she knew about mcallister's girlfriend she knew it was a sham and that's that's a that's not the facts so they type that now that now it doesn't become an isolated misstatement on opening but it becomes a repeated statement that happened in opening was not proven in during any of the proof and then in rebuttal after i've said janet have no longer connection the jury if they finish with you for all sorts of it's when in fact there is none you couldn't object there either objected there and then the opinion or the objection in my opinion was so egregious as i walk to the bench the trial judge said i said may we approach and he's the judge mckenna says i know what you're going to say when you approach i mean this was it was i think it was plain areas plain here it was so obvious that my only defense the only window of acquittal that my client had was to prove that she did know it was a sham marriage until until the day before and i would say shit she didn't know that there was a question regarding the legitimacy of the marriage until she met actually met mcallister's girlfriend that the government had just had to use a low blow in our view evidence that was not part of the case  prosecutor in opening same as well as closing argument he's correct in terms of a comment was made that the evidence would show that the so was aware of the before she got engaged that christopher j and the caster had a girl from back home we do can see that that's something that for whatever happened during the trial that question was not asked of christopher james mcallister and it's not in the record so we were unable to show that however  i think when counsel calls it a low blow i think he's trying to say that his flagrant i don't believe is flagrant under the law certainly we would agree that it's improper should've been said but it's not flagrant and the twice  it was said twice within a short period of time meaning that when the prosecutor was going through the evidence that was going to be presented he said and she knew about that and then there's about five other things about the evidence and then he came back around mention it again and moved on to the next soon and go fraudulent marriage that took place that was the two times that it was said throughout the entire trial so are you so you're disputing that it was that that representation with made  opening the lid and then made in closing you know what i'm saying is that this is the ok in the opening statement the with reference to christopher james mcallister or the still being aware that that her future spouse had a girl from back home we didn't prove that up a trial it was said in open it should have been said but what i'm saying is that it's not a low brute blow that rise to mcallister's girlfriend before the marriage i don't believe it was before the engagement if you have something the record before that's different than i i would stand by that but in any event it was not something under the factors that was expansive or something that we hung the whole case on that wasn't the case at all well i mean just to stand there point for second if the the prosecutor said in opening that she knew before the gauge that this which is totally wrong or right it is sure it's not you know it's just not only was there no evidence but it's factually incorrect and and so the jury hears that which is mr olaf's is really undermines his theory of the case and then they hear a more general statement in closing that you know there's lots of evidence that she knew that this was a sham i mean at least the jurors who sort of connect the dots when they think it's it's essentially repetition that yeah and so in terms of that was the isolated time that it was spent i don't believe that the jury would have focused on it frankly i think they would been focusing all the actual substantive evidence that was shown regarding inferences that could be drawn this  the government was these were certainly arranged marriages in terms of fraudulent range marriages and so yes i would agree in those with the argument that were made so as we look at these so look at the evidence that shows what her involvement was to say that she didn't know was is simply counter to the facts are presented at trial ok but since that with her uncle again who arranged to be the marriage  doesn't that play into some of the cultural issues are stretched up a third then doesn't that argue for inclusion of the expert testimony to speak to the cultural issues regarding arranged marriages and cambodia if the problem is is with with with reference to the cultural issues that that's those were the elements that they were on trial for and so as a result of that they simply just killing got a right they're not relevant in terms of understanding why someone would get no no i mean i mean yes what in terms of the cultural dynamics in terms of sharing but it still doesn't explain i mean the question is that they entered into this fraudulent marriage or the they knowingly enter into a marriage for the purpose of of evading a provision of the immigration law that's what we had to prove and that's what we did prove overwhelming evidence to show that and so the cultural dynamics are that they would not be able to a pine would not be able to buy and that's what they are trying to do hugh white would not be able to pine oh and by the way it's commonplace in cambodia that arranged marriages and even if they're poor avoiding immigration laws that's ok there that's what they were trying to backdoor and the court said no because it's not really how would that be relevant in terms of asking security so is this a legitimate marriage i mean it simply would not be relevant as it relates to that i  don't i don't believe so you know but you see what counsel argues is that this goes to the the knowing element it goes to whether or not the  miso and some of the others you know what their intent what their knowledge what their belief was and and the and the expert testimony if i understand it would  provide this this information this education i guess of cultural values and then that the jury could evaluate their actions their statements in the context of this cultural i guess education understanding the sculpture and it would probably be my guess whatever defense they're going to do they're going to prevent well i don't i mean in terms of the expert testimony i think one of the things that we should look at is this is the leak case  and in that case there was a letter that was written threatening a congressman and i cut your head off had blood on it and mention the virginia tech shootings and person pled guilty later says oh wait a minute i'd like to draw that because that that was these were insults they weren't actually threats and the judge in that case actually authors of the other is an expert witness who is going to testify that in his culture those would be considered or could be considered insults and not threats and let him with but that is different because the substance of the writing has that issue in terms of were those threats or were they not threats in terms of the intent our case with all due respect in terms of you know it's a poor country i would like to go to america and make a better go of it arranged marriages don't happen there that still doesn't have anything to do with whether or not she entered the marriage for legitimate purposes it just tells you it's an arranged marriage and we never objected to that and in the through the testimony through our shop who was the united states citizenship and immigration inspector through the  all those individuals talked about those things in bits and pieces regarding arranged marriages in the culture and i believe need who has been called the repulsive figure i don't believe that's entirely accurate at all but in terms of what he said was that  he was trying to help people and in doing so by letting the kids united states have come out about the culture in bits and pieces if that's relevant why isn't it why isn't it through other things why have an appreciation of cambodian culture was better you know we're not allowed to ask that i could i couldn't tell you that so i could tell you with the can i just make an assumption because we don't have a proper also from the we don't know what actually excuse we are actually are that's part of the problem too and that's probably the biggest problem because in lyonnais you'll get all the cases of all the experts the experts had an opportunity to interview the person read the documents and go through and submit hey this is what my opinions are going to be we had none of that here and so frankly was going to be a crapshoot if you find walked in the door got up on the stand and start shooting from the hip in terms of what he thought we didn't know what the opinion was that was frankly what we're most concerned about what is this guy going to say but that is that that's helpful ok and so in this case there was no interviews there was there was none of that  judge's ruling on that it was not an abuse of discretion your honor what's your evidence of so those knowledge before the marriage that she was doing this for a sham purpose to evade the immigration laws before the marriage before the marriage took place there was a two year waiting period when and during that time about a year and a half later they actually denied a visa to come over so christopher ja mcallister gets on a plane flies over there and convinces the actual agent over there to stamp it approved they both came back on january thirtieth and two days later february first they get married and in terms of that when they you're talking about now things are going to the marriage no no no this is you want a marriage that's two days before the marriage and that's exactly where all this went down additionally in terms of the letters that were written they were actually provided from christopher james mcallister by his the uncle cong tie to write and the stamps on those were from lexington so they weren't even from louisville and they were sent over and this was to maintain the facade in the fraud that there's a relationship there probably one of the reasons why her visa was rejected because it in believe in the bone a piece of it and so that those initial injections one of them the others that when christopher day's mcallister went over there they stayed in separate rooms when they came to the u s it was understood that they weren't going to live with each other there was no tears there was no security so saying oh christopher james mcallister i was like why your girlfriend said she knew and that's why her uncle came picked her up drove  to lexington she was working there two days later they get married and then after that after the marriage because you have to understand in terms of the objective of the conspiracy was not just to get marriage that was the vehicle to fraud to the marriage but to lawful permanent residence and that's what's so important i think people people misunderstand that the conspiracy didn't stop at the marriage the conspiracy stopped after they attain lawful permanent residence which took place about a year later the marriage interview the you know traditional marriage interview that we see on television and whatever those things really happen and they're there would you agree with mr or less though that i mean for this crime as charged the relevant point time when she needs to have the illicit intent is before the marriage before i your honor set a spot on before i i do we have to prove that she knew that this was a fraudulent marriage and we believe that in terms of phony documents the phony letters when she came over and before she said i do when she meets a girlfriend and she leaves in two days later before they get marriage that's sufficient to show that she knew and she was involved in this fraudulent this case i'm i'm sure it was just sheer torture to read simply because but but they're all important and the reason they're important is because this is not your run of the mill conspiracy between two or three people this was in fact a ten year conspiracy it was a single conspiracy and involved five key leaders and organizers who comprise the hub in this case and in terms of the transactions i've heard the comparisons to drug cases well it just happens you know some of the drug cases they found it's waffer that that wasn't but there was a bit there was a variance there and there was prejudice  our case is completely different from swofford in the sense that there was a common objective not only that each individual was to come to the united states and obtain lawful or to get married and attain lawful permanent but there was also the larger framework to keep the conspiracy going so that they could bring families and friends of other members to the united states we see this with michael chen who's one of the leaders when he came by means of a fraudulent marriage in dollars and when michael chin comes to the united states later becomes a u s citizen about four years later he's doing the same thing with sona and gov who was the fourth defendant in this case and he's the one that participated in orchestrating that marriage fraud there so and one of the one of the questions that was asked of of need during his questioning was you know in terms of doing this you know when they came here you know what would he be the person who would house them and he says no they have family and friends here because it was understood that when they came here they weren't going to be left out on their own they had already planned this somewhere was going to be to go and with with people there along with pick the lee who is also another unindicted coconspirator who actually paid the remainder of the fee for both those individuals to need and so the all these little facts are so important in understanding the framework of of how this worked the other particular evidence he had and that's important to realize is that these weren't just simple drug transactions were in swofford some would come to the store by some iodine and i'm going to go make a lot of methamphetamine ok would it take a minute to these these are transactions that hey we're in it to win it they're going from you know in the case and limbs case that's a four year period of time who stays in something for years unless it's that important where they want to come to united states and the and the government recognized that the government recognize and i think the court recognized that and i think if i can just fast forward a little you know terms of the sense they received each of them was probated in this case so there's a fundamental understanding in terms of everybody involved in terms of why they were coming here the problem is that it's illegal and you can't do it that way so but that with the conspiracy itself we take a look at that i believe unlike where frankly if you look at that case i think i think the sixth circuit was would have set a three hundred sixty months for this person with no criminal history and there was there was there was weak facts where the twenty people that came to visit none of those people knew each other except for two let me ask you a question about you know how to sort out whether this is a single conspiracy i mean the case or as i understand it says they have to have a common goal and it seems to me we need to define that term at some level of generality so is that is it or nuff to have a common goal that everybody you know all for these defendants shared a common goal of wanting to come to the united states or were more specifically do they have to share a goal of i want each of us and everybody you know that's involved in this conspiracy in the cambodian side i want i want those people to get there as well as myself i do believe the latter your honor is probably where the emphasis should be and i say emphasis because it's not exclusive that i think judge donna when she had earlier asked if that wasn't the objective that all come here that is certainly a large component of it as well and so that's why i said this conspiracy is just a little bit different than your typical drug transactions it's more of a if you take a look at they'll beals as well as caver and i think th caver and i love that case one can assume that the participants understand that they are participating in a joint enterprise because success is dependent on the success of those from whom they buy and whom they sell was interesting in that case which i don't  particularly care whether another defendant got blocked because the immigration official didn't believe it was a real marriage one one of the ways is that i have i believe need testified that when they were obtaining or getting the fees and he talked about anywhere from seventeen to thirty thousand dollars as what the fuel was to come the united states depending on if you have kids or if you if you didn't have kids and that was the fee and i said well you know do they pay it all up front and you would think that if you were smart business person you'd say well you know let's get it all up front who cares if they lose my mom who they're going to tell that's not the case here they only charge thirty to fifty percent upfront with the understanding that there was a built in if you didn't make it you don't have to pay the rest now that the inference from that can be drawn that they wanted to keep the conspiracy going that mean that there was a there's a built in risk but the understood that they could possibly get there that the but the people like so and  others weren't the one paying those funds were they and so i thought the question from judge catholics with what the four people that we have today lim ng and so what was it about their particular circumstances that indicated that that one of them had any particular concern about whether the other one was able to you know to to make it and then what we ask you to do to show this hub and spoke thing in the show the agreement that the letter allows for the single grand conspiracy there's there's no question that in terms of you know we don't want to be a typical corporate you know with the with the designations down here everybody's involved in the straight up that's that's that's not here and the focus more here is that the overarching plan is to have everybody get to the united states or the way that the conspiracy just doesn't go talks about that on the u s side the individuals that would he would recruit you got to remember after us and think it's married once you're done you can't go back and do it again because there's documents out there and you simply can't however you can advance a conspiracy by recruiting other people and that's how it was it was continued by the word of mouth other people who would join in and facilitate in further the conspiracy to go on i don't understand why what you just said that you know  everybody they want everybody to get to the u s otherwise the conspiracy doesn't go i mean for you know you know miss lim i mean what does she care i mean there's long as she's got the american who's willing to do this i mean she could care less her fortune isn't affected if if angus spouse gets cold feet and doesn't do it right well for those those those two particular  your question no we don't have any evidence to show that if lim doesn't make it she's not going to make it this is this is this is this is not a you know a football team who's all you know huddling up together to do it and so that i would agree with you in that regard that's not present but i would it would would would would disagree in the sense that the reason why they only paid a little bit up front was to make sure that the gap there and if some people are not making it then it could adversely effect whether or not they would make it to the united states have any proof of that or think it's facially i mean it's not that intuitive to me and i'm just wondering if there's anything i want to say that need testified as it relates to the documents i was planing to mud who was christopher lee mcallister but he testified regarding documents and how it could be problematic when the papers being filed with the same people that are involved or the same areas and locations that are involved in all i mean it's yeah maybe you know the feds sort of catch on that there's a ring operating and maybe that shuts start shutting down people we can chase it down if you don't have it  your finger i don't know if there's any forgive me forgive me for that you know and and so i you know and i have and i want to press them on the court that we do believe it's a thing go conspiracy and and  but but if the court finds that it's not you know then the second prong of this is that what what is the prejudice to each of the defendants who went on trial and the reason why the facts are important is because the sure probably throw in so because con time was involved with that and then so on in god if you handed you know you're trying to win you're not going to associate michael chin who was with would need hondas that would be but there is this mountain of evidence against what he did say mountain but there's all the evidence against the other individuals that just keeps rolling along at the end you know it's you know it's clear this is sort of swept up and painted with that same brush when there are differences that aren't easily separated perspired because you know it's all coming together so you talk about what is the prejudice i think he he perhaps illustrates through at least if believe as to what some of the prejudice was but about arguing the single conspiracy so that all of the evidence in the conspiracy can be assigned or allocated to each one of the defendants and i would agree that that is the concern especially because when they talk about that were you know the simon brown character draft suppose these you know fraudulent loan request for and he was like nineteen individuals and at the end of that the government just said right you've got me but where's the prejudice and so that was actually a seminal case where they talk about standards or review and quite frankly i got lost in that twenty pages of that but the bottom line there was that they said exactly you're saying that to me brittany's you have nothing to do with each other but in this case in terms of the what the courts look at and what i think your concern is the spillover effect the spillover effect in most cases deals with you have like a murderer you have a robber and then you have you know this guy over here or gal over here who's got a firearm and you know she's just getting blasted with the two other individuals here who have a murder in the robbery now that still are with absolute fact in this case each of them was charged with the same charge the timeline from which they came to the united states occurred during the same time frame they all overlapped each other the last overt act that took place for each of these was over six zero six zero nine and zero six and in terms of the evidence that would have been admissible as to each of the defendants i would say seventy five percent of what was presented trial probably eighty would have been presented on each of the individuals had gone to complicated convoluted issue the government spends a good bit of time preparing this case and if they show it and you haven't you have an understanding of this and we take this jury who is hearing all this evidence for the first time and in a user with a long habit in seven or eight days we put all of this before them and we say whatever the rules are evaluate this and make these determinations and what mr o save his client is sitting at that end up all of this you know tremendous evidence and how and he's concerned about whether or not the jury can and does make the differential assessments in determination three a prejudice with respect to scott i think that's a real concern i would agree but in terms of the facts aboard the trial we're we're we're not at all swofford talks about having these multiple conspiracies and the government didn't have to prove those up and they can kind of wash away with a large i digress our case we got into the weeds with every marriage that took place there was significant overlap in or connecting this with contact who had previously worked in now and who actually went to take the luggage for stock be limited to lexington and so that evidence would have come in it so quickly so as trial so she was not we would not have been overly prejudiced and the spillover simply would not have been there and because of that you don't i'm running a long time here i do not grand overarching conspiracy they would not have a charge against those individuals there wouldn't that time for the them to be charged as passed so there's that procedural error or procedural prejudice additionally there certainly the spillover and i think this welfare case talks about how the the risk of spillover prejudice to defendants greatly increases as the number of defendants increase here mr kennett cut said there are fifteen co defendants he misspoke there were the defendants most of it only one alleged coordinator this mr new you have testified the other folks that came in through basically summary evidence from the government's witnesses claim and here's the the connection between these individuals i'll summarize it basically for you and sum up in a little bit about through mr nguyen of i knew this person and and that person but he also adamantly said i didn't have anything to do with that wedding i wasn't involved in this wedding or that wedding involved in some of these here before the court as well so he denied any connection between them and if we look at the swofford case the swofford case is but there must be more then the same or similar crimes committed with a common codefendant at best that's what we have similar crimes committed with not even a common codefendant here in swofford they had one individual selling the side on to various me cookers but here we don't even under the government's theory they're saying we want this new expanded idea of the wheel conspiracy where there's five or six different coordinators you know nobody cording between them but they just are interconnected so there is not it's here where they're averaging arguing is a common goal is not a common goal as swofford says is required swofford says committing the same crime w a linking codefendant or someone that you you buy the the drugs from that's not enough it would be similar to the government charging street level purchasers of drugs with being involved in  crafting conspiracy the court is correct in implying in their questions or the prosecution that those individuals they don't care if another individual purchases drugs or not they're there to purchase for themselves just like these individuals in this case if they're entering these marriages they don't care for other people do or don't and the government's argument that well basically if they don't make the poor if the people make the purchases the market will dry up and there won't be drugs available for purchase for this the street level purchase then then that is some kind of damage and that is some kind of interconnectedness between these purchasers of drugs there's not they're not involved in a conspiracy like perhaps there was a conspiracy here between some of the coordinators but certainly not one involving the individual defendants and also after the prejudiced really the government's case was they had to prove that and the and to judge jeffords is a question of mr olasky the statute require that these individuals know the marriage is fraudulent at the time they enter the marriage  and that they do it with the purpose of evading immigration laws they had no idea about immigration laws they don't have to know the specific law but they had no idea of that but and there was no proof of that but beyond that th when they enter the marriage i would say that mr olestra likes to say that his client is differently situated i would say that missing and and perhaps miss lemark as well in that those individuals got married in cambodia they didn't get engaged and know the individual for a while and then come over and then get it have a marriage here i would submit that the evidence was extremely weak against mr and mrs lim because like half of the other women getting married in cambodia they didn't know who the person the day they got married and would have no idea and no way to find out that it was fraudulent that day which is required by the statute and the testimony at trial specifically was no one ever told them that they had that they had that they were involved in a sham you for your argument the case would be submitted and