crime committed by that person automatically qualify as a conspiracy related offense there has to be some evidence of a connection between the drug conspiracy and the defend its involvement in the charge murder in this case all of the admissible evidence showed that the defendant was motivated by a desire to exact revenge for his own brother who they held had been badly beaten and slashed during a fight with the victim six months before cyril pless code who was the only witness of the murder who testified at trial confirmed that the initial fight between strangers in a pool hall stem from a personal dispute had nothing to do with drug activities the defendant was involved in drugs at all his brother though his brother who was the this person was slashed was the manager of the drug organization right yes at that time he was the  manager of the street level dealers of the drug and why would it be important if the manager of your drug operation is slashed for you too in order to make sure there's respect for the drug gang to retaliate to that that could have been a reason for him to have done it there was no evidence they did that as there was in the van actually case which the government relies on but in this case when they approach the defendant on an abandoned street far from the drug organizations turf four o'clock in the morning they didn't say something like oh we run these streets  nobody messes with the flow organization the brother said look what you quote you remember what you did to my face and then told the defendant to shoot the victim there is nobody there's no evidence that the left the location they brought their supplier back to the location right this was lawyer of their drug organization they left the location got a gun got their supplier and brought the supplier with them right the supplier was the one driving them here when he was able to transport guys and then a connection to  they wanted the supplier to supply only them right was in their home conversation about that supplier only supplying yes and there was a drug related incident of violence related to that where the defendant and others had been involved in acts of violence against rival suppliers in the neighborhood on fairmont avenue and that they had after that incident of violence which was related to the drug organization which the government didn't charge when they told  that they brought crews back with them because this was indeed related to the narcotics operation no because the overwhelming weight of the evidence showed that cruise was not involved because they were trying to impress him or anything like that they saw this person at the pool hall where that if anybody in the back at all he wasn't there during the st encounter he was he was driving them he was driving he wasn't he wasn't at the scene of the murder the government's brief i think sort of suggests that he was actually at the murder but the video evidence and all the testimony at trial showed that he had dropped him off he wasn't actually present at the scene of the murder and when he described it the supplier later on to his own wholesalers sale supplier he didn't say oh this was a drug related thing and he said it only in two thousand and fifteen of five years after the crime when he would had a reason to evidence that the business did much better after this murder because the message was indeed s well there's no evidence that anybody outside of the conspiracy was actually ever told about the murder and even if it wasn't for this court's prior decision in the farmer case if you try to instill fear or trying to get suppliers finally you right i that's your goal i want i'm going to show the supplier how tough we are so he'll always supply us you need to tell people outside the organization right you showing him you bringing him and then i think it was also evidence that they told it was testimony that they told one of the workers as well right one of their own workers there's no evidence that anybody outside the organization was told and i want to know this court said in farmer that the relevant question is not whether defend its position in an enterprise was in fact advance because of that murder but it's whether his purpose at the time in committing that murder was to benefit his own position there's no evidence that anybody including the defendant his brother had been looking for this person during the six months in between they just happened to encounter him and the fact that they had their own supplier with them at the time who was driving them looking for the person on a time in gangs come up on a people who disrespect them in some way and they take an act of violence against them to improve their reputation right it doesn't have to be planned for it to be important for the gang when they think think they're disrespected in some way to take action right it doesn't to be planned no it doesn't have to be planned but again this was committed far away from the drug organisations turf in the middle of the night there's no evidence that they told anybody outside of it the government's brief keep saying oh they wanted to inspire fear and they  didn't fear it worked there's no evidence at all that anybody outside the organization was ever told about it there were plenty of there was plenty of testimony from anthony romo's about acts of violence that were related to drugs but for some reason he didn't charge any of those you know the personal in the past and that defended was also trying to switch crews from one genovese the crime family to another here the personal angle is so much stronger and the only evidence that was actually admitted with respect to the defendant's motive to try and tie his motive to the drug conspiracy was not admitted for its truth it was admitted as the jury was instructed not to consider it for its truth and i want to briefly address our challenge those here stay statements because it was an abuse of discretion under rule fluoro three to admit those statements for non hearsay purposes if the jury was likely to consider them for the truth defense counsel at trial conceded almost everything except for the connection between the murder and the drug conspiracy in this court's decisions in raising forrester which we discussed at length in our principal brief they're exactly on point all the factors that are required to be considered one of those cases indicated the challenge statements here should not have been admitted and raised in this court specifically said that the greater the likelihood of prejudice stemming from the jury's misuse of the statement the greater the justification needed to my challeng the cruiser statement on why he was involved in the in the murder could come in right that could come in right you were challenging that part of the statement right only in so far is it was not relevant to any disputed issue and so the jury was obviously going to take the one statement trial with respect to the defendant's motives and consider that for its truth there was plenty of other evidence including the others things in the government's supplemental appendix regarding cruise's own motives regarding liz already own motives if you look at the forrester and raise factors every single one of them which is against the admission of those statements in this which assume we believe that cruz a statement should come in right then how can you understand that statement if he said i did it for the same reason how can you possibly understand what that reason is without the other part coming in you won't be able to but the point under under raising for story is that there was there was plenty of other evidence regarding cruise's own motive such that the statement can come in if you look at those factors even if it had might have had some relevance to something but it didn't because defense counsel conceded the defense participation in the racketeering enterprise and in the conspiracy so it was relevant to proving the charges the indictment but not to anything that was actually disputed cruz's own motives were not in all and there was plenty of other evidence the desire for the gang again to generally promote its reputation and to instill fear was disputed that was important part of the case in addition to the individual motive of the defendant right no it was all about the defendant's own motiv committing the murder whether he his purpose was to advance his own position in the enterprise and it's important to remember the only reason his imposition was advanced in the enterprise was because his brother who had been his superior was arrested very soon after this case and incarcerated he shot him nine times at the drug direction of his brother and coconspirator with his heroin supplier ramon cruz waiting your buy he shot and killed jerry tied to avenge the disrespect shown to his brother and his drug there was as judge kaplan found in denying the defense's rule twenty nine motion both at the end of the government's case and in a written opinion after the verdict the evidence was more than sufficient for all three murder counts the evidence your own so the evidence of the events leading up to the murder was critical in this case and jose santiago artes and his brother jonathan santiago were being supplied by ramon cruz with low heroin ramon cruz was also supplying other crews in the area with that same flow and there was evidence of at least two non fatal shootings that the defendant santiago or tease committed against rival crews in just the weeks leading up to the murder after the nd of those shootings there was testimony from one of the cooperators that honest say jose santiago artie's confronted his supplier said to him you can't do this you can't supply all these people you have to choose it's either us or them and then just weeks after that the murder happened and cruz chose as your honour's pointed out earlier when jose santiago or tease and his brother ran into jerry tired at the pool hall late at night they left the pool hall they went back to their drug block they got exclusively with them rather than the others he was supplying to it was to send for i'm sorry it's not the argument that is the argument that's one of the arguments it was to send ramon cruz the message that he ought to deal with them that they were strong enough to protect themselves  that they wouldn't be disrespected and crews said that in the call that that that's why he was there he was there to show them that he had listened to the ultimatum and that he had he had chosen them that he supported them he says in the call this was when we were just starting to get to know each other i was there to prove to them that i meant business and there was also testimony as judge bianca pointed out that after the artie's took over and the drug crews drug business skyrocketed they were bringing in thousands of dollars a week and ramon cruz as both cooperators testified as the recording showed ramon cruz began to supply only tease bragged about them or i'm sorry the review santiago i was arrested for the murder and he went to prison he was in prison for several years throughout the conspiracy honor he took over and as defense conceded at trial he took over he ran the drug versus street operations and as crews told the cooperating witness neil is already on record and calls and has anthony r is one of the workers testified at trial under jose santiago a tease because he was known to be strong and tough because he had participated in the shootings and the murder the business skyrocketed so the events leading up to the murder the murder itself and cruise's participation in it and the evolution of the business after the murder all provided substantial evidence that jose committed the murder at least in part which is all that's required to benefit his drug trafficking business witness at trial as judge bianca pointed out cruise's statements cruise's statements about his participation in the murder and his motive for being there were directly relevant as judge kaplan found when he admitted those portions of the statements they went to the government's enterprise allegations they went to cruise's motive and they were from from cruz's motive the government was permissibly argued that they affected jose santiago or teases motive at all and they also corroborated the cooperators testimony both of whom testified about why ramon cruz was there and the events leading up to and following the murder with respect to the court to the prejudice about the history in the background of the investigation her state of mind and decisions that she made throughout the investigation were not relevant and sprinkled throughout her testimony or hearsay statements a bout that directly in implicated the defendant in a drug conspiracy one of which amounted essentially to a confession by the defendant the court in that case gave limiting instructions with respect to some of those statements but not all and the a u s a referred to those statements in closing and in fact referred to one of the statements in a way that in accurately characterize one of those statements in a way that made it even more  by contrast as as i just discussed cruise's statements were highly relevant to the to the questions at trial and jose said that the portions of the statements that jose santiago kaplan when admitting these statements after vigorous argument from both sides went through line by line made clear to the parties and then to it to the jury when he provided the  twice in the trial which statement which portions of the statements were coming in for the truth and which were not he then instructed the jury what perp for what purposes they could consider the not the the hearsay portions of those of mind well your honor of course jurors are presumed to understand and follow instructions i think the fact that judge kaplan he provided the instruction twice he not only instructed the jury you can't consider this portion these limited says i thought the following which is exactly what they thought but yet the government's asking the jury not to consider that in the signing what the defendant thought is just i just don't know how  there he said that twice he then before closings before summations really addressed the issue with the parties and explicitly told told me i did the did the closing you better be careful how you how you argue this  closing and in the closing in contrast to the race case i didn't mention here say portions or the motive portions and when we did discuss cruise's statements we made clear basically adopting judge kaplan's instruction that those were only relevant to why cruz was there and i see your honour's i see my time has expired so unless the court has any further questions thank you  in the raisin forrester cases it's not as if there was some sort of deficiency with the instructions that the district court gave to the jury one of the factors that are discussed in re is can curative or limiting structured effectively protect against prejudice or misuse this is centrally repeatedly highlighted the fact that there was in fact one person who ever said oh yes this had something to do with a drug organization and another one of the factors discussed in raise but i want to briefly address is the question can the needed explanation of background her state of mind be adequately communicated by other less prejudicial evidence or by instructions and in this case if you look at neal as are these testimony if you look at anything ramos is testimony it was chock full of other admissible and admitted evidence regarding those people's own motives the existence of the drug conspiracy which again the enterprising conspiracy was never contested the defense counsel repeatedly said he was not contesting it and so raise and forrester are directly on point with respect to the three issue here and the government stated that with respect or sufficiency arguments that the events leading up to the murder were critical you have to examine anthony ramos his testimony about those events leading up to the murder because there were drug involved shootings and shootings between the drug gangs and around the hughes avenue area if you respond to the government's argument that they brought along crews to send him the message ramos that that was the reason they brought him along he was there right they were with him that night they didn't start the night planning to go commit a murder in front of their bosses they saw other people who had they held responsible for he would have gone with them to the actual scene of the murder but he said it all in all and my question is if they weren't sending a message to him why would they need him why couldn't they just get the gun and come back they could have gotten the gun and come back but the fact they brought him is not by itself sufficient to say that this is why we're coming this murder because we're going to show you that we're tough we're going to show you that nobody messes with the flow chart jury jantar on reasonable inference that even though the indeed him that they brought him because they wanted him to see it and be involved they control the reason the inference we didn't he didn't to raise his own profile within the organization or try to raise the organization's profile in general the evidence that the government relies on can be completely explained except for by iranians the admitted testimony hearsay testimony by the fact that there were these drug involved shootings between the gangs and after one of those shootings the defendant told cruz his supplier you better not mess with them and mess with us that is to sell them the same product that you're selling us and so that fully explains why they were getting closer you know the it doesn't seem to be from the record anything more than a coincidence that they were with crews that night there is nothing besides speculation to say that this is the reason we brought him along except for again five years later that hearsay testimony when cruz st told was already i'm sorry when cruz st discussed this event he was told about this event soon after it happened he was discussing it in the record he didn't say things that