thank you to all counsel for joining us this afternoon by video conference for this argument session the court has four cases set for argument today and as set forth on the calendar we request that all counsel mute your microphone if you are not speaking and we will proceed with case number one madam clerk would you please call the st case for argument nineteen the main character unfortunately for my client was gerald hunter mantic relation with miss hartley the d a st louis police launched an investigation regarding large scale trafficking involves several people in the st louis area north county st louis from st louis city after extensive investigation all of the investigation related to st louis they realize that a man by the name of gerald hunter turned up on some title three wire taps is also related to some of the other actors who are actively dealing in our contacts in st louis where mr hodder arrived on an airplane from california while the was here  this was all being surveilled by the asians and task force officers they followed them around till they got to a city of florissant storage facility where mr hunter went into a storage locker and came out with two very large duffel bags the agents correctly believing those bags must contain either money or narcotics she's trying to seize mr hunter now mind you this was in a large area that was surrounded by barbed wire the agents seized on to mr hunter began to rain and began to run he was wearing flip flops and carrying the bags which weighed approximately thirty pounds apiece or twenty five dollars ounces he kicked off his flip flops then tried to run with the bags then just abandon the bags and escaped despite the fact that there were task force officers and da he got away your honor and he stayed away inside of that bag was over fifty pounds of pure fat so needless to say there was a large man on the st louis actors were prosecuted were charged mr hunter was on the lam they knew mr hunter lived in the state of california where he was from so in their investigation they discovered some of these other quaint says they discovered my client mr and the hard way now tend to hardaway and these facts are not disputed that are from the hardaway got together with mr hunter and mr hunter provided her with money the money he provided her with she used to buy real estate located in los angeles california and the case i quite case i quoted united states versus or and however they discuss that they say are the basis of venue as opposed to other circumstances now these essential conduct elements were taking the money contacting real estate agent drafting up real estate contracting real estate contracts and purchasing the property all of essential conduct elements of money laundering without question occurred only in the state of california and in my brief i've quoted from the government has rightfully pointed out that  wrongly treated as an element of money laundering and that there was a failure to recognize the generating proceeds concealing it are two different activities government agrees with that they say well that all of the drug activity occurred in st louis and when we had a well the previous attorney who passed away conducted the suppression hearing the main witness for the government testified that look all of our investigation was here for drug related activities in missouri and then when we investigated the money laundering we just a peanut records from california your honor my the basis of my argument is this there is a proper money laundering charge there is a proper drug possession with intent to distribute narcotics charge but they cannot link there is no nexus between the generated proceeds from drug related activity in st louis they cannot prove that it was used to purchase the property or those with the monies used to purchase the properties in california in iran or they would say well how can we prove that well it's very simple they could have just say one western union transaction one business record anything while there was none of those the agent to his credit testified that look when we did the investigation we investigated what was going on st louis so therefore it must be the st louis money your honor that's conclusory it's a self fulfilling prophecy it's well since we did everything here it must be that they testified to the fact your honor that i brought up that story about fifty some odd pounds of pure fenton all there is no question general funk there is a large scale mark traffics a large scale drug traffic the only investigation they did of him and of his activities were in st louis that doesn't mean he doesn't do it elsewhere they have the burd nexus some connection that this because it's now a conspiracy braless no longer applies because it's a conspiracy i agree with police they have to link the generated proceeds to the monies being used through business records through western union through bank transfer through anything they don't even have a phone call status again they just know that the monies used were provided by hunter and we all agree hunter is a drug traffic ker ill gotten gains were used to purchase the property but there was no connection to the profits being generated in missouri your honor that is my argument thank you question mr hogan yes in ms hard s plea agreement hard for untitled facts page for top of the page it says hardaway conducted financial transactions to purchase property located in los angeles for six hundred and fifty thousand dollars hardaway was aware of the source of the proceeds the source of the proceeds came from the distribution of fenton all in the eastern district of missouri is that an admission that the hunter money for that property in los angeles did in fact come from the proceeds of drug distributions in missouri your honor that was entered into after she lost her motion hearing disputing it miss hardaway doesn't know exactly where the money came from she just knows it came from general hunter and she does know it we would not insult the court's intelligence by saying she thought it came from legitimate purposes but at the time of our motion hearing none of that was admitted we were able to enter a plea of guilty pursuant but allowing us to still pursue this she knows that the proceeds were illegally gotten because you know mr hunter knows his activities but she had no direct knowledge of what occurred in st louis and how the monies got to her well are you saying that because it's a conditional guilty plea we cannot consider admissions made in the plea agreement or i'm not i'm just giving you my explanation  how we arrived where we are i'm not saying that i said well i'm just concerned if we can consider those admissions then it seems to me one pound or two your argument that the source of the money could have been  hunter in a different location i read that yesterday your honor and had the same concern and really thought about that and don't have an answer other than many times when you're allowed to leave well i wanted to take the just because i felt it would and it did benefit her greatly as far as sentencing goes and so sometimes when you do that you almost have to compromise the rights or compromise your argument that you have before the court that makes sense she would have faced she basically got time served around her by pleading guilty if we would have went to trial and she was found guilty she would have probably serve an additional four years in prison yeah and just so i understand what you are attempting to do with the motion was the idea that you wanted the court to dismiss the case based on lack of venue or with the case of gone to trial on whether the government can move up the the source came from missouri we were looking honor good afternoon my name is aaron granger may please the court i represent the united states in the matter before the court today you are no good court properly found that venue was appropriate in this case and that the court had venue under nine hundred and fifty six i want to go back to mr hogan point about the sufficiency of the evidence in this case that is not before this court what this court is being asked to decide is whether or not hunter and others nolen an unknown to the grand jury to engage in a conspiracy to commit money laundering as the court is aware the court is not allowed to look at the facts and determine whether or not the government can establish its case beyond a reasonable doubt a motion to dismiss an indictment is not permissible vehicle for addressing the sufficiency of the government's evidence that would be more appropriate at a involved in a computer fraud case it was a computer fraud case out of the district in new jersey where the court was asked whether or not the new was appropriate in new jersey when none of the acts occurred in new jersey they talked about essential that particular conspiracy had she been involved with those acts that that might have been a different question in fact when you look at the history of corail as well as initially she faced several counts and one of the counts was a was a indictment shows that there was in fact acts that occurred both in the eastern discriminatory and the central district california whether or not ms arthur way knew the proceeds were tainted whether or not she knew that they were some form of specified almost like city she had a vehicle to challenge that not one of them by way of trial she did not do that she entered a guilty plea and the guilty plea in this case is conditioned on her motion to dismiss which was preserve or appeal your honor and that is why we're here in the court just need to look at the indictment and the court can certainly affirm on any basis in the record the record in the indictment the case the court the venue in the eastern district of missouri when the court looks at other cases that are cited in the government's brief that follow correll as it is logical that this case would be in the eastern just from the very specifically and united states versus logan there and maxie's the court was asked to determine proper venue that case involves a defendant who was using motorhomes that he had purchased in california those motorhomes  being taken to the western just a commission michigan they were loaded up with drugs and they were taken back and proceeds were laundering that defendant like that part of weight never entered the just sort of western district of michigan the court nonetheless found that it was proper for act in furtherance of the conspiracy the money laundering conspiracy that took place in the western district in michigan and that is someone who what this court has before it is the case is gone to trial what would the government have been required to prove to stablish then you the government would have to prove venue on the preponderance of the evidence there is actually in and struction some of the activity occurring here there would be the government in this case your honor would certainly have to show the specified all lawful activity to show that she is guilty of conspiracy to commit money laundering and the government's evidence would have consisted sorry the government's evidence would have also consisted however of the transfer of the proceeds from that drug trafficking to the central district of california so that would have come in and that that it touched the eastern district and again we're not at that stage because she entered a guilty plea so whether or not she believed the proceeds came from drug trafficking it is really of no moment for in this court the i for this court is limited to two parts whether or not the warrant erred on denying the motion to dismiss the indictment or in the alternative whether the court abused its discretion in denying the motion for transfer of venue under world twenty one bear that the venue here would have been so inconvenient and that in the interest of justice the case should have been transferred in this case the magistrate judge her testimony from a task force officer concerning location document location the disruption if any to her business expense of the parties location of counsel assess the goal of your trial and then the dog the condition and the magistrate judge in this case factor that the courts allowed to consider in deciding on transfer or whether it would separate conspirators i think that that may fall under the other considerations that the court can maybe take into account the court actually did not make that finding has that argument was not made the court concentrated on the event location which it wasn't so much the location of the money laundering it was the events as total which would have been specified on lawful activity in the front carefully weighing all those factors the court did not abuse of discretion and came to that correct ruling all right well we thank both counsel then for your arguments the case is submitted and the court will file an opinion in due course thank you your honor