good morning i mean the court i'm drawn price counsel for the appellate ashley thomas i was one of two trial counsel below your honor i'll be mindful of my time but i would and i do intend to reserve three minutes for a bottle all right there are two principal issues presented in this appeal first whether that is whether the government present it sufficient evidence for the jury or to support the eleven convictions that being conspiracy conspiracy to commit structuring conspiracy to commit money laundering money laundering and structuring i briefed those issues your honor for today's argument i intend to limit my argument to structuring unless the panel has specific questions on the other issues the second issue your honor is whether the court did this or court erred in admitting statements attributed to sally and pete under the coconspirator exception this was this case or this appea arises out of a jury trial that lasted four days the trial evidence suggested that there was a large drug trafficking operation that was ran by an exclusive close knit small group of individuals those transporting money from florida to california to pay for marijuana that they intended to ship from fresno to florida is it your view that there were actually two separate conspiracies one involving structuring and wondered bombing a drug conspiracy yes it's my view that there are two conspiracies a structuring conspiracy a money laundering conspiracy actually three and in a drug trafficking conspiracy so you addressing know the drug trafficking conspiracy yes well there are there are what i'm saying is are a small group of individuals who were in charge of who ran the drug trafficking operation and because they were a small group of individuals they needed  they needed more people to accomplish their objectives of getting the money from plant in the city the structure but the structuring and money laundering park yes and so in order to accomplish that task of getting money from florida to california this group of individuals needed to recruit other people to to do that and the way they did it was they recruited young women or other people to open bank accounts so that they can deposit money within those bank accounts and with and have them withdraw the money and california it's actually structure is it is  suggest to me that you're you're characterizing restructuring structuring activity yes well this was just as a logistical matter this was just the way that the drug ok the organization intended to pay for the marijuana in california the problem that was presented in our case in our theory at trial was that when they recruited other people they were not transparent about their objectives or at least they were not transparent about the fact that they were a drug trafficking organization that the proceeds of this the proceeds were from drug trafficking specifically marijuana and so therefore ashley thomas would not be could not be convicted for money laundering because she would not she didn't have the knowledge that the money was from drug trafficking know it just seemed to me like your better arguments might be on structuring but it just seemed to me that there was an of suspicious circumstances and she knew there were money she knew there was money from drugs did on the money and the money laundering the money laundering when you add all this up i guess the question is there are enough that you can that they could be glued together from the government's point of view given the standard of review and you say no and i say no and i and primarily because the the nail in the coffin from our point of view was when the district court allowed statements from co defendants that did not testify those statements saying that ashley thomas was involved with receiving parcels of marijuana and lana and another statement saying that ashley thomas was involved with recruiting other people to  bank accounts those statements were severely prejudiced our defense and i think that with those statements the jury found that she did have the knowledge that this is the proceeds from drug trafficking they went so in your view if if we kicked out those coconspirator statements and they weren't there that there wasn't sufficient evidence on the other that is our view well that may have some traction actually with regard to statements made but i don't know that that necessarily links to the structuring because structuring has this to me is a totally independent activity and that and in this case i see that your client made thirty four withdrawals totaling to two hundred thousand dollars in amounts just under ten thousand dollars each which seems to me purposefully flying under radar avoiding detection which suggests to me that she knew what she was doing and if the jury is instructed with regard to circumstantial evidence and the inferences that you could make from circumstantial evidence why couldn't they come to the conclusion that she knew that she was involved in a structuring operation because our asking thomas role in this was that she was withdrawing money from the bank account so there's a i would think i would i would submit would be in a different position if  thomas was the one who was making the deposits because then there can be arguably circumstantial evidence we had she the reason that she made a different depository posits an amount a first there would be circumstantial evidence that she would have knowledge that there was an amount more than ten thousand dollars so you can infer from the circumstances came to she well our position is that she did not know i understand she was not didn't pick the amounts she conviction no your honor the pattern of the transactions alone cannot support should not support the structuring when you're making withdrawals you have no control over how much money is deposited and you're simply liquidating an account and this could be it could have been four thousand dollars it could have been two thousand dollars don't have to worry about to deposit so you structuring has to do is withdraw it preventing the institution from knowing that you know that it has   in requirement and if she is doing their withdrawals so as to not the banking institution that you have to make a report this in that suggests that she had knowledge couple with the fact that she made two separate trips account a foreigner from florida with seemingly the purpose of making these under ten thousand dollar withdrawals now this is the evidence before the jury how do we tell how do we say to the julian on this circumstantial evidence because the circumstantial evidence that your honor mentions does not suggest that she had knowledge of a specific reporting requirement the fact the evidence here was even from it's almost impossible to prove that you prove that on the basis of circumstantial evidence and she didn't come forward and say yeah i knew what i was doing proving that it is next to next to impossible but knowledge as you know is proven by circumstantial evidence and inferences made your are in the cases that deal with currency transaction report there is evidence that the bank teller suggest to the defendant that if you deposit this amount of money you're going to have to fill out a currency transaction report there is no evidence that ms thomas thomas had like knowledge  or ad opportunity to know about the reporting requirement might want to save your remaining fifteen i would give you a little extra thank you please the court map proceed yes events and generally for the united states your honors the jury's decision to convict the defendant was irrational based not only on the defendant's conduct in making withdrawals but also in her attempts to explain that conduct in an inconsistent manner later because that decision was rational under nevels it is entitle to deference moreover that the district court did not air when it did mid three statements through the government's witness miguel gonzalez because those statements were a ible under rule eight zero one two e and rural liable under rule for three i'm not sure though that's a totally different conspiracy that you're talking about isn't it i mean how are they admissible your honor so i'd like to address this so first of all there are three statements at issue the first statement was not objected to and so as is subject to plane air review this brings up a good point that was raised by defense counsel during argument and that's this idea that there are two completely distinct operations going on here a drug trafficking operation and then a money laundering operation the evidence from the trial showed that that was not the case specifically the people that were engaged in the drug trafficking operation were also engaged in the money laundering operation specifically the government's witness testified that he was recruited not only to acquire marijuana but he was also recruited to use his own bank accounts to funnel money there was also testimony at trial with respect to how much money specifically was structured through the bank accounts of each of the key players in the drug trafficking organization these are people who were actively involved in trafficking drugs and they're also funneling money through their account so while there are multiple conspiracies there is one drug trafficking operation here another important thing to think about your honor is the fact that a drug trafficking operation like this simply cannot operate if it can't move its money to me ask you a question about how the jury addressed these issues with the jury asked to make separate findings on for and whether thomas was involved in the conspiracy and they were asked separately about the structuring is that correct yes they convicted the defendant on structure conspiracy money laundering conspiracy money laundering and structuring so yes they were asked and then they have to intentionally avoid those requirements correct that is correct so the real question given the nature of the few things that she was involved in is i'm having some trouble reconciling what she did with actual knowledge of the banking requirements because it may be that she knows she's doing something wrong you know by dealing with these people but that's different than knowing that these banks have this reporting requirement and then that she's hurting it so i'd appreciate your comments on it so this goes to i think what judge fuentes was discussing when he discussed how difficult it is  to prove without circumstantial evidence that someone has knowledge of the reporting requirements what we have here is two categories of evidence we have a pattern and we have other conduct that shows that she's trying to evade detection ok so on the pattern we have not only thirty four transactions we have her going to twenty eight different branches all right pardon me i said correct so she's going all over california right the fact that she's not all doing this at the same branch is a further is further evidence that she's trying to keep from being detected but we're not that up to me that that i understand that but it to me that this could mean that you know as i say that you know she's doing that she knows that there are potentially drug money which goes to the to the first issue that there's drug money being spread around the united states and you don't want to put it all in one bank but that doesn't to me signify the knowledge of this bank reporting requirement that's why i'm having trouble so there are two other pieces of evidence with respect to that support her knowledge of the reporting requirement so we have actual evidence in this case that when she's confronted by a bank teller she's actually trying to evade detection at that point because a bank teller is asking her about her transactions when she's in the middle of this spree of thirty four different withdrawals and she tells the bank teller that she the reason she's withdrawing the money is that she's buying a car that is not consistent with the other evidence and it shows that when she's actually talking to the bank she's trying to keep from being detected but the fact that whether you're going to buy a car or house or more drugs how does that link with the reporting requirement because i guess if you're going to buy a car at a certain amount that i mean that's the whole money laundering got into it because  car dealer is as you recall way back so i don't understand the connection asher your honor so the inference from the fact that she says she's buying a car when she's in the middle of flying to california and making thirty four throws she wasn't actually buying a car is what the with the evidence shows she was so that's showing that she doesn't want to get caught that she's trying to keep the bank from detecting her activity i also would like to point your honor to some statements when he testified because he stated he talked about his conversations with peter capital who was one of the primary players in this organization in california and he testified that he was warned repeatedly never to exceed ten thousand dollars because as he said he didn't want to alert i r s or any cop so this is evidence of the way this organization operates by warning people about not to go over ten thousand and is there any and what is the evidence that she was warned the evidence that she was warned is well the evidence from the go gonzales is evidence of the way the organization operated by warning people right but there's no evidence that links her to that warning is there the evidence that links are to the warning would be again her attempts to evade detection but also under matter of structuring alone is sufficient to show knowledge of the reporting requirement and here we have a significant pattern of thirty four withdrawals over a twenty two day period and under under macpherson that pattern alone is sufficient to show her understanding of the requirement if there are are there any further questions appear is not thank you thank you if you could please put a minute back on the clock thank you i thought i would ask you knowledge of an intent to avoid federal currency reporting requirements for cash transactions exceeding ten thousand dollars the court there stated that the t that's how i understand the christian can you can you talk about that yes well of macpherson it's important to stand also that the there was knowledge specific knowledge about the currency transaction report in evidence there was knowledge that the defendant had actually discuss was not instructed that she could be found guilty of structuring if she evaded the ten thousand dollars requirement that was presented i'm sorry i missed the question that the jury was not instructed with regard to what was required the essential elements of this offense they were instructed on what the extensional elements were but the fact that the pattern alone is not sufficient in fact the court mentions macpherson but as recently as two thousand sixty the taylor decision walked that back because all the government had in that case was the  pattern of transactions and the court said that's not enough so it's contextual an argument here is that given that she's the person making the withdrawal she's completely reacting to the situation she's not doing anything proactive as relates to the money if it was ten dollars she would with drew ten dollars if it was the five thousand dollars she would have with drawn five thousand dollars and so are you mean is that that's pretty much the pattern is what the government's relying on and in this case in her role that's not sufficient thank you thank you ron thank both counsel for your argument this morning and that is states versus thomas submitted and it states versus ballots submitted on the brief and we'll hear arguments in the united states versus sanderson