the clerk has reported on the day calendar and there's one case that's off because of weather concerns but otherwise we're ready to proceed with the united states versus j represent mr jang the singular question in this case concerns whether or not there were multiple conspiracies as a matter of law and whether if there were mr jang there by suffered prejudice good night to interrupt at this point so is europe is mr jenks case related to mr when it has no relationship other than some of the i think the victim may have been the same but it's otherwise unrelated he's gotten a fictitious were different i'm sorry i thought the victims were different they're there there is some overlap but it has zero to do i haven't focused on his case has zero to do with my case it's completely unrelated to why were they both tried in judge ammons courtroom together and there they have been indicted together i'd made a motion to sever th severance was granted for some reason the government has chosen to write both appeals in the same brief but i have nothing to do with that whatsoever your multiple conspiracy allegation does that concern mr wang at all or no i have no right no as far as i know just want to confirm again i just haven't focused on his case i never met him now no and and and the that's correct with regard to the multiple conspiracy issue it's very important to understand this is not a question of whether or not there was a withdrawal by mr janke from the conspiracy it's only a question of multiple conspiracies and these conspiracies are to hubs on a wheel excuse me a two spokes on a wheel that had a hub which was billy chan who is the instigator an organizer and then you had one spoke which was mr jang and his uncle by marriage whose whose name was typo and then when when when when mr a billy chan the hub stopped working with my client stopped working with that spoke a couple of months later he introduced a new spot and that spoke consisted of an old friend of his from his immigration days named the name cash and cash is during but during that period even after the new spoke was introduced in your client in the same period continue to try to get repayment of the debt yes and that's why i'm not arguing  from the initial conspiracy that's not my argument the only issue is whether or not this new conspiracy which started two months after the hub of billy chen stopped working with my client and hired cash in his two henchmen whether or not that's a separate conspiracy why is it unreasonable to see it as a simply that in addition of a new person and a new way of it towards the same purpose right because because what the cases look at is whether or not there was mutual dependence and assistance between the persons in one spoke and the persons in the other spoke in this case my client mr jang he didn't know that the people in the other spoke existed he had no contact with them they entered the scene two months after chen stopped working with my client completely on there was no agreement that that my client would get any money if if if if if mr chen and cash and cash is to henchmen had been successful they didn't know they existed they could have been on different worlds i'm not so sure it's a wheel conspiracy but but if it is why isn't the rim of the wheel the collection of a debt from the same person because that's not what it is that's not what the remains in the in the  cases the ring does it mean that you have a similar goal i mean you may have had in burger a cardiac oh so well in it burger in an effort to use counterfeit notes in order to obtain things of value you could say well the use of the counterfeit notes to obtain things of value is somehow a rim but the court said no it's not in the same thing in in a cardiac us but they're not the same victims that in the wheel conspiracies you're talking about you've got somebody doing insurance fraud and and the defrauding this insurance insurance company and so forth in this conspiracy it's a little bit different you've got people all working toward a central goal which is why i don't really think it's a wheel conspiracy but that was the same issue what they were doing was attending loans from from the national they were attending loans under the national housing act from different institutions well but they were no except they were still defrauding the government under the national housing act the the there written that spoken of is not is not the goal of obtaining money from the same person the reason that we're speaking of is whether or not there was some kind of interrelatedness at intrade dependence and assistance between the members of of all of each of the spokes of the wheel there was no knowledge of the members of one spoke of the members of another spoke they didn't talk they didn't know they existed there was no mutual dependence this what do we have to think about this is a we'll why can't we think about it is simply a conspiracy of a bunch of people to  collect a debt wrongfully from from one person because that's not what it is it is a classic it could not be a more classic wheel conspiracy because you have a hub which is billie chen you have the first spoke which consists of my client and t bow you have the second spoke that starts two months later consisting of cash and his henchmen and you'd have zero you have nothing that connect those two spokes along a common rim the zero on the so so it is a classic wheel conspiracy without the rim but before finish up there are two points i'd like to make with respect to prejudice there are two forms of prejudice here one form of prejudice is that the second incident that did not involve my client and concerned people who did know except for the the hub it is a far more scary and violent act and you have the tape recording where the victim is kind of shrieking into the phone in a very scary way and he's it's such a high pitched voice that  that the that that the police miss mistake him as a woman but beyond that beyond the fact that that second incident provided the only actual corroboration for the testimony with respect to this extortion  beyond that what the what the government did and they did it very cleverly was they said this was a predictive event in other words you know that mr jang was involved in this because he had said that if you don't give me money somebody may kidnap you and so the government argued this was the fulfillment of the promise so in other words they used the second incident which mr jang knew nothing about in order to prove the first incident so for those two reasons because it was a far more startling and scary  separate conspiracies separated by two years and although the government brief them together and they were both indicted together they were talking about separate conspiracies is that right that's correct ok thinks they had a common coconspirator which is why they were charged together initially but they were separate from the extortion a collection of credit conspiracy of which jang was a member and that evidence of those actions taken in december two thousand and thirteen run properly admitted at this trial he was wrong the evidence at trial showed the existence of a single conspiracy to collect abuse of violence and threats of violence there was one goal that the men side up to carry out by one set of means so let me ask about that i mean it wasn't clear to me that the actions undertak society references became prevalent that the prospect of violence was much clearer why isn't it reasonable to see those as two separate conspiracies anticipating different means highball was actually involved in the october twenty ninth here the typo in chan discussed speaking nicely to him at first and then if that didn't work invoking individuals in china to harm his family tie both a member of the dark society was jang spoke in spirit and i don't believe that mr  otherwise it was typo that jang actually referred to in telephone calls after they went between october thirtieth and november fifteenth two thousand and thirteen when jang repeatedly calls the victim he tells him you all this money i came here with a member of the dark society the victim understood what that meant that they carried out kidnappings and were violent individuals and it was with jang that those threats and indications of the dark society were made it was not the separate december incident involving you reject your opponent's characterization that the addition of violence was something unforeseen absolutely both chen chen testified at trial that he had spoke with  that they discussed that this is how they were going to collect this money if he didn't acknowledge the debt and provided to them initially that they were then going to have jang reach out to individuals in china and quote unquote take care of his family there purchase rings whereas he separately agreed with jones and berger to use these false notes to pay for a tradesman's in each of those and instances there was a distinct illegal ends getting the rings by fraud get it paying the tradesmen by fraud those one individual agreed with numerous other individuals to obtain law loans by fraud each loan obtained by fraud there was a distinct illegal and here there was but one illegal and that these all the  they all sought to collect the money from blow by violence and threats of violence in the in the issue here is the admission of evidence right so if we find that there were two separate conspiracies is there any other way that that evidence comes in i think that the evidence the i mean mr leavitt spends a lot of time discussing this nine one one call and i think that the nine one one call would have come in even if you had disallowed evidence of saying it is this is an additional conspiracy because the victim when these additional men come in he believes that jang has made good on his promise that the dark society is going to come and commit violence against him and his family for not repaying the stat and fact after he calls the police nine one one is called everyone is removed from the from the scene the victim calls jang to say why did you send these men after me i already paid you two thousand dollars i already thought this was resolved if there's no further questions will rust on our papers thank you i didn't mean to give the impression that there was no evidence that with regard to the first incident there were threats of force there was testimony that there were threats of force argument the the point is though that that the second incident the nine one one tape the conduct burger because in burger the goal was on the one hand to buy rings and on the other hand to a patron is meant but that's a distinction without a difference i mean if that were the case then they'd really be absolutely no thing as a as a real conspiracy without a the the goal of getting money from a victim is not what creates the rim what creates the room according to this court's decision is whether or not there was mutual dependence and assistance there was zero mutual dependen and assistance they didn't know each other they had nothing to do with each other there was no guarantee that one would benefit from the other's success they were they were ships passing in the night and that's classically what the court discuss that for reasons not relevant to this appeal your client's trial was severed from that of his co defendants and therefore proceeded to trial on is this something about the the severance that we are now not at all had it just that the