i have struggled with trying to come up with the right word or phrase to describe this unusual case i thought of then thought of a close case in marginal case circumstantial in fact the trial court remarked during the trial itself this is a quote i think didn't quite know just how circumstantial this case was going to big and the government cited the case as being a rulings it doesn't matter they're harmless because the case was overwhelming which it certainly was not it wasn't sold well meaning because the evidence well short fundamental tenet of a conspiracy is that there must be a mutual understanding there were no unilateral conspiracies and here alone cooperate or called by the government representations to both direct and in cross examination that he kept the truth from that a walk in order to keep him from doing closed it is literally impossible for there to  tragedy don't we have to assume on this appeal that the jury did not believe those disavows by mr al veronica now i understand that if they didn't that leaves them with no evidence from him but from the totality of the other act and just as you say circumstantial i i am not sure that your sufficiency argument persuade but let's start with the principle don't didn't believe them well perhaps but i think the more reasonable conclusion is that the pure we didn't have a proper understanding that a conspiracy was a mutual agreement by necessity how could they position in the case alpha rank but was crystal clear in his testimony we didn't tell him these things and i think your honor it has to be imputed in the context of what the real role of an attorney is who earlier matter if your honor that he was interviewed on had nothing to do with short sale transactions they were disconnected from the participants in this case they're utterly unrelated and the court allowed them in on two bases world this was a new day story about charges that had been filed and i gather you don't disagree that mr cullen was charged with this kind of crime and so i'm not sure that i see what the harm was here where you i understand that but you also take the consequences when you want to argue that you were prejudiced by in the way that the court would have tried to cure but we're not arguing here your honor that a charge should or should not have been notice of based on on a news report that's done all the time it's security cases with respect to the state of the market so as i said there there's a news report and reporting what is not disputed that there were need we say more isn't it fair to say that the here the article was admitted to prove that this was a fact that was widely known whether true or not but had been widely reported because it was in the newspaper and that knowledge of this leak allegation was widely diffused whether true or not maybe it was a lie maybe there's never been image cullen maybe there's never been a mage cohen who was charged but it was widely reported in the media and therefore the inference the jury was asked to to make which the jury could make or not is it was widely known in the media and therefore would have been known to mr matador that people were talking about mitch cohen maybe who knows maybe he's a character in a movie but as long as there is an article about it then that the inference is it was widely reported and then he would know who the person is that we're all talking about  needed it didn't need minutes sentencing but he did it i think that was big reference to the right i mean so i think it's hard you're hard pressed to urge that he be credited with something that he later disavowed but whether he admitted it at sentencing or not which is not a fact clear in my head at the moment to be candid with the he did or did not doesn't address of course the damage that  who makes the reference to michiko need we say more so the jury was clearly based on the e mail entitled to infer that mitch cohen is a person known to mr matter who are and known in the context of writes dot dot dot need i work it could equally be a reference to the fact of how much should i write in the scene know what else you want to know about this phone call and that there's no pals more actually something that ties exactly into the government's theory of the case is that the reason why they didn't the can cope conspirators didn't speak more openly about this is because they wanted to minimize the communications about it so it sort of gives them all plausible deniability although we never talked about that you know i never told mr wired that this would be you know a crime i mean that sort of seems to me to be the theory of the case here is that you know it's all nod nod wink wink but we all know what's going on and then they could just believe mr elving are or they could take his conversation the government as the specific question why didn't you can talk about and and what's in terms that were right because he said it then he wouldn't have done it but that could have been not because had he known the truth he wouldn't have done it but had you made it more specific had you sort of put it all on the table then he couldn't have quads oblique claim to the disciplinary committee later all they never told me what i'm saying is that they permissible inference the jury could have drawn right not the one that homeowner victims to miss one big trial court precluded is one of testifying on direct examination at the conversations and it vice given by natwar at the closing the central complaining precluded from or print testimony about how the matter work all the other returning upon learning of what was going on here to tell them to avoid these these individuals none of them were  relationship and there were there was testimony at trial with respect to not only their role in the conspiracy but they're there dealing with mr maddow are such even assuming that the evidence could be interpreted as reading there being no meeting of the matter whether eclipse ever arrested then it doesn't matter whether mr mattawa saw the article if instead your point is well who is made to come one i  terms of relevancy to this case i would have thought the proper evidence for that would have been the court records of his having been arrested because then you do care about the truth but if you don't care about the truth of it isn't it isn't it more important that your that you be able to show that he saw that article that the defendant saw that article i think the point here your honor is that there were there were not back maybe no as part michael of of the allegation when he was referencing pollinating article the problem with this though isn't it that in every case defendants talk about things right and i don't think i've ever seen a case where a newspaper article was brought in to prove what they were talk to people were talking about without any effort to actually link it up to the defendant having read the article i mean otherwise my gosh you could you know you just get out your lexis nexis database and just say i'm sorry no i mean how could that how could the article show that he was aware if he just said he never read the article how could it prove that he was aware of the widespread allegations i interviews do i understand you correctly to have argued that these were miscible to show that the defendant was put on notice that real estate fraud is the prime is that is that the ground involved that's not my question mr greene which is just just trying to focus on quote the question because you know you are over your time i reviewed the the transcript and i didn't see where the agent testified that he told mr matawan that such conduct was fraudulent t testified conclusion really that that was his purpose but he didn't ever testified that  what he told mr mr matawan did i miss something the question he was asking him specifically on or about the underlying mortgage fraud transaction i argument is that this testimony was admissible to show that he had been put on notice that such conduct was fraudulent i was looking in the recounting of the testimony for something that indicated the agent put him on notice that it was fraudulent to do a b and c and i didn't see that get i missed something that and right now i want to ask you about testimony that was not allowed on the the defense was not allowed to elicit with respect to the carmen warner questions as i understand it she was not allowed to answer about what the defendant had not told her and i'm not sure how eliciting that he never said certain things would raise a hearsay objection what what what's the on relevancy grounds i mean the part of the government's case was what he had told or insinuated to others and now this was a witness who even if in a different context did have i understood i'm not asking you yet to explain the screen which is that correct he wasn't allowed to testify about what he told co defendants a particular time you objected and the in the court but was it offered for the truth or just the fact of what was said my understanding was that he was saying that he wanted to say something based on something alvarado told him i think regardless of the truth of what ou harmless i need to understand whether a correct ruling by the district court then we'll deal with whether it was harmless or not are you saying this was a correct ruling to prevent the defendant from answering that question