conviction failed as a matter of law where the government failed to meet its burden of proof that something of value was offered in exchange for the attempted murder for hire plot and the second issue is the issue of sense and seeing where i believe that by virtue of the advancement given for something a peculiarity value is an enhanced spent that's already covered in the statute itself which requires that something about the culinary value be given so let's start off with the issue underlying both and that is what was given in exchange here there was and a government informant acting in the capacity of a government informant at the very time that the exchange occurred this exchange was for five hundred dollars per portably for the purchase of a gun but there was the promise to pay seventy five hundred well that you know the statute requires is a promise that promise judge if you look at the if you look at the transcripts of what was said that was a promise that was concocted wholly by the government informant who said yes you're going to pay five thousand for this guy and two thousand for that guy well the jury was entitled to consider that to be just confirming what the agreement was spent that's correct judge but  entrapment instruction given here there was an entrapment instruction just by the patch to that or mary to that entrapment instruction was the government's private entrapment and struction which was also given so i think the jury was entitled to believe either that there was no entrapment or if that they believed that there was entrapment that the the person who entrapped him was a private citizen and was  way working with the police at the time that he had over born my clients will so in essence judge what it's a it's a hybrid act it's an argument that says yes he had to be proven and trap that with two governments for the government had to prove that my client interested was not act but the minute that they also received an ancillary instruction the instruction that said you know by the way this person that you say had twenty john doe warrants that he had been working with the police department had in effect been on hiatus for a while and at the time that he convinced your client to do this deed he was a private citizen so there was the the private citizen instructional so just i'm not arguing that there was this promise in exchange for another promise in the future i'm saying that that part of the statute that says for a powerless or agreement to pay anything of value or who conspires to do so so in other words this is a of promise of up and the amount that was floated out there by the government informant and at no time in any of the tapes does my client say ok i will agree to pay seven thousand as the government points out in their brief it's saying that my client said ok i'll pay up five thousand right now and then two thousand for the next guy but that was the words of the informant the informant keeps talking about this and just the same way that the informant collected five hundred dollars from my client that conversation never recorded so we're relying on the jury at all times had to rely on the informant saying oh yes he was going to pay seventy five hundred five hundred of it was to purchase a gun which we already know that that exchange was not for the murder for hire that exchange was for the purchase of a handgun so that money was exchanged and then this purported promise it and i would stand here without any argument whatsoever if on the tapes it says ok i'm go pay five thousand for this guy boom and two thousand for this guy poem and when you do that in the future that's when you're going to get your money that's all fine and good but that is not in the record what's in the record is the the the the government informant mr vantine repeatedly saying ok you're going to pay seven thousand dollars then you're going to pay this well that that's your recordings but there were there were antecedent discussions where your client approached me and forment to do the deed or find somebody who would do the deed and such every evidently pounds surveillance incredible and leave his testimony that yes he was approached by a client  who wanted these witnesses murdered and he and your client offered to be named seventy five hundred dollars aren't that's right church to help a jury was entitle to reach that conclusion however not when the burden is on the government to prove not only that she wasn't entrapped but that mr valentino was a a a a private citizen just somebody that's out there to do good for people that he was doing it out of the goodness of his heart and that's what the jury was entitled to believe and i'm saying that that was insufficient as a matter of law because it was clearly and i distinguish that from the riches and case because in richness and the course said that it has to be something up or to an area value that there has to be some concrete thing it could be drugs it could be it runs a list of of all the things that could have it but there's no mention in richardson about the exchange for something up or to marry value for the purchase of a handgun my client was never charged with attempted to purchase an illegal handgun he was charged with attempted murder and hiring an informant and the informants friend w didn't know mr valentino was previously an informant did you know he did not but he did know him from back in the days of the gangs and some other things right he knew him as a neighbor who had helped him land some jobs in in in his plumbing business and he held himself out as a plumber and then lo and behold at one of his meetings he gratuitously threw out th himself was a gang banger that he meaning the valentino had been a gang banger to suggest that my client should have known that he was a gang banger and that he had access to hiring close that he went over to the neighbor's house to eat and that he didn't know the children that well but you're right judge that the jury found out that he i could've been  a private citizen and use that to determine that my clients was killed to solve were saying that offering money in exchange for a gun is not the proper consideration  for the murder and attempted murder of of another individual right of the defendant's position about the sufficiency is his is not clearly laid out and the elements clearly here were were met with that promise is with suspicion under the statute the promise to pay they the evidence your honor was overwhelming at trial and that included number one the recordings of the defendant to the last recording on october sixteenth meeting in which the undercover  officer posing as the hit man was introduced that recording went for over twenty minutes and there were repeated statements by the defendant to pay both to pay for the murders once they were completed the fact on pa seventy eight of the transcript mr one of the defendant said right now is five thousand and then he follows it and says yeah i get the two thousand meaning five thousand seven thousand dollars those are the defendant's words not mr valentin additionally your honor the photos that were presented of both rios and sierra by the defendant to mr balanchine showing him what those individuals looked like the surveillance notes that the defendant took regarding the movements which were done a month and a half prior determination with all of that in front of it and the jury was instructed properly both on entrapment private entrapment inducement predisposition and all the things the government had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt the jury made that finding and there is no in a county awaiting murder trial yes so the defendant's belief was that in october that the trial was supposed to start on october twenty third the defendant told mr mallock scenes with this in the to be killed by the nineteenth so that they would not be available to testify  the defendant solicited valentino to carry out this had he himself was he the defend it was stocking them the two witnesses yes there are those that was corroborated by the the notes the surveillance notes that the defendant had taken in his own handwriting which he admitted to on the stand in about august of two thousand and thirteen to get a month and a half or two before dish unlike the defendant sought out mr rios in person and was met him at a mcdonald's was standing outside of his front window  looking at him and ultimately when he did meet him said you need to go talk to my son's lawyer and a sense of recap your statement you're going to speed test that took place in march of thirteen almost seven months prior to the the activities in this case