well this is a particularly complex now i guess not exactly it's a regulation and as this court has indicated regulations there's are more susceptible to innocent state of mind where people are not aware of the statute that is being violated you know yours and i think even the bryant case specifically makes mention  maintain that in structuring cases they have defendants have to have a knowledge of the structure and that is the kind of warrant in the common parlance today about structuring with respect to services being perform on behalf of an individual such as it is generally unlawful to provide services to any person leave the statute prohibits legal accounting freight forwarding or other services generally very few people know that the united states outlaws services on behalf of specially designated nationals and very few people would even know what especially doesn't need a national is so surely with respect to this statu i think that the the law requires that individuals have to violate knowing the actual statute that they're accused of violat our i think it can be seen it in the prosecutor's actual statement to the court in the jury instructions the mistaken belief where the the prosecution if the defendant believes he is violating the law  the wrong why he should be held accountable for violate for for the law that he was charged with violating m ambiguous clearly they have to be decided in favor of the accused this statute doesn't lay out the actual definition of willfulness and as as justice  said in our society multiplying new federal crimes there's more reason than i ever to give this ancient form of construction consistent application the rule of leaning at a minimum with propose an alternate jury instruction that was keyed to the statute and i'm regulations we absolutely did we were we were alerted to this issue well before trial and we we presented to the court a very specific their national that was provided to the court well in advance of trial we argued for that instruction at at which your instruction conference and in fact the court gave an opposite instruction that let's say to turn  not be aware of the specific law or rule that misconduct would violate in other words a defendant does does not have to know this conduct would violate a particular law and again i think in light of the statute in light of supreme court precedent in light of this court's opinion you know were other regular regulatory cases such as this surely willfulness should be continued to be defined as having knowledge of the law that the the accuser is accused of violating that you don't object to a jury instruction number twenty four right that that's the general jury instruction on count three including six jury instruction number twenty four instructed the jury on the general elements of the if that count that was alleged in count three of the indictment including its will from this requirement and it seems to me that is straightforwardly an accurate statement of the law it says that the indictment charges the defendant with willfully conspiring to provide services on behalf of and before and for the benefit of certain specially designated nationals then it lists them without first having obtained a license and that the elements of that offense include the agreement number one and that the defendant knowingly and willfully became a member of the conspiracy with intent to further its unlawful purpose in other words with intent to further its purpose of providing services to a specially designated national  was if you recall there was three individuals listed that trigger was accused of conspiring to provide services on behalf they were the president of zimbabwe robert mugabe the finance but they the government added movement gave away his name and i specifically stated that the name should mirror the indictment and move the guy was name was added to the particular jury instructions your client knew th transaction by could could occur with the current the republic is involved but there is no need at the he doesn't need to know the specific language that made it a bad activity well that's our position is absolutely he was charged with  violation of a specific regulation and that regulation is contained thousands of pages of the c f r and there's hundreds of thousands of specially designated in the how does this differ from any proper view so for someone for mr gono who was on a travel ban he was he was attempting to comply with the law in that respect and there's there is absolutely no way that this could be considered a harmless error in any respect i would just like to talk briefly about this consulting agreement that had no basis that we know that that the consulting agreement the call that there was some sort of agreement with the country is symbolic and there was thousands of emails around and there was thousands of bicycles so to pick out these particular events and the say that they somehow authentic state senators and state representatives and the president of the almost human services so it's a to say that authenticated that particular document your honor given all the authentic document that it was actually thing use it as after we pointed out it was only after we pointed out evenings in the church were false that the government changed its position with that document wasn't what it purports to be give the jury that particular document is so prejudicial that there was no authenticity to the document it and our client had no involvement in the production or the si would just as courts also the consider the fact that there should have been unanimity at a minimum as to which specially designated national terp inspired to provide services for the government introduce evidence of of designated nationals surely we believe that there should have been unanimity as to each the specially designated national that he'll actually conspire to provide services frankly counsel i'll give you a minute and comment to that effect but there are still services performed in that the defendant arranged for multiple meetings between u s officials including illinois state officials and u s congressman and members government all at the direction and then for the benefit of members of his involving government the defendant also a pain letters from u s politicians out of the government committed into evidence which were sent to the members of the specially didn't the nationals in fact that's what he attempted to do whether or not this was a con game on his part alternately he still provided those services and carry forward on the acts that he represented he would do and for which he was pa turning to the wolf on this issue the jury instructions when read as a whole correctly stated the law turning to as you're on it it government's star jury instruction twenty four that instruction told the jury what the defendant was charged with start its pacifically told the jury that defendant was charged with willfully conspiring to invite services to specially designated national and identified for such nationals and then told the jury that u s persons wherever located a pretty hit from providing services to specially designated nationals it also listed out an example of some services so now the jury knows that u s persons cannot provide services to people who are designated the judge then went to the elements of conspiracy and in this case these conspiracy elements of kalar for this case the not generic elements the first element was a two more u s persons agreed to provide services on behalf of and for the benefit of specially designated nationals and then the second element and this is where willfully comes in is that the defendant knowingly and willfully became a member of the conspiracy with the intent to further the unlawful purpose the jury really read the w instruction that's instruction twenty six and you insert it here in this instruction as a jury should because instructions are read as a whole informs the jury that the defendant had a no that was against the law that provides services to specially designated nationals and in this case in particular the four that were named the new instruction of of course that's not what jury instruction of a twenty six says it's a freestanding instruction from lismore generally you know and i agree  need to know in other words that what what instruction over twenty four requires on its face instruction number twenty three takes away its requirement i would respectfully disagree that takes it away i think what instruction twenty six does it tells the jury that affirmatively the defendant must know that his actions are tending to violate the law and that's what it does and i think it's important to read in in tandem and not in isolation as the defendant proposes the defendant propose language specifically said that the those additional words would add that the defendant was required to know that he could provide services especially did they did nationals or paraphrase but that's already here instruction seventy struction twenty four five times this instruction uses the term specially designated nationals to those times pacifically instruct the jury the person that u s persons cannot provide services on behalf of or for the benefit of specially designated nationals the defendant's concern during the jury charge wasn't so much the defendant's knowledge that these individuals were designee but more so that the jury would convict the defendant for violating the derek this other economic sanction this other sanction against  proposal there's nothing in the statute that says that the jury must find unanimity unanimously excuse me that the defendant that they must agree on which particular specially designated national the defend it was providing services to the richardson case which defendant cites that's a continuing criminal enterprise the case where the statute there specifically discusses a series of violations and the supreme court in that case found that if i aleisha it is an act is unanimously thank you unanimously they must find each violation that's because of that language about this continuing series of violations was actually in the statute we don't have something similar in the statute  this is no different then the jury agreeing that the defendant conspired with someone else yet not having to agree unanimously with who the defendant was conspiring with same goes for overt acts just particular s and with one for one purpose and another for completely different purpose this was all collectively his efforts working in their behalf to lift sanctions against zimbabwe so he started with  by the way any indictment it does identify him as a specially designated national the government's mid a healthy santiago proffer which discussed women get way as well so the defendant knew that the government was going to present evidence regarding the defendant's involvement scene what was that all about that was an artfully are made by me and i don't think the point i made in this was just during a jury conference not anything that was made to the jury came out and what i meant was that the defendant does not have to know he's violating title fifty section he section seventeen no one at sec is offended believe that he was violating a different citation is long as he knew that these individuals were prohibited designated and that he cannot provide services to those individuals then he was violating the law he knew he was violating the law whether he knew it was title title fifty or title eighteen that in effect didn't matter and that's why the government propose not needing to know chapter subsection section at cetera exactly but that's not entirely clear from the text of jury instruction number twenty six again i think you have this conspiracy with its unlawful purpose of providing services to specially designated nationals and it's important to know that a the government present sufficient evidence that the defendant knew about designations knew who was designated and there's other evidence that effect as well further so in addition to knowing specifically about their designation he also acted in concealment as the government outlines in its brief there were many times when documents that were submitted or e mails that were submitted from the defendant to individuals in zimbabwe would be written with confidential on it turning to the consulting agreement district court not abuse its discretion in knitting the consulting agreement as a coconspirator statement the circumstances of which that agreement was sent to the bank coupled with the cause of the the terms in the agreement for consistent with the defendant's actions first the defendant started this wire when he e mailed ben israel's assistant telling her to send him ben israel's bank account information and he told her that in conjunction with explaining to her about the first meeting he was setting up between us officials in zimbabwe officials she sent him the wire information and the next thing you know several days later a wire f ninety thousand dollars could spend israel's bank account the bank questions the why are there suspicious when they reach out to ben israel when they get in response to discrete salting agreement clearly the agreement there's a coconspirator statement done to further the zimbabwe setting up meeting in south africa and that in fact what happened that is what the defendant did the senate agreement call for payments and defend sought pay me as outlined in the government's brief there were a number of emails we talk to people behavior now how far along in the trial was it when they use the jury the jury had been had the case for roughly an hour at that point this was that they had the case late afternoon on a tuesday it was about an hour procedure twenty four c when she released mr chisholm based upon his defiance of her order not to appear the next day she had a legitimate basis for doing so she had not released the alternative alternate she brought in the autumn to next morning ma sure he had not talked about the case with anybody which he said he had not and then brought the jury in and instructed the jury the start of the ration to new so that the judge after completely within a discretion what he did in that circumstance with a juror who was as she put it with respect to churches i'm of course he was agitated he just told the court that he he was had a funeral to attend and the court said you have to deliberate tomorrow that's not a reason for just cause or or any reason to excuse him from jury service we've spent a lot of time selecting this particular jury and with respect to churches and he was very favorable to the defense and just a summary excuse and because i'm not sure who judged there was a lot of indications on of them not on the record that there was a lot of kit indications during the course of the trial plus he met the the social economic background which we're looking for he was an african american from england and this this was good and at issue in the case so we we felt he was favorable and there was a summer early excuse him from service because he was agitated because he couldn't go to a funeral seems completely inappropriate in the b discretion with respect to the individuals named in the indictment the three individuals there were mr turner was alleged should conspire to provide services well why not just then provide every single name a national that was that was admitted at trial there was other people not named in the in time if it wasn't an element of the offense the names of the actual people why not just bring every single individual that he was alleged to have any chance sensual relationship with because they've introduced evidence of every single specially does name national that turner communicated with the element of the offense is that he's