employees the court to central question in this case is when the cell of broker representing the seller of a product becomes a lie of all for the buyers use of that product in this case mr ortiz useless was essentially a middleman a broker representing sellers of cocaine and the person to whom that cocaine was so took their cocaine from houston texas transported it up through maine across the border into canada and the government's case against him is that he conspired with the distributors of that cocaine across the united states through maine and him the record here does not support a finding that that broker joined and spirity to distribute the drugs across the country and into canada of the area code and decides that area code is where it's from as opposed to simply dialing a number i don't think there's anything in the record to show that somebody hears it in texas would be familiar with necessarily the name area no evidence to that effect you may argue about the strength of the evidence of i make a phone call and he in an area code that's not mine that is some competent evidence to the effect network but the details of the scope of that network and the reason i ask is because he's not selling a small quantity and he selling it repeatedly and he selling it to somebody who i think you can draw f inference is not a neighbor so well i think i follow the government's argument saying look he's clearly in games with someone who's part of a large network and he's repeatedly selling to is he doesn't know you can't say from this record this is your contention exactly how far that network extends or what it does that it goes through maine up to canada but why is that necessary in other words he's clearly participating in a larger network because running if it turns out the board is running from maine up to canada why is it a defense for your client to say well i didn't realize the blanks thing worked exactly that way when he knows he's part of le blanc's network ball that there's evidence in the record showing he knew exactly this we were network work and i'm asking why isn't enough that he knew he was joining up alongst network and that it was a big one blog and doesn't the network so that he intended to be part of the launch network if that's where i think the record falls well how does the faucet on that since he had repeated large scale transactions with lovelock well first of all happened so why does the government lose if it does show eight to twelve large scale drug transactions with long because simply the number of sales in and of itself doesn't in  broader scheme of this case mr what you just list was regularly selling or brokering cocaine sales on behalf of the sellers to several different sources mr le blanc was only one source of many and on the flip side of it mr le blanc was buying cocaine from several different sources but you know isn't the fact that your client up front to at least one shipment with a promise to indicative of his intent to be part of the large network well i'm not sure that mr limbaugh as estimated that there were that level of trust between the participants well i think given the scale of yes if he's dealt a total of fifteen days in kilos i'm not sure  is but i would suggest that the great weight of evidence does not support the finding that he joined let me let me go back to a subsidiary point in that argument that you're making and you  that the amount of excuse me the amount of evidence that he was as you put it brokering wholesale quantities of illegal drugs if you're doing that you obviously have to understand that you're doing that as part of a network to sell drugs illegally if you want to stay in business you want that network to succeed so isn't it impossible for you on the evidence suppliers weren't different and there was also evidence to the effect well they're there they were indifferent in the sense that if if there were a loss in these illegal transactions the loss did not on them but it seems to me that the very fact of the quantities involved meant they were engaged in business and you're not indifferent to the ultimate success of that business because the ultimate success determines whether you're going to stay in business or not well i think that's true to an extent but there would be true with any product that's being distributed and and i think that's where at the end so for instance if you are if it were legal to bust schoolchildren to school would the dealer who sells school buses on behalf of the school bus manufacturer have joined into a conspiracy to bus school children to school  i think the use to which the buyer puts their product at some level you could say that the entire the entire chain of production then becomes a conspiracy and if that's so even low level street dealers at that point would know of course that they're buying cocaine from wholesale dealers who know that wholesale cocaine is being made by person to further a shared criminal act and i think that's what's missing here in this case so yes it is is another person that's that cocaine was sold within a week i think demonstrates that particularly the mess again suppliers are supplying to mr ortiz who he is representing at these deals was a member of with one conspiracy and and that was that but not that he was indifferent to success of the conspiracies that you well that was precisely the defense at trial and that's precisely i think the issue that this appeal raises is whether the government proof you was part of a conspiracy to simply distribute cocaine in texas to anybody that would come along or whether you really conspired obviously there's a conspiracy there he's got suppliers he's got people coming to these deals he's arranging the deals and that's what's not in dispute really what's interesting here is whether he ever joined the conspiracy to frequently i understand you going to contest how many times but he sold them frequently it's at a wholesale level he usually concludes in some selling wholesale quantities significant number of times too has a network so what what's the difference between this evidence and this evidence plus the statement that you suggest would be stronger case for them i see them almost at a time they answered you know what i would suggest your honor is first of all the difference between this evidence is in fact that mr of lanka estimated fifteen to eighteen you loz the evidence demonstrated that these deals were no less than five kilos or deal so really we're talking about no more than three transactions we're not talking about the twelve transactions here and the vast majority of this cocaine is actually coming from other sources that are not he was from canada and there was traffic as well but there was more than that because he after that first introduction which would be a better argument for the  and charles testified that he alone transported made at least six six trips transporting cocaine it was bought specifically from ortiz these last two mean and he had those multiple roles as questions about so the sheer size of the quantities involved here whether it's fifteen to eighteen kilograms over an eighteen to twenty four month period would certainly have put difference the evidence the argument that the defendant was indifferent is country fixed the evidence and these calls the recorded calls are quite telling look at the may thirty telephone call after charles goes to jail on that and related parole violation that's number two and charles testified that he explained that it doesn't show these and different that's an affirmative act saying i want to keep a good thing going and they have this discussion that we're not you know i'm not going to screw you to charles i'm going to keep you in as the middleman notwithstanding you're in jail and then the third to june twenty sixth call them between charles and le blanc showing their long lasting relationship and they discuss the agreement that both absolutely from the beginning from that first introduction i mean maybe if after that  of when it went away but everybody here was working really hard that's why i think the events following the day following charles's arrest are somewhat more compelling in terms of who really wanted to keep this thing going and ortiz even to the day going the evidence you're talking about here certainly suggests that he wanted to keep the relationship with look blank going as the purchaser of the cocaine that he was selling but if i understand  s argument and it may be wrong that's not the same thing as saying that he was interested in the blogs network succeeding he's indifferent as to what happens with the network he wants anybody who bought his cocaine to continue to buy it but what evidence is there that he actually has an interest beyond and maybe this is all there is but it's enough beyond his desire to continually sell to le blanc is there anything in the record that suggests he had an interest in le blanc's conspiracy to succeed did you follow it up i think  what this argument suggested is ok i know who i'm selling to and i know i'm selling large quantities you must have a network and i want to keep selling to him i don't know anything more about  so you know i'm not telling you anything and where it says i don't want to know anything about what you do with it but i really love showing you this cocaine and i'd like to keep doing it in what way does that make him ocean or something we'd have a different case and so i think the evidence is quite clear in that to support knowledge not only that he's working with labonte but that lovelock is part of this you know it takes five to seven day it's also part of wanting where the other owners also show up and wait for them so i think it passes the identity just test and i think the evidence in this case where it's worked he's trying to keep it going shows that it was it wasn't indifferent he wasn't sitting around the opponent's highlighted below that when the june transaction fell through those nine grams ultimately were sold and went back to the owners but that didn't happen until a week and a half leader according to  own statements so that's telling in different that's you're hoping and waiting for your loyal customer on the block has given you some pretty good business and they keep waiting for the canadians to show up and they keep waiting for the canadians to show up and so i