that afternoon i'm representing her father was a far and since there are three related appeals before you today i just want to make clear that he is not deemed son and he's clearly the least culpable defendant before you today  the other two defendants were convicted multiple counts of mail and wire fraud and money laundering and bribery as well as the structuring offenses but her father was only convicted of the struction offenses in the interest of time i'm going to rest on my brief with respect to points one and two sufficiency arguments and the fair trial point and i'm going to turn my attention to the forfeiture argument as you know the argument is that the court below erred in attributing the full four point three million dollars to my client the four point three million dollars is the bounce of checks under ten thousand dollars they were cash to pacific during the entire life of the structuring crime many year period the court based this attribution of the entire amount on a finding that my client had been in the family business since two thousand and four and therefore he was around for the entire period that the structuring occurred with the family business his father ran a construction business to perform services for the school housing authority or school construction thirty sorry seems like the district court was sympathetic to your client's plight in concluding that the amount of the for richer should be substantially less than the amount sought by the government you appear to claim that as a matter of law there was a ceiling here that was exceeded by the district court well i have two arguments or honor one is that the attributing the fall four point three million dollars to my client as the benchmark from which you could work down under the eighth amendment was an error and that it was based on the finding that he'd been in the family business for that period and that's where that's where the judge started and i'm saying that was erroneous among other things the court ignored evidence in the record that on was in pakistan for substantial piers of time during all these years he that he did not work in the office on any regular basis until sometime in two thousand and nine and then he held a very lowly position news running errands use answering the phone he subbed for the office manager when she was out he didn't even have a desk in the office so he just basically did errands as he was directed to  do i also want to point out that mr singh who was the cooperating witness who was tasked in recording you know wearing a wire and recording incriminating conversations with all the defendants when he became coop or he testified that he did most of the runs to pacific to cash the checks and that or funds brother added them and he was never charged made some of them and he said that  he sang said that he had to call his contact at pacific and every time he sent one of the sons to pacific and he volunteered on his examination that he only made call stand on that roof on was coming a couple of times and that ten monye was stricken from the record is non responsive to the question posed but since we're talking about his sentencing live below to hear it's clearly reliable testimony and i asked  the court to consider that so we have a very sparse record in actuality that are fun had any knowledge of the course of the struction activity and that and certainly there's no basis to find that he findings about or fons knowledge of what was going on even though he wasn't charged with fraud or money laundering and i want it so that's in the middle paragraph of the government's be page fifty five  i want to point out that every single thing the judge focused on there was based either on this one two thousand and twelve recordings that the cooperate who made or the one occasion on which are fun was actually seen going to pacific to cast checks and that was in july of two thousand and eleven so those are very late in the conspiracy was it was it was concluded i believe in may two thousand and twelve so those those that evidence that the judge cites as if it was demonstrated that my client was aware of all these activities going on for an extensive period of time are liable only for amounts that they are that in the future that are reasonably forseeable to them or with respect to past amounts that it was recently shown of they were aware of and i don't think that finding is has any support here that four point three million dollars is something that my client should be held accountable for four point three million was the whole the whole thing yes on page seven  points and you mentioned the appendix m r write your brief cite some pages from the transcript that not all the pages that were cited by all three of you are in the appendix while some of some of the pages i cited i didn't put in the appendix for peripheral matters like deems involvement in the case it was only the undisputed and had nothing to do with my client find then you don't have to cite undisputed you don't have to cite and you can just tell us here's an undisputed fact that the minute you tell us there is a record reference this was a case where a defendant made what i consider routine application for a severance and it was denied and in a way which is often practicing district was however  what became clear and the reason why so much of the testimony was late was laid out in the brief is that the statement of of  ran these companies that the companies were shell companies and that he was responsible for the bidding contracting certify payroll receipts the prevailing wages  that was cooperated by the post arrest statement of zoe that was sent there was no other person on trial or mentioned during the course is from that it could have referred to other than  was significant and i don't think would have been available to lloyd or you at the time was that at the trial it became clear that an informant was used and th appeal with respect to the cooperation in the lack of the other types of evidence that would cooperate the cooperating witnesses testimony that the recorded conversations  not substantiate or cooperated at all particularly with respect to prevailing wage and at the time of the government's closing arguments because the government essentially argue that everything that  remaining issues related to the crossing sort of crossing of the line of the expert testimony this this was a case of money laundering structuring the destruction wasn't really terribly sophisticated iran is already heard it will like tons of checks that would take into this check cashing place all underneath the statutory amount specifically during the trial there were these three transactions and took place in june of two thousand and twelve the jury would would to be instructed on structuring how it operated this was not necessarily the type of case that required an expert testimony these checks will all under the amounts the testimony was that they were placed on the amount for the purposes of because the check cashing place felt that all of these were the that the attention would be drawn and the cooperat testified that the checks with their four then drawn at a lesser amount in this case the expert testified that and he gave an example of structure he said well it is a twenty thousand dollars check and it's divided in three ways a little bit and said you know you get nor awfully close here in my view it wasn't a question of clothes he instructed the jury what structuring was it's a condition of  here on out with regard to our case you and i could focus on the sufficiency the evidence on the illegal payments involving my client because this is a case in which the prosecution carefully structured the evidence and they structured the evidence to cover up what they didn't have with what they appeared to have reminds me of the old ways that we used to handle pop quizzes in high school and you had the payments the union official that's what happened here the prosecutor able e says in his in his brief all we have all this evidence what is the evidence show the evidence shows what is that payments were made by the cooperating witness to the undercover inspector and also to the union official and that my i like to use is one of the bank tellers and imagine two people walking up to the bank teller and asking a bank teller to cash a five thousand dollars check to payments for five thousand dollars we don't have to deal with structure the bank teller them the money well nobody sitting here is going to say that the bank teller was guilty of a crime but the bank officer to the crime but for giving the money payment would not be made now let's suppose those two individuals in the accounts and the bank teller is not necessarily paying attention that's exactly what was going on here you don't see mister in gauging a discussion of miss to saying to cooperate or cooperate and say he has  he may be present but what's missing and what the government doesn't ask miss to saying is did you speak to my client about the purpose of this money now the one thing that they will say is that when mr singh is  missed to say ed is arrested he says he's aware of the payments but the payments took place years before the payments to the an undercover inspector what two years before his arrest and payments to the u recorded by not giving a hearing on the statement itself there's no dispute in the record that mr say it was a question before getting his miranda warnings there's no evidence as to what he was question about other than the statement of his attorney which he says he was questioned about the crime and judge kogan says i'm going to accept that i'm not going to argue that it couldn't be out of that afternoon your honour's my name is nathan riley and i represent the government in this matter may please the court i think i'll take in turn a number of the the arguments that have been raised by counsel with respect ample documentary evidence including the the pace admissions that were sent to the school construction authority in which mr nadeem was submitted notarized signatures in which he agreed for instance to abide by the the prevailing wage law there examination so his testimony was was strongly tested i also know that and your honor i confess that the government also realized late in the game that the testimony from agent hughes who had represented who had put in mr science testimony was not part of the record we've actually brought copies here today but i do know that while there was a dispute at the time of it was part of the record but not the appendix yes i'm sorry yes you are  to when it went into the record one other piece to that and again i apologize that the court is doesn't have the paper in front of them all that we will certainly make it available i know that that with respect to judge finding that there was there was not sufficient that there was not sufficient the not sufficient evidence put were not sufficient basis of dispute with respect to mr say its claim that he that he should be that there should be a suppression hearing with reese with respect to his statement i know that one at the time there was no effort by by he or his counsel to supplement the record i also know that while there was no testimony  y by the arresting agents at the at either any hearing or subsequently a trial and agent use clearly indicates that he was not present when mr siad was initially arrested he does know that the arresting agents were not familiar with the case and thus were not in a position to ask substantive questions about about the about anything relating to mr science common conduct simply because they didn't have any knowledge about the case so we we believe the judge kogan appropriately found that there was not a basis for for a hearing on that particular matter with with respect to the sufficiency for mr sayed i'd like to direct the court's attention to the government's discussion about mr sorry ed handing over the money to four in connection with a bribe so i think if you were present at a conversation and a participant in a conversation where you were talking about the purpose for a bribe to a government agent and then you hand the money over that throughout the keep the at the trial record made clear that this was a family business it was a while there were multiple individuals who were employed on various job sites in actually engaging i raise that only because i think the idea that that that it was not forseeable or that judge more appropriately the judge kogan erred in finding that it was foreseeable that that part was aware of the scope of this operation all s m and b the construction company all they did was school construction authority work which necessarily included certified payrolls and given the scope of the fraud necessarily required a river of cash to go through to pay the workers who are working illegally and being paid cash on a on a weekly basis so while no one disputes and i think the sentencing minutes may clear no one with the mastermind that he was the key player that he was moving the chess pieces everyone understood that he was a pawn that who was being moved by his father but the idea that he was in somehow a one off actor is i think not consistent with the weight of trial evidence which comes from an interesting the government readily readily acknowledges that the specific instances of which there were that were put in the record at trial which were the surveillance in i you would do if the police stopped you with a lot of cash and i think i think it's that's worth noting as well i understand that it happened at the tail end of the conspiracy but it is worth noting that there's there's not that there's not a shock and horror follows a part there's a what do you mean what would i do w would the police stop me what you know what would you would have to explain there is a there is a he is a willing participant in a conversation about how to conceal these matters from the police and in fact there is a statement by mr said in which he says you know would be fine if we're doing private instruction if you can pay those guys in cash but it we're doing government work so we you know that that's why the cash is a problem for all of these reasons your honor the government's position is that that the  informs sort of the or is layered essentially on top of the project decision and i think effectively sort of almost layers on i thirty five fifty three a like inquiry into the into the into the forfeiture determination and i think that's what what judge kogan attempted to engage here he made the finding that which i understand is disputed by by by counsel but he made the finding that the four point that the four point three million was foreseeable two to reform so far and then he didn't intended to engage the issue as to not only mr aris farce respective role and the budget kaji unfactored also the nature of what his ability to pay would be and so i think i think i don't believe that  measure to which a lot of factors are considered and we believe that it's consistent with that and how would that but how would you see or mordor forfeiture of one million dollars you only the record before the court which and the trial record which was that mr science principal profit was in the form of his continued employment and and and a vehicle but not through united states and in in pakistan he's also a relatively young man and so had the prospect of future employment and i think and i think felt that it was significant to say although i don't believe for various reasons including your current willingness to pay your your relative role in the crime and many other things i'm going to substantially reduce what i believe would otherwise be an appropriate forfeiture amount but i'm not prepared to sort of for lack of term what you walk away free because i think status with respect to these ok thank you ability to make a living i think that he wasn't he wasn't directed to and also he expressed a hope that our fun would be able to meet this judgment but i think the number was sort of pulled out of thin air the the idea that  school dropout who has no meaningful employment history except through his father who now has a felony conviction who cannot live rent free in his father's house anymore because the house is going to be sold as part of the forfeiture judgment and who has a wife and two young daughters to support is clearly not a great prospect for making a large amount of money in the future and so i think that's very telling and then that that's one of the reasons why we believe this for sure mount is constitutionally excessive i also want to point out the disproportionality between the three quarters a million in forfeiture that was levied against her phone who had very little to do with this entire scheme versus one million dollars was assessed against mr siad who was convicted of nine counts and went and was was involved in the entire fraud and money laundering aspect and bribery aspect of the case is another factor that was individuals to be able to operate one safe completed sent their sentence you know i don't know what will happen in the future mr say as a relatively young man if this current administration continues he's coming  back maybe someday in the future it'll be an opportunity for him to come back his children who are very conservative who are born here and raised here desperately want to come back but if but when he comes back and if he does come back you'll be bored burdened with this  e order which is very interesting because in this case this number satish and this because in this case is no finding that the school board the school construction authority was injured in any way they got the  what they were saying they were paying them mrs sayad did not receive any benefit from this other than his job as mr valli pointed out we pointed out grief that the government tried to make it seem like a year at least five thousand dollars but in fact the evidence showed that the they never followed up on a five thousand dollars to see where it came from or where it went to judge kogan consider the possibility restitution  they weren't they one coming forward as making victim statements thank you very much