Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-95-03124/USCOURTS-caDC-95-03124-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Humberto Antonio Gaviria
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

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United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued April 17, 1997 Decided June 27, 1997 

No. 95-3124

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

APPELLEE

v.

HUMBERTO ANTONIO GAVIRIA, A/K/A CHICKY,

A/K/A ALBERTO BUSTAMONTE,

A/K/A ANTONIO GAVIRIA ALVAREZ,

A/K/A PABLO VARGAS,

A/K/A RADAMAS PEREZ,

APPELLANT

Consolidated with

Nos. 95-3125, 95-3151, 96-3018

Appeals from the United States District Court

for the District of Columbia

(No. 93cr00418-01)

(No. 93cr00418-03)

(No. 93cr00418-04)

(No. 93cr00418-07)

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Stephen C. Leckar, Joseph Virgilio, Neal Goldfarb, and 

Howard F. Bramson, all appointed by the Court, argued the 

causes and filed the joint and individual briefs for appellants. 

Zachary Williams, appearing pro se, also filed a brief.

William D. Weinreb, Assistant United States Attorney, 

argued the cause for appellee, with whom Eric H. Holder, Jr.,

United States Attorney, John R. Fisher, Mary-Patrice 

Brown, and Jeanne M. Hauch, Assistant United States Attorneys, were on the brief. Barbara A. Grewe and Elizabeth 

Trosman, Assistant United States Attorneys, entered appearances.

Before: WALD, GINSBURG and TATEL, Circuit Judges.

Opinion for the Court filed PER CURIAM.

PER CURIAM :

1

In these consolidated appeals, the appellants are four individuals convicted of various drug conspiracy and distribution 

offenses arising out of an undercover investigation of a multikilogram drug-dealing operation in Miami and the District of 

Columbia. Appellants challenge their convictions and sentences, raising numerous claims, one jointly and the rest 

individually. In Part I of this opinion, we summarize the 

basic facts of the case. In Part II, we address the challenge 

to the jury instruction on the conspiracy charge, an argument 

raised jointly by all four appellants. In Part III, we address 

the challenges raised individually by appellant Humberto 

Gaviria, in Part IV, those raised by appellant Regulo Zambrano, in Part V by appellant Zachary Williams, and in Part VI, 

by appellant Jose Naranjo. We affirm on all issues and 

uphold all of the appellants' convictions, except that we 

remand appellant Gaviria's claim of ineffective assistance of 

counsel to the district court for an evidentiary hearing, and 

we vacate the forfeiture portion of appellant Williams's sentence.

__________

1

Judge Wald authored the Introduction and Parts I and IV. 

Judge Ginsburg authored Parts II and VI. Judge Tatel authored 

Parts III and V. 

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I. BACKGROUND

The convictions at issue arose out of a joint Federal Bureau 

of Investigations (FBI)-Metropolitan Police Department 

(MPD) investigation of appellant Jose Naranjo, a federal 

prison inmate who, with the help of his wife Gloria Naranjo 

and various other individuals, continued his cocaine business 

while he was incarcerated at the Federal Correctional Institute (FCI) in Petersburg, Virginia.2 During the course of his 

prison term, Naranjo was introduced to David Sanders, himself an experienced drug dealer who was visiting a friend at 

FCI. At that initial meeting, Naranjo introduced Sanders to 

Naranjo's wife, Gloria, who was also in the FCI visiting room 

at the time. Subsequently, Naranjo arranged for his wife to 

supply Sanders with multi-kilogram quantities of cocaine to 

be resold in the District of Columbia. However, this arrangement failed when Gloria Naranjo was arrested and imprisoned on a federal drug conspiracy charge during the summer 

of 1992. In order to maintain his cocaine business after that, 

Naranjo had to find a new drug connection on the outside.

Consequently, during the fall of 1992, Naranjo put in 

several telephone calls from FCI to Humberto Gaviria, a 

convicted drug dealer residing in Colombia,3to find out 

whether Gaviria would be willing to supply drugs for resale in 

the United States. In these phone calls, which like many 

others in the case were conducted in code,4 Naranjo asked 

Gaviria for details about the price, availability, and quality of 

__________

2 At the time of the events leading to the convictions at issue 

here, Jose Naranjo was serving time at FCI for four federal drug 

convictions. 

3 Gaviria had been deported to Colombia after being convicted of 

federal drug offenses in the United States. 

4 The record in this case includes approximately 100 taperecorded conversations among various members of the conspiracy 

and undercover government agents. Many conversations were 

conducted in Spanish and/or in code. Several individuals at trial 

testified that the coded conversations were in fact discussions of 

planned drug transactions. Because the evidence on appeal must 

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cocaine that Gaviria would be able to acquire in Colombia. 

Gaviria informed Naranjo in Spanish that "one of those cars 

here cost[s] around $800.00 pesos," that "there is a whole, 

whole, whole bunch for everyone," and that "it is the best." 

GovEx 102292 at 12-13.5 Per Gaviria's request, Naranjo 

confirmed this conversation with a letter written in Spanish 

code that, among other things, provided a New Jersey telephone number for "El Perrito," Naranjo's "connection" for 

the drugs. In a November 20, 1992 telephone call, Gaviria 

told Naranjo that he had found a drug supplier in Colombia 

("Pachito"). Subsequently, Naranjo arranged for Gaviria to 

come to the United States and directed Sanders to help 

Gaviria in the drug-selling endeavor.6 However, unbe-

__________

be construed in the light most favorable to the government, this 

statement of facts summarizes those conversations by assuming 

that the code words did refer, for example, to kilograms of cocaine. 

We note, however, that appellant Zambrano contests the district 

court's conclusion that certain conversations showed that he was 

aware of and knowingly participated in the November 7 drug sale in 

Miami. Zambrano's claims are based in part on his assertion, 

explained in more detail below, that he did not understand that the 

code words pertained to drug deals. On review, we find that the 

record evidence belies this assertion, and that it was well within the 

realm of the jury and the district court to discredit Zambrano's 

testimony in this regard. 

5 At various points during the conspiracy, the men referred in 

their conversations to kilograms of cocaine as "cars," "girls," 

"rooms" in an apartment, "female employees," and "videos." Several individuals testified at trial that all those terms were code words 

for drugs. 

6

In April 1993, Sanders followed Naranjo's directive to wire 

$5,000 to Gaviria in Colombia. Gaviria used this money to enter the 

United States illegally. On May 14, 1993, Gaviria arrived in the 

United States, and Sanders took Gaviria to an apartment in McLean Gardens in Northwest Washington. As they rode from the 

airport, Gaviria inquired about the drug scene in Washington, 

including the possibility of selling cocaine, heroin, and marijuana in 

D.C. 

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knownst to Naranjo or Gaviria, Sanders was arrested on an 

unrelated charge sometime between the original phone calls 

between Naranjo and Gaviria and the time of Gaviria's arrival 

in the United States. Following his arrest, Sanders agreed to 

cooperate with the FBI in the investigation of Naranjo.

After Gaviria's illegal immigration, the Naranjo/Gaviria 

conspiracy planned four shipments of drugs that figured in 

the FBI/MPD investigation. Arrangements for the first shipment, which was "lost" before arrival in this country, occurred three weeks after Gaviria's arrival. Sanders gave 

Gaviria $17,500 as a downpayment on five kilograms of cocaine, but after the money was sent, Naranjo and Gaviria 

spent months unsuccessfully tracking the shipment through 

South and Central America. The drugs had not entered the 

United States by the time the two men were arrested in 

November 1993.

The second and third shipments of drugs arose out of a 

surprise phone call received by Gaviria on October 27, 1993, 

from appellant Regulo Zambrano in Miami, where Zambrano, 

a Colombia native and old acquaintance of Gaviria's, had been 

residing illegally since March 1993.7 One month prior to this 

phone call, Gaviria was introduced to Detective Jesus Gonzales, an undercover officer who called himself "Carlos."8

Upon receiving Zambrano's phone call, Gaviria told Sanders 

and Gonzales that Zambrano could provide them with drugs, 

and Gaviria introduced them to him over the phone. Both 

Gaviria and Naranjo vouched for Zambrano's trustworthiness 

and ability to get drugs. After several more phone calls 

between Gaviria and Zambrano, Naranjo instructed Sanders 

to get Gaviria a plane ticket to Miami, and Sanders did so. 

Gaviria flew to Miami on November 2, 1993, spending several 

__________

7 Gaviria's sister Martha, who was also residing in Miami, had put 

the two men back in touch. 

8 The FBI introduced Gonzales into the scheme when Gaviria, 

who did not speak English well, asked Sanders to find someone to 

act as an interpreter. Sanders told Gaviria that Gonzales was a 

friend who had previously traded drugs with Sanders. 

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nights at Zambrano's house. In a three-way phone conversation in which Gonzales, Gaviria, Zambrano, Naranjo, and 

Sanders participated, the group talked in code about the 

possibility of arranging a drug deal.

The next day, Friday, November 5, 1993, after receiving a 

message from a man calling himself "the Panamanian" via 

Martha Gaviria, Humberto Gaviria and Zambrano went to a 

Burger King in Coral Gables, Florida, to receive a shipment 

of drugs from the Panamanian. Because Zambrano had to 

leave the Burger King meeting early, before the Panamanian's arrival, in order to go to work, Gaviria requested that his 

sister Martha pick him up in her car. After she appeared at 

the Burger King, Gaviria requested that she wait a little 

while to see if the Panamanian would arrive. When the 

Panamaniam did arrive, he used Martha's car to pick up an 

eight-kilogram package of drugs, which Gaviria then hid in 

Martha's house. Two days later, on Sunday, November 7, 

1993, Gonzales and Sanders flew down to Miami. In a rented 

hotel room that served as a meeting place, Gaviria and 

Martha gave them the eight kilograms of cocaine in exchange 

for $8,000 in transportation costs. Upon leaving the hotel 

where that exchange took place, Gaviria and Martha met 

Zambrano at a restaurant in another location and gave him a 

thick stack of cash. Gaviria asked Zambrano to meet with 

Gonzales and Sanders to "pressure them so they would pay 

him part of the money" for the drugs.9

__________

9 Transcript ("Tr.") 1637-39 (2/16/95). Zambrano did carry out 

this request. He and Martha met with Gonzales and Sanders on a 

street in Miami. Gonzales testified that Zambrano "stated he was a 

businessman and he didn't like to be kept waiting," i.e., for the 

money that was still owed by them for the drugs that Humberto 

and Martha Gaviria had delivered. Tr. 1423-25 (2/14/95); Tr. 1933 

(3/3/95). Martha Gaviria testified that Gonzales told Zambrano that 

he would take the drugs to Washington and that he wanted to meet 

with Zambrano again to get additional drugs, to which Zambrano 

responded by "ask[ing] when could they give him the money." Tr. 

1642 (2/16/95). Zambrano explained that for them to get another 

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Further negotiations followedand Gonzales and Gaviria 

ultimately agreed on November 9, 1993, that Gonzales would 

fly to Miami and pick up the third cocaine shipment (seven 

kilograms) from Zambrano or Martha, and that Sanders 

would at the same time deliver the money still owed on the 

first eight kilogram shipment to Gaviria (in D.C.). In accordance with this plan, on Wednesday, November 10, 1993, 

Zambrano first met Gonzales at a hotel. Zambrano then 

drove to Martha Gaviria's house in Gonzales's car, spent 

approximately ten minutes inside, drove back to the hotel to 

meet Gonzales, indicated to Gonzales that the drugs were 

hidden behind the driver's seat, and accepted $7,000 in transportation costs from Gonzales in exchange for the seven 

kilograms. At that point, uniformed officers arrested Zambrano; around the same time, back in Washington, D.C., 

Gaviria was arrested, and the $148,000 payment he had 

received from Sanders, the balance of money still owed on the 

first shipment of cocaine, was found on his person.

The fourth and final shipment of cocaine (five kilograms) 

occurred on November 16, 1993, after months of arrangements and planning, involving several additional participants. 

The events leading to the sale began in July 1993, when 

appellant Zachary Williams became Naranjo's FCI cellmate.10

On October 15, 1993, Williams contacted Jocelyn and David 

Johnson from FCI and told them he had made some friends 

who could help obtain drugs. On October 26, 1993, Gaviria 

told Gonzales that Naranjo had directed Gaviria to send a 

friend's [Williams's] moneywhich Johnson had obtained by 

selling off some of Williams's jewelryto Colombia for anoth-

__________

shipment of drugs, "it was necessary for them to give him that 

money first, and then he will let them know." Id.

10 Cooperating co-defendant David Johnson testified that 

Williams was an established drug dealer. Johnson also testified 

that Williams and Johnson's sister Jocelyn had parented a child 

together, and that Williams had helped Johnson start selling cocaine 

in Baltimore. Sometime after Williams was imprisoned, Johnson

at Williams's directionpawned $10,000 of Williams's jewelry to 

buy cocaine and heroin from a Spanish-speaking New York drug 

dealer known as "Kiki" and introduced to Johnson by Williams. 

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er shipment of cocaine. On October 29, 1993, Naranjo gave 

Gaviria two telephone numbers to contact David Johnson. 

When Gaviria and Gonzales flew to Miami a few days afterwards, Gaviria called Johnson from the airport, and Gonzales 

told Johnson that he and Gaviria were preparing to purchase 

some cocaine. Johnson said that he wanted to set up a 

meeting with Gonzales and Gaviria when they returned to 

Washington. On November 5, 1993, Williams and Johnson 

had a telephone conversation in which Williams indicated that 

he wanted Johnson to find out whether they could get drugs 

on credit. On November 9, 1993, Gaviria suggested that six 

kilograms from the next shipment of drugs be sold to Johnson. On November 12, 1993two days after the arrests of 

Gaviria and ZambranoGonzales met with Johnson and 

Johnson's friend Ulysses Bobby Wilson at a Washington 

restaurant.11 After some negotiation, Johnson and Wilson 

told Gonzales that they would try to get money together and 

call him with an "order." Then, on November 16, 1993after 

various phone calls and meetings involving Williams, David 

Johnson, Jocelyn Johnson, Naranjo, Gonzales, and Wilson, 

during which the deal was organizedJohnson and Wilson 

met Gonzales on a D.C. street corner and drove to an 

apartment. Johnson brought $13,900, $7,000 of which had 

been contributed by Wilson, to purchase cocaine. They 

agreed that Gonzales would give Johnson five kilograms of 

cocaine in exchange for the downpayment, and that Johnson 

would be allowed one week in which to sell the cocaine and 

pay the remainder of the purchase price. As Wilson and 

Johnson, who was carrying the five kilograms of cocaine in a 

bag, walked out of the apartment, they were arrested by 

police officers.

The four appellants were indicted on charges of conspiracy 

to distribute and possess with intent to distribute five or more 

kilograms of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) and 

(b)(1)(A)(ii) (Count One), and with obtaining or using approximately $44,409 in connection with that conspiracy, in violation 

of 21 U.S.C. § 853 (Count Three). Appellant Gaviria was also 

__________

11 This conversation was surreptitiously taped by Gonzales. 

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charged with illegally entering the United States following 

arrest and deportation, in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1326 (Count 

Four). The appellants were tried before a jury. Appellants 

Gaviria, Naranjo, and Zambrano claimed that they had been 

entrapped and challenged various aspects of the government's 

evidence. Appellant Williams denied any knowledge of or 

involvement in the conspiracy, and argued that he was "indicted and charged in this case because of a cultural misunderstanding of what [he had said] on the tapes."12 On April 

28, 1995, the jury returned guilty verdicts against all four 

appellants on all charged counts.13 On July 24, 1995, Naranjo 

and Gaviria were sentenced to life in prison without parole on 

Count One. Gaviria also received a concurrent sentence of 

180 months on Count Four. On September 13, 1995, 

Williams received a sentence of 188 months of incarceration. 

On February 5, 1996, the court sentenced Zambrano to 188 

months in prison. In addition, each appellant was ordered to 

forfeit $44,409 pursuant to 21 U.S.C. § 853.

II. JOINT ISSUE: THE CONSPIRACY INSTRUCTION

Each appellant contends that the district court's instruction 

to the jury included a sentence that might have led the jury 

to believe that it could convict a defendant of conspiracy 

without the Government having proven all the elements of the 

crime. Because none of the appellants objected to the instruction before the district court, our review is for plain 

error. Therefore, we can reverse only if (1) the jury instruction was in error, (2) the error was plain or obvious, and (3) 

the error affected the defendant's substantial rights. United 

__________

12 Tr. 3899 (4/10/95). Appellant Naranjo also tried to assert a 

defense of duress, claiming that he feared for the safety of his 

daughter Carolina. However, the district court did not allow that 

defense to go to the jury. 

13 Appellants were not indicted on Count Two, in which David 

Johnson and Ulysses Bobby Wilson were charged with possession 

with intent to distribute 500 or more grams of cocaine. Johnson, 

Wilson, and Martha Gaviria were indicted along with appellants, but 

negotiated guilty pleas prior to trial. 

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States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732-34 (1993). We conclude 

that the disputed sentence, read in isolation, is capable of 

bearing two meaningsone legally erroneous and one legally 

correct; however, read in context, including the rest of the 

instructions and the lawyers' closing statements to the jury, it 

is clear that the correct understanding of the instruction was 

conveyed to the jury. Accordingly, the instruction as a whole 

is not plainly erroneous.

The 1,100-word conspiracy instruction included the following sentence:

It is not necessary [that] the Government prove that a 

particular defendant was aware of the common purpose, 

had knowledge that the conspiracy existed, or was aware 

of the conspiracy from its beginning.

Tr. 4981 (4/25/95). The appellants argue that the prepositional phrase "from its beginning" modifies only the last of the 

three verb phrases in the sentence ("was aware of the conspiracy"). So read, the sentence would imply that the Government need not prove that a particular defendant was 

(ever) aware of the common purpose of the conspiracy and 

that the Government need not prove that a particular defendant (ever) had knowledge that the conspiracy existed. The 

Government concedes that such would not be a correct statement of the law. See United States v. Tarantino, 846 F.2d 

1384, 1393 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (Government must prove that 

defendant shared common goal with other conspirator); United States v. Falcone, 311 U.S. 205, 210 (1940) ("Those having 

no knowledge of the conspiracy are not conspirators."). The 

Government contends, however, that the prepositional phrase 

"from its beginning" modifies all three verb phrases. So 

read, the sentence would state that the Government need not 

prove that a particular defendant was aware of the common 

purpose of the conspiracy from its beginning, had knowledge 

that the conspiracy existed from its beginning, or was aware 

of the conspiracy from its beginning. The appellants concede 

that such would be a correct statement of the law. See 

United States v. Miller, 895 F.2d 1431, 1440 (D.C. Cir. 1990) 

(Government need not show defendant was part of conspiracy 

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from its inception); United States v. Stewart, 104 F.3d 1377, 

1382 (D.C. Cir. 1997) (defendant can be held liable for conspiracy even if he did not join conspiracy until final crime).

A reader or listener of English is not infrequently puzzled 

by what a linguist calls "syntactic ambiguity." For example, 

the appellants point out that if one were to say, "We discussed running with Bob" the listener would not know for 

sure whether the prepositional phrase "with Bob" modifies 

the verb "discussed" or the gerund "running." The sentence 

before us is similar. Drawing upon the often abstruse work 

of a phalanx of philologists, the appellants argue that the jury 

listening to (or reading, for the jurors were given a copy of 

the instructions to consult during their deliberations) the 

instruction would be more likely to resolve the syntactic 

ambiguity in the disputed sentence by concluding that "in the 

beginning" modifies only the last and not the first two verb 

phrases.

The appellants concede, however grudgingly, that "one can 

find a lurking ambiguity" in the sentence. Joint Brief for 

Appellants, at 14. It is precisely because such ambiguity 

stalks many an utterance, judicial and otherwise, that we 

review a jury instruction in its entirety, not by looking only to 

the "supposedly erroneous snippets." United States v. 

Whoie, 925 F.2d 1481, 1485 (D.C. Cir. 1991). Of particular 

relevance to this case, we have long recognized that one 

ambiguous part of an instruction may be made clear by 

another unambiguous part of the same instruction. United 

States v. Lemire, 720 F.2d 1327, 1339-41 (D.C. Cir. 1983). 

See United States v. Eltayib, 88 F.3d 157, 170-71 (2d Cir. 

1996) (although particular part of instruction ambiguous with 

regard to need to find that defendant participated in conspiracy, instruction as a whole not plainly erroneous because 

another part clarifies ambiguity).

Just as the ambiguity in the appellant's example ("We 

discussed running with Bob") would disappear in context 

(depending upon whether the preceding sentence was, say, 

"What did you and Bob talk about?" or "Have you chosen a 

running partner yet?"), the ambiguity in the disputed senUSCA Case #95-3124 Document #281624 Filed: 06/27/1997 Page 11 of 62
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tence in the instruction disappears when one considers the 

entire instruction. The instruction makes it clear at least 

twice that in order to "find a defendant guilty of conspiracy, 

the Government must prove each of the following things 

beyond a reasonable doubt ... that a particular defendant 

knowingly and willfully participated in the conspiracy, with 

the specific intent for the conspiracy to distribute or possess 

with intent to distribute cocaine." Tr. 4979 (4/25/95); see also 

Tr. 4982 (4/25/95). Any doubt that the jury might have been 

misled by the ambiguous sentence into thinking that the 

Government did not have to prove that a defendant was 

aware of the common purpose of the conspiracy, or that the 

Government did not have to prove that a defendant had 

knowledge that the conspiracy existed, is dispelled by these 

commands to the contrary.

The appellants claim, however, that the arguably erroneous 

sentence uses simple terms that a juror can readily understand whereas the various formulations in the instruction that 

clearly set forth the Government's burden use arcane legal 

terms such as "knowingly" and "willfully." This argument is 

not convincing. The instruction defines the supposed arcana 

in simple English: "An act is done knowingly if done voluntarily and purposely, and not because of mistake, inadvertence, or accident. An act is done willfully if done knowingly, 

intentionally, and deliberately." Tr. 4980 (4/25/95). The 

appellants also argue that to the extent that other parts of 

the jury instruction make it clear that the jury must find that 

each defendant was aware at some time of the purpose of the 

conspiracy and knew at some time that the conspiracy existed, those sections of the instruction merely contradict, rather 

than cure, the erroneous sentence. Were the disputed sentence clearly rather than only possibly wrong, we might 

agree, but if a sentence can mean either A or B and another 

sentence in the instruction clearly says A, then one does not 

say that the first sentence must mean B; one says, rather, 

that the first sentence must therefore also mean A.

In addition, the court considers the lawyers' arguments and 

the evidence in deciding whether a jury instruction is plainly 

erroneous. Whoie, 925 F.2d at 1485; United States v. Levi,

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45 F.3d 453, 456 (D.C. Cir. 1995). In his closing argument 

counsel for Zambrano enumerated for the jury what the 

government must show in order to prove a count of conspiracy:

The Government is required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that there was a criminal conspiracy ... with 

a common goal to distribute cocaine in Washington, D.C. 

The Government must prove beyond a reasonable doubt 

that Mr. Zambrano knowingly and willfully became a 

member of this conspiracy.

Tr. 4863 (4/24/95). The prosecutor also told the jury that a 

defendant could be convicted of conspiracy only if the jury 

found "beyond a reasonable doubt that the conspiracy existed 

and that the defendant knowingly participated in the conspiracy with the intent to encourage, advise, or assist other 

conspirators." Tr. 4768 (4/24/95). Having been told by the 

judge, by defense counsel, and by the prosecutor that it could 

not find a defendant guilty of conspiracy unless the Government proved that the defendant knew that the conspiracy 

existed and knew what its purpose was, the jury could not 

have misunderstood the disputed sentence to have said the 

opposite.

III. APPELLANT GAVIRIA

Several defendants, including appellant Gaviria, spoke little 

English. Concerned that they would not understand the plea 

negotiation process, the district court requested at a November 1994 status conference that each outstanding plea offer be 

put on the record. With his lawyer and the prosecutor 

present, each defendant approached the bench separately. 

Gaviria went first. The prosecutor put on the record that 

under the plea offer tendered to Gaviria, the Government 

would not file repeat-offender or life enhancement papers if 

Gaviria pled guilty to a count of conspiracy to distribute 

cocaine, a criminal forfeiture count, and a charge of unlawful 

re-entry into the United States following deportation. The 

prosecutor added, "That plea, like all of the pleas still existing 

in the case, is wired to the acceptance of pleas by the 

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codefendants," meaning that the Government would not accept a plea from Gaviria unless all defendants pled. Tr. 26 

(11/17/94).

In response to a question from the district court as to what 

sentence Gaviria would face if he were to accept the plea, 

Gaviria's attorney answered:

Mr. Gaviria, with two prior felony drug convictions, 

would be considered under [section 4B1.1 of] the [Federal Sentencing] guidelines to be a career offender, which 

would automatically take him to a category VI under the 

criminal history category and, I believe in his case, at 

least an offense level 37, which separate from the amount 

of drugs involved, as I recall, would require a sentence 

that starts, I believe, at about 36 years and goes up.

Tr. 27 (11/17/94). When the district court responded, "360 

months to life.... That's with the plea," defense counsel 

agreed: "That is with the plea. Without the plea, he faces a 

mandatory sentence of life." Id. at 27-28.

Defense counsel was wrong. More than a year before the 

November 1994 status call, we held in United States v. Price,

990 F.2d 1367, 1370 (D.C. Cir. 1993), that a defendant convicted of conspiracy could not be sentenced as a career offender 

because the statute under which the Guideline career offender provision was initially promulgated did not list conspiracy 

as a crime warranting career offender treatment. If Gaviria 

had accepted the Government's plea offer, his Guideline range 

would therefore have been 188-262 months (fifteen to twentytwo years), assuming all other contributing factors remained 

the same and that he received a two- or three-point downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility. Having 

been advised by his lawyer that he faced thirty years to life in 

prison under the plea agreement, Gaviria instead rejected the 

offer. Following Gaviria's conviction and as required by the 

"three-strikes" rule of 21 U.S.C. § 841(b) (1994), the district 

court imposed a mandatory sentence of life imprisonment.

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Gaviria now argues that had counsel advised him correctly 

at the November 1994 status call, instead of risking life 

imprisonment upon conviction, he would have accepted the 

Government's offer and received a fifteen-to-twenty-two-year 

sentence. With the misinformation his lawyer gave him, 

Gaviria contends, he had little to lose by going to trial.

For an ineffective-assistance claim to succeed under the 

familiar Strickland standard, a defendant must show two 

things: that his lawyer made errors "so serious that counsel 

was not functioning as the 'counsel' guaranteed the defendant 

by the Sixth Amendment," Strickland v. Washington, 466 

U.S. 668, 687 (1984); and that counsel's deficient performance 

was prejudicial, i.e., that there is a "reasonable probability 

that, but for counsel's unprofessional errors, the result of the 

proceeding would have been different." Id. at 694. Because 

ineffective assistance of counsel claims usually require an 

evidentiary hearing, we normally do not resolve them on 

direct appeal, instead remanding to the district court. See 

United States v. Fennell, 53 F.3d 1296, 1303-04 (D.C. Cir. 

1995); see also United States v. Morrison, 98 F.3d 619, 626 

n.7 (D.C. Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 1279-80 (1997). 

This rule has two exceptions: "when the trial record alone 

conclusively shows that the defendant is entitled to no relief," 

and when the record "conclusively shows the contrary." Fennell, 53 F.3d at 1303-04. Because this case falls within 

neither exception, we will remand Gaviria's ineffectiveassistance claim for an evidentiary hearing.

Gaviria satisfies Strickland's first prong. His counsel's 

representation that Gaviria would be sentenced as a career 

offender following a plea and that his Guideline range would 

be from 360 months to life was plainly incorrect. Because we 

issued Price a year and a half prior to the November 1994 

status conference, Gaviria's counsel should have been aware 

of the decision and its implications for his client. Cf. United 

States v. Day, 969 F.2d 39, 43 (3d Cir. 1992) ("[F]amiliarity 

with the structure and basic content of the Guidelines (including the definition and implications of career offender status) 

has become a necessity for counsel who seek to give effective 

representation.").

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Not so clear is whether Gaviria satisfies Strickland 's prejudice requirement; that is, whether there was a "reasonable 

probability" that he would have entered a guilty plea had his 

lawyer correctly advised him of his sentence exposure. As 

the Government reiterated many times at the status conference, Gaviria's plea offer was "wired" to the offers to his codefendants. For Gaviria to succeed on his ineffectiveassistance claim, therefore, he must establish not only that he 

would have taken the plea offer if his lawyer had advised him 

correctly, but also either that each of his co-defendants would 

have accepted their respective plea offers, or that the Government would have offered Gaviria an unwired plea.

We think it quite likely that Gaviria would have accepted 

the plea offer. After all, fifteen to twenty-two years for a 

man in his mid-forties is significantly less than life imprisonment, and Gaviria himself admits that the prosecution's case 

against him was quite strong. Reply Brief for Appellant 

Gaviria, at 2. Gaviria does not claim that each of his codefendants would have accepted their offers, arguing instead 

that his wired plea offer was just Government "posturing," 

and that the Government was clearly willing to accept individual pleas. In support of this contention, he points out that in 

January 1995, one day before trial began, the Government 

accepted Ulysses Wilson's plea even though at the status 

conference the Government insisted, as it did with each of the 

other defendants, that Wilson's plea offer was wired. Tr. 39 

(11/17/94) ("[T]his plea is wired; that is, it would require the 

guilty pleas of [Wilson's] codefendants before the government 

would accept Mr. Wilson's plea."). Gaviria also points to the 

prosecution's statement that it would consider counteroffers 

from individual defendants. See, e.g., id. at 30 ("We've always, I should say, entertained counteroffers, and [counsel 

for Zambrano] has made a counteroffer which we've rejected.").

Gaviria's arguments have merit. Although we do not suggest that the prosecution would have followed the exact same 

course in dealing with Gaviria that it did with Ulysses Wilson, 

the fact remains that the Government accepted an unwired 

plea from Wilson despite its contention that Wilson's offer, 

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like other offers, was wired. Coupled with the Government's 

consideration of counteroffers as of the status conference, this 

supports Gaviria's contention that the Government would 

have been willing to accept an unwired plea from him had he, 

aware of his true exposure under the plea, begun negotiating.

Not denying that it accepted counteroffers from individual 

defendants, the Government argues that the Wilson plea, like 

pleas from other co-defendants taken prior to November 

1994, was "not without a price"the Government required 

Wilson to meet with FBI agents and police detectives to 

answer questions about his transactions with "Kiki." Brief 

for Appellee, at 46. If anything, however, this argument 

supports Gaviria because it shows that the prosecution's 

initial plea offer to Wilson, containing no mention of cooperation with the FBI or local police, was not set in stone but was 

later modified, presumably to counterbalance the unwired 

nature of Wilson's plea and to sweeten the prosecution's end 

of the bargain.

Claiming that the length of Gaviria's sentence would not 

change even if he prevails in the district court and claims the 

benefit of the initial plea offer, the Government argues that 

Gaviria cannot satisfy Strickland's prejudice requirement. 

As the Government points out, because the Sentencing Guidelines were amended in 1994 in response to Price, a defendant 

with two or more prior felonies now convicted on a drug 

conspiracy charge is treated as a career offender. According 

to the Government, the current Guidelines would apply to 

Gaviria and his Guideline range would be 30 years to life. 

We disagree.

The premise underlying the Government's argument is 

incorrect: if Gaviria prevails on his ineffective-assistance 

claim, he cannot be resentenced under the current Guidelines 

because to do so would violate the Constitution's Ex Post 

Facto Clause. U.S. Const. art. I, § 10. Long ago, the 

Supreme Court explained:

It is settled, by decisions of this Court so well known that 

their citation may be dispensed with, that any statute 

which punishes as a crime an act previously committed, 

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which was innocent when done; which makes more burdensome the punishment for a crime, after its commission, or which deprives one charged with crime of any 

defense available according to law at the time when the 

act was committed, is prohibited as ex post facto.

Beazell v. Ohio, 269 U.S. 167, 169-70 (1925). Accordingly, the 

Sentencing Guidelines state: "If the court determines that 

use of the Guidelines Manual in effect on the date that the 

defendant is sentenced would violate the ex post facto clause 

of the ... Constitution, the court shall use the Guidelines 

Manual in effect on the date that the offense of conviction was 

committed." U.S.S.G. § 1B1.11(b)(1) (1995). Because applying the Current Guidelines to Gaviria would, in Beazell's 

words, "make[ ] more burdensome the punishment for a 

crime, after its commission," should Gaviria prevail on his 

ineffectiveness claim, he will be resentenced under the Guidelines as they existed prior to the 1995 amendment. See 

United States v. Booze, 108 F.3d 378, 381 n.3 (D.C. Cir. 1997) 

(resentencing occurs under version of Guidelines in effect at 

time of resentencing unless to do so would violate Ex Post 

Facto Clause); United States v. Clark, 8 F.3d 839, 844 (D.C. 

Cir. 1993) (same).

The Government contends that because Gaviria joined the 

conspiracy prior to Price, he should have recognized his 

potential exposure to the Guidelines' career-offender provision. But Price held that a defendant convicted of conspiracy 

and sentenced under the Guidelines' career-offender provision 

had been illegally sentenced. Price, 990 F.2d at 1370. Because the career-offender provision was initially promulgated 

under a statute making no reference to drug conspiracy as a 

predicate crime for career-offender status, the provision was 

not lawfully applicable to drug conspiracy defendantsbefore 

or after Priceuntil the Sentencing Commission remedied its 

error in 1995. See U.S.S.G. § 4B1.1 (1995); id. App. C, 

amend. 528 (1995). Cf. Rivers v. Roadway Express, Inc., 511 

U.S. 298, 312-13 (1994) ("A judicial construction of a statute is 

an authoritative statement of what the statute meant before 

as well as after the decision of the case giving rise to that 

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construction."); United States v. McKie, 73 F.3d 1149, 1153 

(D.C. Cir. 1996) (same).

We also disagree with the Government that sentencing 

Gaviria under the old version of the Guidelines would give 

him an unearned "windfall." Brief for Appellee, at 48. Gaviria was not, as the Government would have it, merely " 'deprived ... of the chance to have the ... court make an error 

in his favor.' " Lockhart v. Fretwell, 506 U.S. 364, 371 (1993) 

(quoting brief for United States as Amicus Curiae at 10). If 

Gaviria had been sentenced following a timely plea, he would 

not have been taking advantage of a court's erroneous construction of the law. See Fretwell, 506 U.S. at 371. Instead, 

he would have been sentenced according to the then-existing 

Guidelines. Gaviria gets no windfall; he gets instead the 

sentence for which he would have been eligible had he timely 

pled.

We thus remand Gaviria's ineffective-assistance claim to 

the district court for an evidentiary hearing on two issues: 

whether Gaviria would have taken the Government's plea 

offer had he known of his true exposure under the Guidelines; 

and whether the Government would have entertained an 

unwired plea from Gaviria. While recognizing the inherent 

difficulty in reconstructing events long past and in determining what might have been had counsel given his client correct 

information on his sentencing exposure, we emphasize that 

Strickland requires reasonable probability, not certainty.

Strickland, 466 U.S. at 694 ("A reasonable probability is a 

probability sufficient to undermine confidence in the outcome."). Because we remand Gaviria's ineffective assistance 

claim on these grounds, we have no need to address his 

separate contention that the district court had an obligation 

to correct counsel's error sua sponte.

IV. APPELLANT ZAMBRANO

All five of Regulo Zambrano's challengesone to his conviction and five to his sentencerely on the fundamental 

premise that he did not become involved in the charged 

conspiracy until November 10, and that his involvement was 

limited to his purportedly coerced personal delivery on that 

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date of seven kilograms of cocaine to Gonzales in exchange 

for a $7,000 deposit from Gonzales. Because the record 

evidence amply supports the conclusionby the jury at the 

conviction stage, and by the district court judge at the 

sentencing phasethat Zambrano's involvement predated the 

November 10 delivery, and the district court's conclusion at 

the sentencing phase that Zambrano was dishonest in his trial 

testimony about the extent of his involvement in the conspiracy, all of his challenges must fail.

A. Sufficiency of Evidence to Support Conspiracy Conviction

Appellant Zambrano cites three reasons why there was 

insufficient evidence to convict him of conspiring to possess 

cocaine with intent to distribute pursuant to 21 U.S.C. 

§ 84614 and § 841(a)(1).15 First, he argues that there was 

insufficient evidence that he knowingly participated in the 

charged conspiracy at all. Second, he contends that even if 

he was involved in a conspiracy, it was separate from and 

smaller than the charged conspiracy, and was limited to a 

one-time distribution on November 10 in Florida.16 Finally, 

__________

14 Section 846 provides that:

Any person who attempts or conspires to commit any offense 

defined in this subchapter shall be subject to the same penalties as those prescribed for the offense, the commission of 

which was the object of the attempt or conspiracy.

21 U.S.C. § 846 (1994). 

15 Section 841 provides in part:

(a) Unlawful acts

Except as authorized in this subchapter, it shall be unlawful for 

any person knowingly or intentionally

(1) to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, or possess with 

intent to manufacture, distribute, or dispense, a controlled 

substance....

21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) (1994). 

16 This argument is made for the first time on appeal, and thus is 

reviewed only for plain error. United States v. Sayan, 968 F.2d 55, 

62 (D.C. Cir. 1992). 

Zambrano claims that because the conspiracy in which he was 

allegedly involved was limited to transactions in Florida, the 

district court did not have subject matter jurisdiction over his 

trial. We conclude that none of Zambrano's three challenges 

to his conviction has merit.

1. Insufficient Evidence that Zambrano Participated in 

Any Conspiracy

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Zambrano's first challenge must fail because there is ample 

evidence on the record to support his conviction for conspiring to distribute cocaine. Zambrano's conspiracy conviction 

should be reversed for insufficient evidence only if, "viewing 

[the evidence] in the light most favorable to the government, 

a reasonable trier of fact could not have found guilt beyond a 

reasonable doubt." United States v. Lam Kwong-Wah, 924 

F.2d 298, 302 (D.C. Cir. 1991). At trial, the government was 

required to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Zambrano 

purposefully "entered into an agreement with at least one 

other person and that the agreement had as its objective a 

violation of the law." Id. at 303 (internal quotation marks 

omitted).17 In proving that an agreement to violate the law 

existed, "the government need only show that the conspirators agreed on the essential nature of the plan, not that they 

agreed on the details of their criminal scheme." United 

States v. Gatling, 96 F.3d 1511, 1518 (D.C. Cir. 1996).18

__________

17 Although there is no overt act requirement for a § 846 conspiracy conviction, see, e.g., United States v. Pumphrey, 831 F.2d 307, 

308 (D.C. Cir. 1987) ("In contrast to the general criminal conspiracy 

statute, 18 U.S.C. § 371, which explicitly requires proof of an overt 

act, § 846 makes no mention of any such requirement. Absent 

clearly expressed legislative intent to the contrary, this unambiguous statutory language settles the question."), the government must 

prove that the defendant had the "specific intent to further the 

conspiracy's [unlawful] objective." United States v. Childress, 58 

F.3d 693, 708 (D.C. Cir. 1995). 

18 Moreover, the government's showing may be made by circumstantial evidence. Id. at 1518; Lam Kwong-Wah, 924 F.2d at 303 

("No distinction is made between direct and circumstantial evidence 

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Under this standard, Zambrano's conviction must be upheld if the government produced sufficient evidence for the 

jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that Zambrano intended to and did in fact conspire with Gaviria to distribute at 

least one shipment of cocaine in Miami. The government 

clearly met its burden here. Although Zambrano claims that 

the evidence is insufficient because he "did not participate in 

any discussions between Humberto Gaviria and Detective 

Gonzales about quantity or price" and "[h]e was not present 

when the day, time or location of the transaction was fixed," 

Brief for Appellant Zambrano, at 17, these details are insignificant in light of the overwhelming direct and circumstantial 

evidence against Zambrano, including numerous telephone 

conversations, meetings, and actions. Construed in the light 

most favorable to the government, this evidence demonstrates 

that the conspiracy in which Zambrano participated encompassed both the November 7 and the November 10 transactions. In addition to delivering personally the seven kilograms of cocaine on November 10, a fact which Zambrano 

concedes, the record shows the following facts: a week after 

first speaking to Zambrano, Gaviria, a key player in the 

conspiracy, traveled from Colombia to Miami, moved into 

Zambrano's house, and received 15 kilograms of cocaine on 

credit three days later from a complete stranger; then, after 

delivering the first shipment of eight kilograms of cocaine to 

undercover agents in exchange for $8,000, Gaviria was observed giving Zambrano a thick stack of cash.19 After the 

November 7 transaction had taken place, Zambrano pressured government agents for the remainder of the price of 

the first shipment of cocaine, stating that future deliveries 

were contingent upon full payment. Finally, after hearing 

that the balance of the payment had been received by Gaviria 

in Washington, Zambrano personally delivered the second 

shipment of cocaine to Gonzales on November 10. All of this 

__________

in evaluating the sufficiency of evidence supporting a guilty verdict."). 

19 Circumstantial evidence suggested that Zambrano had arranged for the stranger, who called himself "the Panamanian," to 

deliver the drugs to Gaviria. 

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evidence in combination is more than adequate to support the 

jury's decision to convict Zambrano for conspiring to distribute or possess with intent to distribute cocaine.

2. Variance Between Evidence and Indictment

Zambrano's second argument alleging "multiple conspiracies" and a variance between the evidence and the indictment 

is similarly unpersuasive and certainly does not constitute 

plain error. In order to show that the indictment varied 

improperly from the evidence, appellants must demonstrate

(1) that the evidence at trial established the existence of 

multiple conspiracies, rather than the one conspiracy 

alleged in the indictment, and (2) that because of the 

multiplicity of defendants and conspiracies, the jury was 

substantially likely to transfer evidence from one conspiracy to a defendant involved in another.

United States v. Tarantino, 846 F.2d 1384, 1391 (D.C. Cir. 

1988) (as amended). Zambrano's argument fails because the 

evidence demonstrates that he did participate in the charged 

conspiracy.

Zambrano concedes his involvement in the seven kilogram 

transaction that occurred on November 10, but as explained 

above he asserts that this was the only transaction in which 

he was involved or, at the very least, that he was not involved 

in any of the parts of the charged conspiracy that transpired 

in Washington, D.C. In contrast to his assertions, the government asserted, both at trial and on appeal, that all the codefendants participated in a single conspiracy with the goal of 

distributing large quantities of cocaine. According to the 

government's theory, Naranjo and Gaviria initiated the importation of drugs from Colombia and sought customers who 

would buy the drugs in order to resell them. Zambrano's 

role was to supply the conspiracy with large quantities of 

cocaine. Williams, Johnson, and Sandersuntil he was arrested and became an informantwere potential buyers of 

the cocaine. See Brief for Appellee, at 66.

To prove the existence of a single conspiracy in which 

Zambrano participated, the Government was not required to 

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prove that Zambrano knew all the other participants in that 

conspiracy. We have previously stated "that participants in a 

continuous drug distribution enterprise can be parties to a 

single conspiracy even if they do not all know one another, so 

long as each knows that his own role in the distribution of 

drugs and the benefits he derives from his participation 

depend on the activities of the others." Childress, 58 F.3d at 

709-10. To determine whether defendants who did not all 

know one another were nevertheless co-conspirators, this 

court examines "whether the defendants 'shared a common 

goal,' any 'interdependence between the alleged participants,' 

and 'any overlap among alleged participants,' such as the 

presence of core participants linked to all the defendants." 

Gatling, 96 F.3d at 1520 (quoting United States v. Graham,

83 F.3d 1466, 1471 (D.C. Cir. 1996)).

The Government amply met its burden in this case. As 

already explained, the record contains overwhelming evidence 

indicating that Zambrano was an integral participant in both 

the November 7 and 10 drug transactions. Moreover, although Zambrano may not have known the specific identity of 

the buyers for the drugs he was supplying, he must have 

known that those buyers existed, and that he was connected 

to those buyers by Gaviria and Naranjo, the core participants 

in the conspiracy. Indeed, as the Government persuasively 

argues, the sheer quantities of drugs involved and the speed 

with which the first eight kilograms of cocaine were converted 

into cash indicated that the drugs were being sold to others 

for retail distribution.20

__________

20 See, e.g., Childress, 58 F.3d at 714 (fact that defendant made 

two 50 kilogram deliveries of cocaine to drug distribution network 

was "sufficient to prove his agreement to participate in the conspiracy" because "[t]wo deliveries of this magnitude suggest a continuity of relationship between [the defendant] and the [drug distribution] organization and support the inference that the defendant 

knew that the organization to which he was delivering such a 

sizeable amount of drugs must involve a substantial distribution 

network").

Circumstantial evidence also suggested that Zambrano intended 

to supply large quantities of drugs to the conspiracy on an ongoing 

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3. Lack of Jurisdiction/Venue

Finally, Zambrano's third argument alleging "lack of jurisdiction" in the district court is also meritless. The Government was correct to point out that the district court's jurisdiction in this case, premised on 18 U.S.C. § 3231,21 was not 

conditioned on the location of the criminal conduct charged. 

Thus, Zambrano's "jurisdictional" claim is more properly 

identified as a challenge to venue. However, Zambrano 

waived this challenge when he failed to raise it below. See 

United States v. Wilson, 26 F.3d 142, 151-52 (D.C. Cir. 

1994).22 In any event, the court did not commit plain error by 

allowing the case to be tried in D.C. Because overt acts in 

furtherance of the conspiracy did occur within the District of 

Columbia,23 venue was proper notwithstanding Zambrano's 

__________

basis. For example, when Zambrano was preparing for delivery of 

the seven kilogram shipment to Gonzales, he offered to acquire a 

sample of heroin for Gonzales and stated that the price would be in 

the range of $120,000 to $150,000 per kilogram. 

21 The statute provides in relevant part that, "[t]he district courts 

of the United States shall have original jurisdiction, exclusive of the 

courts of the States, of all offenses against the laws of the United 

States." 18 U.S.C. § 3231 (1994). 

22 See also United States v. Miller, 113 F.3d 747, 750 (10th Cir. 

1997) (court applies "a more relaxed standard for finding waiver of 

venue rights than for finding waivers of other constitutional rights 

in criminal trials," and under this standard "[a] defendant can waive 

venue rights by his inaction"); United States v. Meade, 110 F.3d 

190, 200 (1st Cir. 1997) ("We have ... recognized that venue is a 

waivable personal privilege designed for the benefit of the defendant. As such, the constitutional and statutory venue provisions 

are not restrictions on the court's jurisdiction.") (citation omitted); 

United States v. Winship, 724 F.2d 1116, 1124 (5th Cir. 1984) ("[A] 

defendant can waive venue rights by his silencejust by his failure 

to lodge an objection prior to trial."). 

23 Indeed, Gaviria committed numerous overt acts in furtherance 

of the conspiracy within D.C., "including telephoning Zambrano to 

discuss potential drug deals and receiving payment for the eight 

kilograms of cocaine that were delivered in Miami on November 7, 

1993." Brief for Appellee, at 75 (citations omitted). 

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claim to the contrary. Lam Kwong-Wah, 924 F.2d at 301 

("It is a well-established rule that 'a conspiracy prosecution 

may be brought in any district in which some overt act in 

furtherance of the conspiracy was committed by any of the 

co-conspirators.' ") (quoting United States v. Rosenberg, 888 

F.2d 1406, 1415 (D.C. Cir. 1989)).

B. Sentencing Issues

At Zambrano's sentencing, the district court found that he 

was responsible for all 15 kilograms of cocaine that were sold 

in Miami on November 7 (eight kilograms) and November 10 

(seven kilograms). Accordingly, his base offense level was 34. 

The court then added two levels for obstruction of justice 

because Zambrano perjured himself. The court also found 

that Zambrano was not entitled to a downward adjustment 

based on the minimal or minor nature of his role in the 

offense, or on acceptance of responsibility. Finally, the court 

concluded that he was not eligible for the safety valve provision of the Sentencing Guidelines. Zambrano's total offense 

level was 36, which meant that the applicable sentencing 

range given his criminal history category of I was 188 to 235 

months. The court ultimately gave Zambrano a sentence at 

the bottom of the range188 months.

We review the district court's findings of fact during the 

sentencing phase for clear error. United States v. Broumas,

69 F.3d 1178, 1180 (D.C. Cir. 1995) (citing United States v. 

Kim, 23 F.3d 513 (D.C. Cir. 1994)). The district court's 

application of the Sentencing Guidelines to the facts is entitled to "due deference." See id. Legal questions relating to 

sentencing are reviewed de novo. See id.

1. Obstruction of Justice

Under the Sentencing Guidelines, a defendant commits 

perjury and obstructs justice under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.124 if he 

__________

24 The Guidelines provide that:

If the defendant willfully obstructed or impeded, or attempted 

to obstruct or impede, the administration of justice during the 

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"gives false testimony concerning a material matter with the 

willful intent to provide false testimony, rather than as a 

result of mistake or faulty memory." United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87, 94 (1993). A defendant also obstructs 

justice if he "provid[es] materially false information to a 

probation officer in respect to a presentence or other investigation for the court." U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1, cmt. n.3(h). The 

district court must find willful perjury by clear and convincing evidence. United States v. Montague, 40 F.3d 1251, 1254 

(D.C. Cir. 1994) (as amended). In the present case, the 

district court did find by clear and convincing evidence that 

Zambrano willfully provided false testimony when he testified 

that (1) he did not know about or engage in the cocaine 

conspiracy until November 10, 1993; and (2) he was coerced 

into participating in the conspiracy on November 10 by 

pressure from Gonzales and his concern for the safety of 

Martha Gaviria. The court additionally found that Zambrano 

had furnished the same materially false information to the 

U.S. Probation Office.

Zambrano claims that the district court erred in three 

respects when it found that Zambrano obstructed justice. 

First, he claims that none of the testimony that the district 

court cited as perjurious was false. Second, he contends that, 

even if some of the testimony was false, none of it was 

material. Third, he asserts that there was no showing that 

any of the purported falsehoods were willful. None of these 

three arguments is persuasive.

First, the district court did not commit clear error in 

finding that Zambrano testified falsely. Although Zambrano 

makes much of the fact that his testimony at trial (regarding 

the November 7 meeting with Gonzales and Sanders) was 

internally consistent, see Brief for Appellant Zambrano, at 1-

4, he fails to account for the fact that the district court found 

credible testimony offered by Gonzales and Martha Gaviria

which directly contradicted Zambrano's testimony. More-

__________

investigation, prosecution, or sentencing of the instant offense, 

increase the offense level by 2 levels.

U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 (1995). 

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over, the district court did not commit clear error when it 

found that Zambrano had lied by testifying that he did not 

"discuss any business" with Gonzales during their November 

8, 1993, telephone call. The conversation was conducted in 

code, and Zambrano contends that there is therefore no basis 

for finding that Zambrano understood that Gonzales was 

talking about drugs. However, Zambrano never stated during the conversation that he did not understand what the 

conversation was about, and two days later, Zambrano referred back to the conversation, stating that he "understood 

that [Gonzales] ... had told [Zambrano] that it had been 

brought down, that it wasn't putting out what it was supposed 

to be...." GovEx 111093-2, at 8. The district court also did 

not commit clear error when it found by clear and convincing 

evidence that Zambrano lied to the jury and the Probation 

Office by claiming that he was coerced into participating in 

the conspiracy by threats against the safety of Martha Gaviria.25 Any of these three findings of false testimony would 

serve to support the district court's finding that Zambrano 

obstructed justice.

Second, the district court did not err in finding that Zambrano's false testimony was material. Under the Sentencing 

Guidelines, information is material when, "if believed, [it] 

would tend to influence or affect the issue under determination." U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1, cmt. n.5. The false testimony Zambrano gave was clearly material because it was crucial to the 

Government's ability to defeat Zambrano's entrapment defense, which asserted that Gonzales entrapped Zambrano on 

__________

25 As the court very convincingly explained, "[t]he tape recordings 

of his own discussions with the agents, his calling the people back 

and talking to them in Washington, his using counter-surveillance 

moves to shake the tails of people who were following him in his 

meetings with the undercover officers, his moving the drugs around 

in the various cars, and his discussions of additional deals, including 

heroin deals, all would seem to me to belie any suggestion that the 

sole reason he acted was to help Martha Gaviria because he was 

coerced or forced into it by the threats or what he had perceived to 

be dangers from these other individuals, that is, the undercover 

officers." Hearing Transcript ("Hrg. Tr.") 44-45 (2/5/96). 

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November 10 by pressuring him into delivering the seven 

kilogram shipment of cocaine. If the jury found that, contrary to his false testimony, Zambrano participated in the 

conspiracy prior to November 10, his entrapment claim would 

fail.26

Third, the district court did not err in concluding that 

Zambrano's false statements were willful. Indeed, Zambrano 

does not claim that the statements resulted from "mistake or 

faulty memory." Dunnigan, 507 U.S. at 94. He only claims 

that they were not false. Because the record overwhelmingly 

supports the court's finding that the statements were in fact 

false, and because there is no evidence in the record that 

Zambrano was confused, mistaken or forgetful about the 

scope of his participation in the conspiracy, the finding of 

willfulness should be affirmed.

2. Minor or Minimal Participant Reduction

Zambrano claims that he should have received a reduction 

in his base offense level because he was either a "minor" or 

"minimal" participant in the charged conspiracy under 

U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2.27 He argues that, in addition to the fact 

that he had no prior criminal record, he was not involved in 

"initiating the conspiracy, attempting to locate suppliers, arranging finances for Humberto Gaviria's return to the United 

__________

26 Additionally, the scope of his involvement in the conspiracy was 

crucial to several sentencing issues, as discussed further below. 

27 The Sentencing Guidelines provide:

Based on the defendant's role in the offense, decrease the 

offense level as follows:

(a) If the defendant was a minimal participant in any criminal activity, decrease by 4 levels.

(b) If the defendant was a minor participant in any criminal 

activity, decrease by 2 levels.

In cases falling between (a) and (b), decrease by 3 levels.

U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2 (1995). The commentary to the Guidelines establishes that a minor participant is "any participant who is less 

culpable than most other participants, but whose role could not be

described as minimal." U.S.S.G. § 3B1.2(b), cmt. n.3. 

States, negotiation of the quantity or price of the cocaine sold 

to the undercover officer, or transferring the initial 8 kilograms." Brief for Appellant Zambrano, at 7. Moreover, 

Zambrano claims that the district court failed to consider his 

blameworthiness relative to his co-conspirators as required by 

the Guidelines, and that he was far less culpable than Gaviria, 

Naranjo, or Williams.

We are not persuaded by Zambrano's argument that the 

district court erred in ruling that Zambrano's role in the 

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conspiracy was not "minor." The district court found:

[Zambrano's] role here is very clear from the evidence 

and his conversations with the undercover agent and his 

spending the afternoon and evening with him essentially 

for the final delivery and discussions he had with the 

agent at that time, accepting the $7000, being entrusted 

to accept that money by whoever owned the drugs, and 

his first meeting with him, his request to get the money 

down, his instructions that he wouldn't release the rest of 

the drugs until the first payment had been received by 

Mr. Gaviria in Washington, all take him out of the role of 

a minor or minimal player. He's not just a courier.

Hrg. Tr. 19-20 (2/5/96). These findings were supported by 

the record, and the district court was justified in concluding 

that this level of active participation in the conspiracy made 

Zambrano ineligible for the downward departure under section 3B1.2. Under this circuit's precedent, even a so-called 

"courier" may not qualify for a downward departure as a 

"minor" participant because, depending on the specific circumstances involved, "a courier can play as active and culpable a part in a drug offense as another participant." United 

States v. Caballero, 936 F.2d 1292, 1299 (D.C. Cir. 1991).28

_________

28 For similar reasons we conclude that, even ifdespite some 

circumstantial evidence to the contraryit were true that Zambrano did not arrange for the "the Panamanian" to supply the 15 

kilograms of cocaine to Gaviria, the court was correct to point out 

that Zambrano did not "ha[ve] to be a supplier of the drugs to not 

be qualified as a minor or minimal participant." Hrg. Tr. 19 

(2/5/96). Cf. United States v. Pitz, 2 F.3d 723, 733 (7th Cir. 1993) 

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Zambrano's argument that the district court failed to consider his culpability in relation to his co-conspirators is similarly meritless. Although in cases of joint criminal activity, a 

district court should examine a defendant's culpability in 

relation to his co-conspirators' culpability, "a defendant is not 

entitled to a reduction ... simply because he is the least 

culpable among several participants in a jointly undertaken 

criminal enterprise." United States v. Lockhart, 37 F.3d 

1451, 1455 (10th Cir. 1994). Rather, a court may find that 

none of the co-conspirators qualify as "minor" participants 

because even the "least culpable" participants in the conspiracyalthough they might not have played the roles of organizers or supervisors within the chain of commandnevertheless 

were active participants and were equally culpable vis-a-vis 

each other.29 In so concluding, "the district court need not 

make express findings of relative culpability so long as it is 

clear that the court assessed the defendant's 'role in the 

specific criminal conduct' and did not 'gauge his culpability 

generically.' " Washington, 106 F.3d at 1018 (quoting United 

States v. Edwards, 98 F.3d 1364, 1370 (D.C. Cir. 1996)). 

Here, it is clear that the district court examined Zambrano's 

__________

(departure denied where defendant picked up and delivered 24 

ounces of cocaine, collected payment, and reimbursed the supplier); 

United States v. Flores-Payon, 942 F.2d 556, 561 (9th Cir. 1991) 

(downward departure denied where defendant "was not merely a 

courier but was an actual participant in a drug transaction who 

attended the negotiations and then brought the drugs to the scene" 

and commented on the quality of the drugs); United States v. 

Garcia, 920 F.2d 153, 155 (2d Cir. 1990) (departure denied where 

defendant "was personally entrusted with and ultimately delivered" 

large amount of cocaine to undercover officer). 

29 See, e.g., United States v. Washington, 106 F.3d 983, 1017-18 

(D.C. Cir. 1997) (holding that two appellants were not entitled to 

"minor role" adjustment despite the fact that they were not "leaders" of the conspiracy due to their active participation and relatively 

" 'equal[ ] culpab[ility]' " with other non-leader members of the 

conspiracy). 

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role in relation to the conspiracy in which he participated,30

and that the record as a whole supports the court's conclusion 

that Zambrano played far more than a "minor" role in the 

conspiracy. As we have previously explained, "the district 

court is in the best position to assess the defendant's relative 

culpability vis-a-vis other participants in the offense." United 

States v. Williams, 891 F.2d 921, 926 (D.C. Cir. 1989); see 

also United States v. Caballero, 936 F.2d 1292, 1299 (D.C. 

Cir. 1991) ("The application of section 3B1.2 is inherently factbound and largely committed to the discretion of the trial 

judge."). We conclude that the district court correctly applied the Sentencing Guidelines as they pertain to the downward adjustment for a minor or minimal role; therefore, we 

affirm the court's denial of this adjustment to Zambrano.

3. Downward Departure for Acceptance of Responsibility

Appellant Zambrano next asserts that the district court 

erred when it refused to grant him a downward departure for 

accepting responsibility for transferring the November 10 

shipment to Gonzales in exchange for $7,000, despite the fact 

that he denied any involvement in the conspiracy prior to 

November 10 and claimed that his delivery of the seven 

kilograms was coerced. During the sentencing phase, the 

court found thatboth at trial and in his presentence memorandum to the Probation OfficeZambrano "admitted only to 

a limited role, which he said he was forced into, in his delivery 

on November 10, and that certainly is not acceptance for [sic] 

responsibility under [U.S.S.G. §] 3E1.1, and normally, certainly when he obstructs justice, it would be difficult to find 

that in any event." Sentencing Transcript 36. Zambrano 

claims that, because he accepted full responsibility for his 

involvement in the conspiracy and the trial court erroneously 

__________

30 The court acknowledged defense counsel's argument that Zambrano should receive a departure "because he is the least culpable 

of the defendants, he was just tangentially involved and had a 

limited role," Hrg. Tr. 16 (2/5/96), but rejected this argument based 

on Zambrano's substantial role in the conspiracy and also noted 

"that both Gaviria and Naranjo vouched for Mr. Zambrano as a 

reliable source of drugs and a major player." Id.

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found that he perjured himself, the court also erred when it 

denied him the departure.31

We reject this argument because we have already rejected 

Zambrano's claim that the district court erred in finding that 

he committed perjury. To receive the downward adjustment 

under § 3E1.1, a defendant must "truthfully admit[ ] or not 

falsely deny[ ] any additional relevant conduct for which [he] 

is accountable under § 1B1.3 (Relevant Conduct)." U.S.S.G. 

§ 3E1.1, cmt. n.1(a). In almost all cases, a defendant who 

denies guilt and goes to trial, or who receives an obstruction 

of justice enhancement under § 3C1.1, is not eligible for a 

downward adjustment for acceptance of responsibility. Id.,

cmt. nn.2, 4.32 Zambrano clearly failed to accept responsibility for his full participation in the charged conspiracy, and so 

he is not entitled to the departure.

__________

31 The Guidelines provide that:

(a) If the defendant clearly demonstrates acceptance of responsibility for his offense, decrease the offense level by 2 levels.

b) If the defendant qualifies for a decrease under subsection 

(a), the offense level determined prior to the operation of subsection (a) is level 16 or greater, and the defendant has assisted 

authorities in the investigation or prosecution of his own misconduct by taking one or more of the following steps:

(a) timely providing complete information to the government 

concerning his own involvement in the offense; or

(b) timely notifying authorities of his intention to enter a 

plea of guilty, thereby permitting the government to avoid 

preparing for trial and permitting the court to allocate its 

resources efficiently,

decrease the offense level by 1 additional level.

U.S.S.G. § 3E1.1 (1995). 

32 See also, e.g., United States v. Layeni, 90 F.3d 514, 524 (D.C. 

Cir. 1996) (stating that "[t]he sentencing court 'normally should 

deny the two-point reduction to a defendant who does not plead 

guilty,' " and explaining that, if a defendant does go to trial, "[t]he 

raising of an entrapment defense, in and of itself, does not constitute either an acceptance of responsibility or an expression of 

remorse for one's criminal conduct"), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 783 

(1997). 

4. Downward Departure Under the Safety Valve Provision

Since we conclude that the district court did not err in 

finding that Zambrano perjured himself, we also affirm the 

court's determination that Zambrano was not entitled to a 

downward departure under the safety valve provision of 18 

U.S.C. § 3553(f) and U.S.S.G. § 5C1.2. Five criteria must be 

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satisfied for the district court to grant an adjustment under 

this provision. The fifth criterion is that:

(5) not later than at the time of the sentencing hearing, 

the defendant has truthfully provided to the Government 

all information and evidence the defendant has concerning the offense or offenses that were part of the same 

course of conduct or of a common scheme or plan, but 

the fact that the defendant has no relevant or useful 

information to provide or that the Government is already 

aware of the information shall not preclude a determination by the court that the defendant has complied with 

this requirement.

18 U.S.C. § 3553(f)(5) (1994). The fifth element of the safety 

valve provision requires full and candid disclosure by the 

defendant of all information in his possession concerning the 

charged offense, see, e.g., United States v. DeJesus-Gaul, 73 

F.3d 395, 397 (D.C. Cir. 1996),33 and Zambrano clearly failed 

to meet this requirement when he perjured himself during 

the trial and presentencing proceedings.34 Accordingly, the 

__________

33 See also United States v. Fletcher, 74 F.3d 49, 56 (4th Cir.) 

(safety valve unavailable where defendant "perjured himself at 

trial"), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 157 (1996). 

34 In rejecting Zambrano's safety valve argument, the district 

court stated:

I don't have any demonstration to me that Mr. Zambrano made 

any good faith attempt to cooperate or to provide information 

and evidence that he has concerning this matter beyond his 

testimony at trial that I've already found to be perjurious in 

part. I don't think his stipulation of anythat he had, knows 

nothing else is sufficient to meet the fifth element of the safety 

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district court was justified in denying Zambrano a downward 

departure under the safety valve provision.35

5. Accountability for Entire 15 Kilograms of Cocaine

During sentencing, the district court found that Zambrano 

had lied about his involvement in the drug transaction that 

took place on November 7 and that he therefore was responsible for all 15 kilograms involved in both the November 7 

and November 10 transactions. In his brief, Zambrano contests the district court's conclusion, stating:

Because the record does not support a finding that 

appellant lied about his involvement as to the November 

7th transaction, the record cannot and does not support a 

finding that the sale of the total 15 kilograms was 

reasonably foreseeable to or in furtherance of appellant's 

agreement with the co-conspirators. Rather, although 

appellant knowingly participated in the November 10th 

transaction of 7 kilograms, a preponderance of the evidence in the record does not indicate his foreseeability 

with respect to the November 7th transaction. The fact 

that appellant was convicted of conspiracy does not end 

the analysis.

Brief for Appellant Zambrano, at 14-15.

Similar to Zambrano's other sentencing challenges, this one 

relies on his assertion that his involvement in the conspiracy 

__________

valve, where there is contrary evidence in the, produced at trial 

as to his involvement. In other words, I cannot find that he 

candidly explained to the Court his role in the offense.

Hrg. Tr. 38-39 (2/5/96). 

35 It is clear that Zambrano did not meet the requirement of full 

and candid disclosure at trial, so we need not reach the issue of 

whether "trial testimony alone may satisfy the fifth requirement of 

the [safety valve provision]" in cases where that testimony is 

complete and truthful. Brief for Appellant Zambrano, at 13 (arguing that "[t]he recent case law clearly indicates that as long as the 

defendant provides truthful informationbe it in the form of a 

letter, a guilty plea or other testimonyhe has met the fifth 

requirement of the statute"). 

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was much more limited than the district court found that it 

was. Zambrano's argument fails because, as explained above, 

the district court did not err in concluding that he in fact 

participated in the November 7 drug transaction.36 The 

record indicates that, after Gaviria transacted the November 

7 sale, he gave Zambrano a large stack of cash and requested 

that Zambrano pressure the undercover "buyers" to pay the 

remaining balance for the cocaine. Following this directive, 

Zambrano met with the undercover agents, told them that he 

did not like to be kept waiting, and informed them that more 

drugs would not be forthcoming until they paid the balance 

on the first shipment. He also refused to make the November 10 delivery of seven additional kilograms until assured 

that the balance of $148,000 on the previous shipment was 

paid. Even ifgiving Zambrano the benefit of every doubt

he was not in fact responsible for initially "supplying" the 

drugs, the record evidence amply supported the district 

court's conclusion that he participated in the November 7 

sale; at the very least, he aided and abetted the transaction, 

and such action is clearly covered by the "relevant conduct" 

definition of U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A).37

V. APPELLANT WILLIAMS

A. Failure to Allow Recall of Government Witness

One of the primary prosecution witnesses against Williams, 

David Johnson, a former co-defendant, pled guilty in September 1994 to possession with intent to distribute cocaine. A 

long-time Williams friend and a fellow drug dealer, Johnson 

__________

36 As the Government rightly points out in its brief, see Brief for 

Appellee, at 131-32, we need not reach the issue of whether the 

November 7 sale was a reasonably foreseeable act in furtherance of 

the conspiracy because Zambrano's liability for that sale was based 

on his personal participation, not on a co-conspirator liability theory. 

37 This subsection of the Guidelines provides that relevant conduct includes "(1)(A) all acts and omissions committed, aided, abetted, counseled, commanded, induced, procured, or willfully caused 

by the defendant...." U.S.S.G. § 1B1.3(a)(1)(A) (1995). 

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testified that Williams and his cellmate Naranjo arranged two 

drug deals for him: to purchase heroin from "Kiki," and to 

buy cocaine from undercover Detective Gonzales who in turn 

had purchased it from Gaviria. Johnson's testimony against 

Williams included "decoding" several phone calls placed by 

Williams to him from the jail, since Williams, like the other 

defendants, spoke of drug dealing in code.

Because it placed Williams in the role of intermediary and 

facilitator of several drug transactions, Johnson's testimony 

was quite damaging to Williams. Williams's attorney accordingly cross-examined Johnson thoroughly, establishing, 

among other things, that Johnson had dealt drugs for many 

years prior to his arrest and had initially lied to police officers 

when arrested. When Williams's attorney questioned Johnson on the details of his plea agreement with the Government, 

the following exchange occurred:

Q. (Williams's attorney) So you want to do everything you

can to make certain [the prosecutors] are happy with what you 

say; isn't that right?

A. (Johnson) I want to do whatever I can to

make the truth prevail.

* * *

Q. And [the truth] matters to you 

now, because you know even with

the plea agreement ... you could 

get 40 years, and you had a tough

time doing a year in the D.C.

Jail?

A. I've never been arrested before.

Q. That gives [you] further impetus

to why you would want to cooperate, because you had never been

arrested before, right?

[The Interpreter:] I'm sorry?

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A. That's not why I'm cooperating.

Q. I'm sorry. It would give further

impetus to why he would want to

cooperate, because he had never 

been arrested.

A. That's not why I'm cooperating. 

Tr. 2339-40 (3/9/95). Williams's attorney continued the crossexamination throughout the day, concluding the next morning.

Nearly a month later, after the close of the Government's 

case and after two defendants had put on their evidence, 

Williams's attorney asked permission to recall Johnson for 

further cross-examination, arguing that he wanted to impeach 

Johnson's prior statement that he had never before been 

arrested with evidence that he had once been arrested in 

Maryland. Although Williams's attorney conceded that he 

had possessed information on Johnson's arrest record when 

initially cross-examining Johnson a month earlier, he claimed 

that when Johnson volunteered that he had never before been 

arrested, he was "caught off guard" and failed to pursue the 

issue. Tr. 3709 (4/6/95). The prosecutor objected, pointing 

out that Johnson's arrest record had been provided in discovery and that the court had the discretion to refuse to recall 

Johnson to the stand. Agreeing with the prosecutor, the 

district court declined to allow Williams to recall Johnson.

District courts enjoy " 'wide discretion to control crossexamination.' " United States v. Thorne, 997 F.2d 1504, 1513 

(D.C. Cir. 1993) (quoting Harbor Ins. Co. v. Schnabel Found. 

Co., 946 F.2d 930, 935 (D.C. Cir. 1991)). We will reverse a 

trial court's decision to limit cross-examination only where it 

resulted in substantial prejudice to the appellant. Id.; see 

also United States v. Mitchell, 49 F.3d 769, 780 (D.C. Cir.), 

cert. denied, 116 S. Ct. 327 (1995); FED. R. EVID. 611(a). 

Applying this highly deferential standard, we find no abuse of 

discretion in the district court's refusal to permit Williams to 

recall Johnson.

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We are unconvinced by Williams's contention that Johnson's statement "caught counsel ... by surprise." Brief for 

Appellant Williams, at 14. Because Williams's trial counsel 

conceded that he had information on Johnson's prior arrest 

record when he first cross-examined Johnson, counsel surely 

could have reviewed the discovery materials on Johnson after 

the first day of cross to check for any inconsistencies or 

further fruitful avenues of cross-examination and followed up 

the next morning while Johnson was still on the stand.

Claiming that his attorney's failure to attack Johnson's 

statement immediately amounted to ineffective assistance of 

counsel, Williams also argues that the district court should 

have allowed the attorney to remedy the situation a full 

month later. We disagree. As the district court recognized, 

Williams's attorney used Johnson's statement"I had never 

been arrested before"to his advantage, twice asking, "That 

gives [you] further impetus to why you would want to cooperate, because you had never been arrested before, right?" 

Given that Williams's counsel had initially used Johnson's 

allegedly false statement to support his theory that Johnson 

would willingly lie on the stand to gain favor with the 

Government, the district court was well within its discretion 

in refusing to allow counsel to switch tactics and crossexamine Johnson on his alleged perjury.

This leaves Williams with the argument that "the rules of 

evidence did not compel the trial court to preclude Williams 

from examining Johnson during his defense case about Johnson's prior arrest." Brief for Appellant Williams, at 11. This 

is certainly true, but neither do the rules compel the court to 

allow further cross-examination of witnesses long since dismissed from the stand.

B. Sentencing Challenges

1. Enhancement Based on Prior Convictions

Williams begins his challenge to his sentence by arguing 

that the Government and the district court failed to abide by 

21 U.S.C. § 851(a)'s prohibition against enhancing a drug 

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fore trial, or before entry of a plea of guilty, the United 

States attorney files an information with the court (and 

serves a copy of such information on the [defendant] or 

counsel for the [defendant]) stating in writing the previous 

convictions to be relied upon." 21 U.S.C. § 851(a)(1) (1994). 

We disagree.

By filing an enhancement information against Williams on 

August 31, 1994, approximately four months before trial, the 

Government complied with section 851(a). The information 

identified two 1990 convictions supporting enhancement: conspiracy to distribute heroin and use of a communications 

facility to distribute narcotics. Although Williams claims he 

never received personal notice of the enhancement information filed against him, he does not deny that his lawyer was 

properly served, which is all section 851(a) requires.

Moreover, at a November 17, 1994, status hearing at which 

Williams was present, the district court made a point of 

asking Williams's lawyer whether he had discussed the enhancement papers with his client. The Government had 

offered to withdraw the enhancement filing if Williams would 

plead guilty to the cocaine conspiracy charge on which he had 

been indicted. At the end of the colloquy, the court stated, "I 

just want to make sure what the situation was because ... 

Mr. Williams is facing a very drastic sentence if convicted 

with the enhancement papers." Williams's lawyer responded, 

"Right. Mr. Williams is aware of that your honor." Tr. 43 

(11/17/94).

Williams also argues that the district court violated section 

851(b), which imposes two duties on the court:

If the United States attorney files an information under 

this section, the court shall after conviction but before 

pronouncement of sentence inquire of the person with 

respect to whom the information was filed whether he 

affirms or denies that he has been previously convicted 

as alleged in the information, and shall inform him that 

any challenge to a prior conviction which is not made 

before sentence is imposed may not thereafter be raised 

to attack the sentence.

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21 U.S.C. § 851(b). By giving Williams an opportunity to 

question the accuracy of the prior convictions, the district 

court carried out the first of its section 851(b) duties. As the 

Government concedes, however, the court neglected to inform 

the defendant that a failure to challenge his prior convictions 

would constitute a waiver. Brief for Appellee, at 152. Although failure to comply strictly with the statute's requirements is error, see United States v. Jordan, 810 F.2d 262, 269 

(D.C. Cir. 1987) (requiring strict compliance); United States 

v. Ramsey, 655 F.2d 398, 400 n.7 (D.C. Cir. 1981) (same), here 

the error was harmless, cf. United States v. Brown, 921 F.2d 

1304, 1308 n.5 (D.C. Cir. 1990) (excusing less than complete 

compliance). Cf. United States v. Gonzalez-Lerma, 71 F.3d 

1537, 1541 n.4 (10th Cir. 1995) (citing decisions from 1st, 4th, 

7th, 9th, and 11th Circuits applying harmless-error analysis to 

§ 851(b)), cert. denied, 116 S. Ct. 1341 (1996).

Not until his reply brief does Williams suggest the bases 

for challenging his prior convictions. Because all three are 

constitutional challengesvindictive or selective prosecution, 

double jeopardy, and a Batson violation, Reply Brief for 

Appellant Williams, at 1had he raised these challenges 

before the district court, he would have had to comply with 

section 851(c)(2)'s requirement to set forth "with particularity" any constitutional challenge to a prior conviction and "the 

factual basis therefor." 28 U.S.C. § 851(c)(2). Even on 

appeal, however, Williams fails to offer any factual basis for 

his claims. The closest he comes to complying with section 

851(c)(2) is his claim, based on his own trial testimony, that he 

used the proceeds from pawning some jewelry to hire an Ohio 

law firm to file a section 2255 petition on his behalf. Because 

even now Williams cannot satisfy the requirements of section 

851(c)(2), the district court's failure to comply with section 

851(b) was not prejudicial. See United States v. Olano, 507 

U.S. 725, 734-35 (1993) (explaining centrality of prejudice to 

harmless-error inquiry); cf. United States v. Fragoso, 978 

F.2d 896, 902 (5th Cir. 1992) (finding § 851(b) error harmless 

because of defendant's failure to comply with § 851(c)).

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2. Drug Quantity

Relying on the presentence report, the district court found 

Williams responsible for two of the five kilos of cocaine that 

David Johnson and Ulysses Wilson purchased from Detective 

Gonzales on November 16, 1993. According to the presentence report, during a November 14, 1993, conversation at the 

federal prison at Petersburg, Williams and Johnson agreed on 

a two-kilo purchase. Williams explained that Johnson could 

buy one kilo for cash and one on credit. Williams now claims 

he should have been held responsible for only one kilo, which 

would have made his base offense level 26 instead of 28. He 

makes two arguments to support his contention, neither of 

which has merit.

The first, that he was a victim of indirect sentencing 

entrapment, rests on his claim that Johnson, intending to buy 

only one kilo, was entrapped by Detective Gonzales into 

buying more. Since the amount of drugs for which Williams 

was held responsible derives from Johnson's purchase, 

Williams argues, he too was a victim of Gonzales's insistence 

that Johnson buy more than one kilo.

Although recognizing the possibility of indirect entrapment 

claims of the sort maintained by Williams, we have held that 

such claims may be raised only if the defendant

was induced by an unknowing intermediary at the instruction or direction of a government official or third 

party acting on behalf of the government (e.g., an informant). The defense should not apply if, in response to 

pressure put on him by the government, the unknowing 

intermediary on his own induces the defendant to engage in criminal activity.

United States v. Layeni, 90 F.3d 514, 520 (D.C. Cir. 1996), 

cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 783 (1997); see also United States v. 

Spriggs, 102 F.3d 1245, 1261-62 (D.C. Cir. 1997). Even 

assuming Johnson's request to Williams amounted to inducement, that inducement did not flow from the direction or 

insistence of Government agents. Although Johnson's conversation with Williams about securing credit to buy a second 

kilo took place after Gonzales's conversation with Johnson 

urging him to buy more than one kilo, Johnson did not seek 

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out Williams's help at Gonzales's direction. Before his conversation with Gonzales, Johnson had already discussed buying on credit with Williams, and it was Williams who suggested that Johnson ask Gonzales about buying on credit.

Williams also argues that the district court failed to make a 

specific finding that the two kilos were within the scope of the 

conspiratorial agreement into which he entered. In support 

of this argument, Williams relies largely on United States v. 

Saro, 24 F.3d 283 (D.C. Cir. 1994), where we stated:

The extent of a defendant's vicarious liability under 

conspiracy law is always determined by the scope of his 

agreement with his co-conspirators. Mere foreseeability 

is not enough: someone who belongs to a drug conspiracy may well be able to foresee that his co-venturers, in 

addition to acting in furtherance of his agreement with 

them, will be conducting drug transactions on the side, 

but he is not automatically accountable for all those side 

deals.

Saro, 24 F.3d at 288; see also, e.g., United States v. Graham,

83 F.3d 1466, 1478-79 (D.C. Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 

993 (1997); United States v. Childress, 58 F.3d 693, 723 (D.C. 

Cir. 1995), cert. denied, 116 S. Ct. 825 (1996).

Contrary to Williams's assertion, however, the district 

court did not rely only on foreseeability, instead making 

specific findings that the two kilos satisfied both elements for 

vicarious liability:

There's ample evidence [that] the 2 kilograms was reasonably foreseeable and was in furtherance of the conspiratorial agreement: the discussion that Mr. Johnson testified to 

of obtaining 2 kilograms, with one to be purchased and one 

[to be] fronted, the discussion that he had been given a 

letter that he was supposed to deliver to Carlos that came 

through Mr. Williams that was going to arrange for this 

fronting correctly, and the discussions in the tapes reflecting that.

Tr. 29 (9/13/95). The record bears out the district court's 

statement. Williams twice acknowledged on the stand that 

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Johnson explained to him that he intended to purchase two 

kilos and that he needed Williams's help in getting financing 

for the second kilo. Williams denied that he gave Johnson 

the assistance he requested, but Johnson's own testimony, 

notably his description of Naranjo's note that Williams gave 

him to take to Detective Gonzales, supports the district 

court's conclusion that Williams could reasonably foresee that 

Johnson would purchase two kilos. Although Williams denied 

that he had agreed to assist Johnson in buying two kilos, the 

district court reasonably credited Johnson's testimony to the 

contrary. That Johnson brought his friend Ulysses Wilson 

into the deal without Williams's knowledge in no way suggests that Williams was not a party to the agreement or that 

the purchase represented a "side deal" involving only Johnson 

and Wilson. According to Johnson, he brought Wilson along 

because, feeling insecure as a negotiator, he wanted the 

support of a friend.

3. Reverse Sting Downward Departure

Williams argues that even if the district court properly 

used two kilos in setting his base offense level, he should have 

received a downward departure based on the "reverse sting" 

provision of U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1, which provides:

If, in a reverse sting (an operation in which a government agent sells or negotiates to sell a controlled substance to a defendant), the court finds that the government agent set a price for the controlled substance that 

was substantially below the market value of the controlled substance, thereby leading to the defendant's 

purchase of a significantly greater quantity of the controlled substance than his available resources would have 

allowed him to purchase except for the artificially low 

price set by the government agent, a downward departure may be warranted.

U.S.S.G. § 2D1.1, cmt. n.15 (1995). Refusals to depart are 

reversible only if the district court failed to recognize its 

authority to depart or if it made a clearly erroneous factual 

finding that the factor potentially justifying departure was 

not present. See United States v. Sammoury, 74 F.3d 1341, 

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1343-44 (D.C. Cir. 1996); see also United States v. Washington, 106 F.3d 983, 1016 (D.C. Cir. 1997). The district court 

committed neither error.

When Williams first raised the reverse-sting issue at his 

sentencing hearing, the district court acknowledged the possible applicability of note 15: "I'm applying what the guidelines 

says about the reverse sting, but I didn't find that it made a 

difference in the 2 kilograms that applies to you, that's all." 

Tr. 34 (9/13/95). To have reached this conclusion, the district 

court must have found either that Gonzales did not set the 

price at an artificially low level, or that Johnson did not buy 

more than he otherwise would have because of the depressed 

price. Neither of those findings would have been clearly 

erroneous. In support of his argument that the $18,500/kilo 

price was "substantially below the market value" Williams 

offers no evidence other than that Gaviria originally offered 

to sell at $24,000/kilo. Nor does anything in the record 

suggest that Johnson bought more than he otherwise would 

have because the price was $18,500 rather than the $24,000 

originally suggested by Gaviria, or that he would have purchased less than the two kilos ultimately attributable to 

Williams. Most of the purchase was on credit. Even assuming Johnson had a fixed amount to spend (5 × $18,500 = 

$92,500), he still would have purchased nearly four kilos if the 

price had been $24,000/kilo.

4. Denial of Motion To Allow Witnesses and Evidence at 

Sentencing Hearing

Williams next challenges the district court's denial of his 

motion to call two FBI agents, three co-defendants, and an 

employee of the Pretrial Services Agency at his sentencing 

hearing. The court also prohibited him from introducing a 

videotape of David Johnson's and Ulysses Wilson's November 

16 drug buy and an audio tape of a November 16 phone 

conversation between Williams and Jocelyn Johnson.

According to the district court, Williams gave three principal reasons for his request: to impeach trial testimony; to 

show that he was not involved in the conspiracy for which he 

had been convicted; and to dispute the two kilograms for 

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which the presentence report held him responsible. The 

court reasonably rejected the first two justifications:

The function of the sentencing hearing is not to re-try 

issues which have been fully explored at trial. Here, 

three of the six witnesses which the defendant presently 

seeks to call ... previously testified at trial and were 

fully available to be cross-examined by the defendant. 

Moreover, the question of whether the defendant was 

"involved in the conspiracy" is a question that the jury 

explicitly answered when it found [the] defendant 

guilty....

As for the other witnesses the defendant requests, ... 

the defendant has not made even a minimal showing to 

this Court why their testimony is relevant to sentencing. 

The defendant's failure to offer proffers as to what these 

witnesses' testimony might be flies in the face of the 

Court's request ... to demonstrate why such testimony 

would be relevant. As for the videotape and tape recordings that defendant requests, these recordings are part 

of the trial record, and the Court is familiar with them. 

The defendant is free to call the Court's attention to 

specific portions of these recordings ... during oral 

allocution at sentencing.

Order, at 2-3 (9/6/95).

With respect to Williams's argument that he needed the 

testimony to challenge the attribution to him of two kilos of 

cocaine, the district court found Williams's request deficient 

in two respects: it failed to identify the portion of the drugs 

attributed to him that he wished to dispute; and it "failed to 

explain the nature of the witnesses' potential testimony, and 

why it is relevant to sentencing." Id. at 3. Although 

Williams now challenges one of the two kilograms of cocaine 

for which he was held responsible, he still has not explained 

the relevance of the witnesses or the tapes to that challenge. 

His brief simply refers to the defendant's bearing the burden 

of proof on mitigating factors at sentencing. The drug quantity that determines the base offense level, however, is not a 

"mitigating factor." See, e.g., United States v. Booze, 108 

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F.3d 378, 381 (D.C. Cir. 1997). In his reply brief, Williams 

makes a series of claims about how the excluded testimony 

(and a number of documents not requested in his motion) 

would have demonstrated his innocence. Williams also mentions the drug quantity issue, suggesting that testimony from 

the two FBI agents would have supported his contention that 

he should have been held responsible for only one kilo. 

Reply Brief of Appellant Williams, at 2 & n.3. One of the 

agents, however, testified at trial and was subject to crossexamination. As the Government pointed out in its opposition to Williams's motion, the other agent's role was limited to 

her presence at the November 16, 1993, cocaine purchase. 

Under these circumstances, the district court's conclusion 

that Williams had failed to explain how the agent's testimony 

was relevant to the question of drug quantity was perfectly 

reasonable. See FED. R. CRIM. P. 32(c)(1) (decisions about 

admission of evidence at sentencing hearings entrusted to 

district court's discretion).

5. Upward Adjustment for Managing or Supervising 

Criminal Activity

Equally reasonable was the district court's decision to add 

two points to Williams's offense level under U.S.S.G. 

§ 3B1.1(c) for being "an organizer, leader, manager, or supervisor" in a criminal activity. In applying this adjustment, the 

district court relied on two aspects of Williams's conduct: his 

service in linking together Naranjo and his confederates in 

the drug supply network, on the one hand, and David Johnson as a buyer and reseller, on the other; and his supervision 

of Johnson. At the sentencing hearing, the district court 

explained:

The Court recognizes that Mr. [Williams] was not the 

proponent originally of all this operation. He was 

brought in apparently by Mr. Naranjo to assist with 

further distributions of both heroin and cocaine and did 

so, introducing Mr. Johnson, and arranged through this 

introduction for the multiple heroin deals with Kiki and 

then attempted to arrange the cocaine deal.

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He organized or helped the organization of Mr. Naranjo in making the phone calls and trying to assist in the 

distribution of these drugs, as I've said, bringing Mr. 

Johnson and Mr. Wilson, whom he didn't know, when Mr. 

Johnson recruited Mr. Wilson to assist in the distribution 

of these drugs. He obviously played an integral role in 

linking the Naranjo people and their access to drugs with 

Mr. Johnson and his people to arrange for the distribution and resale of these drugs, both the heroin and the 

cocaine, and as such, I believe under 3B1.1(c), 2 points 

are appropriate to add, as he is a supervisor and director 

of Mr. Johnson in the other matters I referred to in the 

conspiracy.

Tr. 27-28 (9/13/95).

The district court did not clearly err in making these 

findings. See, e.g., United States v. Baylor, 97 F.3d 542, 548 

(D.C. Cir. 1996) (adjustments under § 3B1.1 reviewed for 

clear error). As the Government acknowledges, the district 

court's conclusion that Williams recruited Johnson to buy 

cocaine from the Naranjo group rests on an inference that 

Williams was the one who supplied Naranjo with Johnson's 

phone number. Brief for Appellee, at 169. We think this 

inference is reasonable, both in light of Williams's position

as Naranjo's cellmate and Johnson's de facto brother-in-law

and his earlier heroin transactions with Johnson, as well as 

his later involvement with Johnson in the cocaine transaction. 

Although Williams claims that Naranjo got Johnson's phone 

number from another inmate named "fat Sam," he gives no 

record citation for this claim, and the transcript excerpt in his 

brief does not bear it out. See Brief for Appellant Williams, 

at 21.

The district court's conclusion that Williams supervised or 

managed Johnson in his cocaine purchase likewise finds support in the record. Although Johnson did state on crossexamination that buying the full five kilos was his idea, 

Williams served as Johnson's financial advisor and, ultimately, as conveyor of the financial backing Johnson needed to 

consummate the deal.

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6. Upward Adjustment for Obstruction of Justice

Finding that Williams lied on the stand, the district court 

also added two points to his offense level for obstruction of 

justice under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1. Williams challenges this 

adjustment, claiming that he misunderstood the prosecutor's 

questions and that the evidence supporting the court's finding 

of perjury was insufficient. See, e.g., Washington, 106 F.3d 

at 1016-17 (adjustments under § 3C1.1 reviewed for clear 

error).

Drawing on the definition of perjury under the federal 

perjury statute, the Supreme Court has held that an enhancement under U.S.S.G. § 3C1.1 based on perjury must rest on a 

finding that the defendant gave "false testimony concerning a 

material matter with the willful intent to provide false testimony, rather than as a result of confusion, mistake, or faulty 

memory." United States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87, 94 (1993). 

The Court has also directed trial judges to "review the 

evidence and make independent findings necessary to establish a willful impediment to or obstruction of justice." Id. at 

95. Interpreting the instruction in section 3C1.1's first application notethat a defendant's testimony "should be evaluated in a light most favorable to the defendant," U.S.S.G. 

§ 3C1.1, cmt. n.1we have held that district courts' findings 

must rest on clear and convincing evidence, not a mere 

preponderance. See United States v. Montague, 40 F.3d 

1251, 1253-56 (D.C. Cir. 1994); see also United States v. 

Onumonu, 999 F.2d 43, 45 (2d Cir. 1993). We have also held 

that the closer the issue, the more detailed the district court's 

findings must be. Montague at 1256; see also United States 

v. Sobin, 56 F.3d 1423, 1429 (D.C. Cir.), cert. denied, 116 

S. Ct. 348 (1995).

This case was not particularly close, and the district court 

made sufficient findings to support the enhancement. In 

particular, the district court found that Williams lied when he 

denied any involvement in the conspiracy; when he claimed 

to have told Johnson not to deal drugs; and when he denied 

talking in code about drug deals with Johnson. The district 

court reached these conclusions because it credited Johnson's 

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testimony and because taped conversationsbetween 

Williams and Johnson on November 5, 1993, and between 

Johnson and Detective Gonzales on November 12, 1993

contradicted Williams's assertions. Williams argues that he 

initially denied using drug trafficking code because he misunderstood the prosecutor's question, claiming that he later 

acknowledged using "slang," not "code." Near the end of his 

testimony, however, Williams again denied that his conversations with Johnson, whether characterized as code or slang, 

concerned drug transactions.

We do agree with Williams that because the perjury supporting a section 3C1.1 enhancement must concern the offense of conviction, see United States v. Barry, 938 F.2d 1327, 

1332-35 (D.C. Cir. 1991), the district court should not have 

relied, even in part, on perjury concerning the heroin transactions Williams helped arrange between Johnson and "Kiki." 

However, because the district court identified in the record 

plenty of perjury directly related to the offense of conviction, 

this error, which the Government attempts to gloss over by 

treating the heroin and cocaine conspiracies as one and the 

same, was harmless.

7. Downward Adjustment for Minimal Role

Relying on the principle that adjustments under U.S.S.G. 

§ 3B1.2 should be based on "a defendant's culpability relative 

to that of his comrades," Washington, 106 F.3d at 1018; see 

also United States v. Caballero, 936 F.2d 1292, 1298-99 (D.C. 

Cir. 1991), Williams claims that he was entitled to a downward adjustment for being a minor or minimal participant 

because Ulysses Wilson received an adjustment for being a 

minor participant and Williams's own role was less significant 

than Wilson's. In support of his argument, Williams offers 

two pieces of evidence: that Wilson was held responsible for 

the entire five kilos he and David Johnson bought from 

Detective Gonzales, whereas Williams was held accountable 

for only two kilos; and that Wilson actually put up half the 

cash used for the purchase. Reasonably viewing these considerations as not dispositive, the district court focused instead on essentially the same factors it relied on in giving 

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Williams an upward adjustment for being a manager or 

supervisor: that Williams served as "a crucial link between 

the sellers and the buyers of [the] cocaine," Tr. 27 (9/13/95); 

that he supervised Johnson, who only brought Wilson in at 

the tail end of the conspiracy; and that he arranged for the 

purchase of most of the cocaine on credit, an arrangement 

worth much more than Wilson's small cash contribution. The 

district court's denial of the downward adjustment was not an 

abuse of discretion. See, e.g., Spriggs, 102 F.3d at 1263 

(refusals to grant downward adjustments under § 3B1.2 reviewed for abuse of discretion).

C. Forfeiture

For his final challenge, Williams argues that the record 

contains insufficient evidence to support his criminal forfeiture conviction, claiming he contributed none of the money 

David Johnson and Ulysses Wilson used to buy cocaine from 

Detective Gonzales. Acknowledging that the $44,409 subject 

to forfeiture represents the amount of money that other 

conspirators derived from or used in the cocaine trafficking 

conspiracy, the Government argues that Williams is subject to 

forfeit this amount because co-conspirators bear joint and 

several liability under the criminal forfeiture statute, 21 

U.S.C. § 853.

We have never considered the scope of liability under 21 

U.S.C. § 853. Although every circuit addressing the issue 

has approved joint and several liability, see United States v. 

Hurley, 63 F.3d 1, 22 (1st Cir. 1995) (collecting cases), cert. 

denied, 116 S. Ct. 1322 (1996), the question is not simple, as 

the First Circuit recently observed. Id. We need not decide 

the issue, however, because the Government concedes that 

the district court, contrary to FED. R. CRIM. P. 43(a), failed to 

announce the forfeiture portion of Williams's sentence in his 

presence. The Government requests that the court vacate 

the forfeiture count, however, rather than remand the proceedings, telling us that if we were to remand, it would simply 

seek dismissal of the charge rather than bear the expense of 

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bringing Williams back to court. Thus, we will simply vacate 

the forfeiture portion of Williams's sentence.

VI. APPELLANT NARANJO

Naranjo raises a number of objections to his conviction and 

to his sentence, none of them persuasive. He claims that the 

district court erred when it denied his request to present a 

defense of duress to the jury and when it admitted evidence 

of his involvement in heroin transactions. He also claims that 

the evidence showed multiple conspiracies rather than a 

single conspiracy. Finally, Naranjo complains that the conduct of the Government in this case was so outrageous that 

the court must reverse his conviction as a matter of due 

process. As to sentencing, Naranjo argues that the statutory 

provision under which he received a life sentence does not 

apply to a conspiracy conviction, and that the district court 

erred in determining the quantity of drugs attributable to him 

as a member of the conspiracy.

A. Duress

When Naranjo's wife was arrested in June 1992, Naranjo 

placed his teenaged daughter Carolina in Sanders's custody. 

She lived with Sanders until March 1993 when she moved to 

California and began living with her aunt, Naranjo's sister. 

According to Naranjo, Sanders, who had on three occasions 

struck Carolina when she did something that he considered 

disobedient, threatened Naranjo by reminding him that Carolina was "in his hands." Naranjo claims that he agreed to 

help Sanders obtain cocaine only because he feared that 

otherwise Sanders would harm the girl. After a three-day 

hearing the district court ruled that Naranjo's defense of 

duress was insufficient as a matter of law and refused to 

allow Naranjo to make the duress argument to the jury. We 

review this ruling de novo.

A defendant may assert duress as an affirmative defense 

only if he shows that he acted under the threat of immediate 

death or serious bodily injury. United States v. Bailey, 444 

U.S. 394, 409 (1980). In addition, he must show that he had 

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no reasonable legal alternative to committing the crime. 

United States v. Jenrette, 744 F.2d 817, 820-21 (D.C. Cir. 

1984) (Congressman who claims that he agreed to accept 

bribe only because he feared that he was dealing with mobsters may not raise duress defense because he had opportunity to notify law enforcement officials during two days between agreeing to take bribe and actually taking it). A 

defendant "cannot claim duress when he had, but passed up, 

an opportunity to seek the aid of law enforcement officials." 

United States v. Rawlings, 982 F.2d 590, 593 (D.C. Cir. 1993). 

Because Naranjo failed to show that he had no reasonable 

alternative but to engage in a drug conspiracy with Sanders, 

the district court properly rejected his defense of duress.

Naranjo's argument that he was not able to inform anybody of the threat to his daughter during the 13 months in 

which he participated, allegedly unwillingly, in the drug distribution conspiracy with Sanders borders upon the frivolous. 

Naranjo had ample opportunities to inform his daughter, his 

sister, his or his wife's lawyer, or prison officials about 

Sanders's alleged threat. His excuses for failing to take 

advantage of a single opportunity over the course of the 

conspiracy do not withstand scrutiny. First, Naranjo could 

have warned his sister or Carolina herself about the threat to 

her safety. Although Naranjo claims that he was concerned 

about upsetting his daughter, that is not a sufficient justification for continuing to participate in a major criminal conspiracy. Nor, when the principal of his daughter's school spoke to 

Naranjo about his concern for her well-being, did Naranjo 

inform the principal of the alleged threat to Carolina. Second, Naranjo could have told a prison guard or a more senior 

prison official of his dilemma. Naranjo claims that he could 

not have reported Sanders's threats to a prison guard because many of the guards were corrupt but he provides no 

concrete evidence in support of this assertion. He also claims 

that had he reported Sanders's threat to a prison official he 

would have been placed in protective custody, which Sanders 

would have interpreted as an indication that Naranjo had 

squealed. This speculation is belied by the record; on several occasions during the conspiracy Naranjo was placed in 

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isolation; he so informed Sanders yet Sanders never betrayed 

any concern that Naranjo might have informed prison officials of their scheme. Cf. United States v. Merchant, 992 

F.2d 1091, 1096-97 (10th Cir. 1993) (prisoner who agreed to 

help smuggle cocaine into prison and claimed that he did so 

only out of fear of fellow prisoners could not raise duress 

defense because he could have sought protective custody). 

Finally, Naranjo could have told somebody other than a 

family member or a prison employee about Sanders's alleged 

threats. Naranjo points out that (again, allegedly corrupt) 

prison employees monitored most of his calls, but he was free 

to make unmonitored calls to his lawyer and he actually did 

speak, unmonitored, to his wife's lawyer during the course of 

the conspiracy.

Naranjo claims that his case is analogous to that of the 

defendant in United States v. Contento-Pachon, 723 F.2d 691 

(9th Cir. 1984). In that case the defendant proffered that he 

agreed to transport cocaine from Colombia to the United 

States only because he was told that if he did not do so then 

his wife and child would be killed. The defendant testified 

that he did not inform authorities in Colombia of his plight 

because the Colombian police were corrupt. As soon as he 

reached the United States he consented to an x-ray that 

revealed the balloons of cocaine that he had swallowed. 

Under these circumstances, the court held that ContentoPachon could argue duress to the jury. Id. at 693-94. But 

that case does not help Naranjo. The conspiracy in this case 

lasted for 13 months, in contrast to the single flight at issue in 

Contento-Pachon. See United States v. Alicea, 837 F.2d 103 

(2d Cir. 1988) (defendant who had 20-minute period in which 

she was free to inform authorities about threat to her life 

precluded from raising duress defense); cf. United States v. 

Jennell, 749 F.2d 1302, 1306 (9th Cir.1984) (refusing to follow 

Contento-Pachon where conspiracy "dragged on for a 

period of more than a year"). In addition, Naranjo, unlike 

Contento-Pachon, had access to a number of prison officials, 

relatives, and lawyers, not simply to allegedly corrupt Colombian police officers.

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B. Evidence of the Heroin Conspiracy

David Johnson, a cooperating co-defendant, testified that in 

October 1993 Naranjo and his cellmate Williams helped Johnson and Ulysses Wilson purchase heroin on two separate 

occasions from Kiki in New York. Naranjo set up the deal by 

giving Johnson's telephone number to Kiki. Naranjo also 

urged Kiki to call Johnson and tell him that Kiki was a friend 

of Williams, who was related to Johnson. Johnson and 

Wilson made two separate purchases from Kiki. When they 

expressed their disappointment with the quality of the heroin 

in the second lot Naranjo offered to help resolve the dispute. 

The Government did not charge Naranjo with conspiracy to 

distribute heroin but the district court nevertheless allowed 

the Government to introduce evidence of the heroin transactions, holding that this evidence showed the relationships 

among the parties and was intrinsic to the cocaine conspiracy. 

We review the decision to admit the evidence only for an 

abuse of discretion. United States v. Graham, 83 F.3d 1466, 

1473 (D.C. Cir. 1996).

Evidence of an uncharged crime or bad act may be admitted if, as required by Federal Rule of Evidence 404(b), it is 

probative of a material issue other than the defendant's 

character, and if, as required by Federal Rule of Evidence 

403, that probative value is not substantially outweighed by 

the prejudicial value of the evidence. United States v. 

Clarke, 24 F.3d 257, 264 (D.C. Cir. 1994). Naranjo argues 

that the evidence of the heroin purchases was introduced 

solely in order to taint his character: the Government had 

already introduced evidence showing his relationship to the 

other defendants. The evidence of the heroin transaction did, 

however, link Naranjo to Johnson and Wilson, who purchased 

some of the cocaine supplied by Zambrano in Miami. In this 

way the evidence helped tie the Miami transaction to the 

resulting resale of the cocaine. In addition, by showing how 

the appellants used code words to discuss the purchase of 

heroin, the evidence shed light upon the defendants' use of 

code words in discussing the purchase of cocaine. Finally, 

the evidence tended to rebut Naranjo's defense that he got 

involved with and stayed involved with the cocaine conspiracy 

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only to benefit Sanders; Sanders played no role in the heroin 

deal.

The prejudicial value of the evidence of the heroin transactions is slight. Naranjo freely admitted in his testimony that 

he agreed with Gaviria to obtain cocaine for resale. After 

that concession, the incremental prejudice of evidence that he 

also assisted a heroin purchase was not likely to be substantial. In addition, the district court instructed the jury that 

the evidence could be considered for certain limited purposes 

only, viz., "whether it shows or tends to show the existence of 

a relationship between the defendants, and whether it shows 

or tends to show the defendants had a common scheme or 

plan which included the offenses for which they are now 

charged," and whether Naranjo was "predisposed to commit 

the offenses." Tr. 4974 (4/25/95); see United States v. Moore,

732 F.2d 983, 990 (D.C. Cir. 1984) (limiting instruction lessens 

potential prejudice of bad act evidence). The probative value 

of the evidence, on the other hand, was high because the 

heroin deal took place around the same time as the cocaine 

transactions and therefore tended to rebut Naranjo's entrapment argument. See United States v. Manner, 887 F.2d 317, 

321 (D.C. Cir. 1989) (closeness in time and similarity of other 

crime to charged crime underscores relevance of evidence); 

Moore, 732 F.2d at 987 (evidence of other crimes properly 

admitted in order to rebut entrapment defense). Accordingly, because the evidence was probative of material issues 

other than character, and because that probative value was 

not substantially outweighed by the prejudicial value of the 

evidence, the district court did not abuse its discretion in 

admitting the evidence.

C. Prejudicial Variance

In his initial brief Naranjo argues that there was insufficient evidence of a single conspiracy. "At best," he claims, 

"the evidence showed that Johnson, Wilson, and Williams 

were part of one conspiracy, that Gaviria and Zambrano were 

part of a second conspiracy, and [that Naranjo] and Gaviria 

were part of a third conspiracy." Brief for Appellant NaranUSCA Case #95-3124 Document #281624 Filed: 06/27/1997 Page 56 of 62
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jo, at 39. To the extent that we construe this claim as a 

simple argument about the sufficiency of the evidence, it is 

ludicrous, for Naranjo admitted to conspiring with Gaviria 

and Sanders. To the extent that we construe this claim as 

one of variance between the indictment (alleging a single 

conspiracy) and the evidence at trial, the argument is fatally 

flawed.

Naranjo shows neither error nor prejudice. In order to 

determine whether the evidence supports the jury's implicit 

finding of a single conspiracy the court looks at whether the 

defendants shared a common goal, any interdependence 

among the participants, and any overlap among the participants in the allegedly separate conspiracies. United States v. 

Gatling, 96 F.3d 1511, 1520 (D.C. Cir. 1996). The Government showed all three in this case. The goal of the conspiracy, as charged in the indictment and as proved at trial, was 

the distribution of cocaine. That the participants entered the 

distribution chain at different levels is of no moment. See 

United States v. Childress, 58 F.3d 693, 710 (D.C. Cir. 1995). 

Naranjo himself provides both the element of interdependence and the element of overlap; he oiled each cog of the 

conspiracy, helping to move the cocaine from Zambrano to 

Gaviria to Williams and Johnson.

Even assuming that there was a variance, Naranjo failed to 

show that he was substantially prejudiced by it. The risk of 

"spillover prejudice," which may occur when a jury imputes 

evidence from one conspiracy to a defendant involved in 

another conspiracy, is less likely the fewer the defendants. 

United States v. Anderson, 39 F.3d 331, 348 (D.C. Cir. 1994). 

Only four defendants were tried in this case. Cf. United 

States v. Alessi, 638 F.2d 466, 475 (2d Cir. 1980) (10 defendants a sufficiently small number for jury to give individual 

consideration to each defendant). In addition, the danger of 

spillover prejudice is minimal when the Government presents 

tape recordings of individual defendants, as it did in this case, 

so that the jury has "no need to look beyond each defendant's 

own words in order to convict." Anderson, 39 F.3d at 348. 

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cies, Naranjo would have to be deemed a member of each and 

could not, therefore, have been the victim of any spillover 

prejudice.

D. Outrageous Government Conduct

Finally, Naranjo argues that his conviction should be reversed because the Government's conduct of the case violated 

his rights under the Due Process Clause of the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. The Supreme 

Court has recognized that there may be situations "in which 

the conduct of law enforcement agents is so outrageous that 

due process principles would absolutely bar the government 

from invoking judicial processes to obtain a conviction." 

United States v. Russell, 411 U.S. 423, 431-32 (1973). But 

see Hampton v. United States, 425 U.S. 484, 495 n.7 (1976) 

(Powell, J. concurring) (especially difficult to prevail upon 

ground of outrageous governmental conduct in case involving 

contraband offenses because they are "so difficult to detect in 

the absence of undercover Government involvement"). While 

this court, therefore, cannot rule out the possibility of finding 

valid a defense of outrageous governmental conduct, but see 

United States v. Boyd, 55 F.3d 239, 241 (7th Cir. 1995) 

(outrageous governmental misconduct not independent 

ground for ordering new trial but may support inference that 

without such tactics defendant might have been acquitted); 

United States v. Tucker, 28 F.3d 1420, 1428 (6th Cir. 1994) 

(separation of powers principle compels court to reject outrageous conduct defense), we have limited the defense to conduct involving "coercion, violence, or brutality to the person," 

United States v. Walls, 70 F.3d 1323, 1330 (1995); see also 

United States v. Kelly, 707 F.2d 1460 (1983).

Naranjo does not come even close to meeting that standard. He complains that the Government should have cut off 

his telephone privileges so that he would have been unable to 

continue his participation in the conspiracy; but the Government has no duty to prevent a prisoner from committing 

more crimes. Sounding more like an outraged taxpayer than 

the drug-dealer that he is, Naranjo then complains that the 

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Government wasted money for the dubious purpose of luring 

a foreigner to the United States so that he could be incarcerated at public expense. How the executive branch spends (or 

wastes) taxpayer money is, however, not our concern. See 

Lincoln v. Vigil, 508 U.S. 182, 192 (1993) (allocation of funds 

from lump-sum appropriation not subject to judicial review).

Naranjo then argues that the failure of law enforcement 

officers to prevent Sanders from beating Naranjo's daughter 

constitutes outrageous conduct. The district court rejected 

Naranjo's contention that Sanders abused Naranjo's daughter, finding only that he disciplined her. Even assuming 

arguendo, however, that Sanders's behavior constituted 

"coercion, violence, or brutality to [Naranjo]," the Government's refusal to intervene does not constitute coercion, violence, or brutality to him. See DeShaney v. Winnebago 

County Dep't of Social Services, 489 U.S. 189 (1989) (State 

has no constitutional duty to protect child from his father 

after receiving reports of possible abuse).

E. Sentencing

Naranjo was convicted of violating 21 U.S.C. § 846, which 

provides that any person who conspires to commit a drug 

offense "shall be subject to the same penalties as those 

prescribed for the offense, the commission of which was the 

object of the ... conspiracy." Naranjo's underlying offenses 

were the distribution and the possession with intent to distribute five kilograms or more of cocaine, in violation of 21 

U.S.C. § 841. That statute provides, in part, that: "If any 

person commits a violation of this subparagraph or of sections 

849, 859, 860, or 861 of this title after two or more prior 

convictions for a felony drug offense have become final, such 

person shall be sentenced to a mandatory term of life imprisonment without release." 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A). Because 

Naranjo had (more than) twice previously been convicted of a 

felony drug offense the district court sentenced him to life 

imprisonment.

Naranjo argues that because section 841 does not expressly 

mention section 846, the Congress did not intend for the 

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mandatory life provision of section 841(b) to apply to a 

conviction for conspiracy under section 846. Naranjo seeks 

support for this position from our decision in United States v. 

Price, 990 F.2d 1367 (1993), but to no avail. In Price we 

invalidated the Sentencing Commission's inclusion of conspiracy within the meaning of a "controlled substance offense" for 

the purpose of the Commission's Career Offender Guidelines. 

We did so, however, only because the congressional mandate 

upon which the Sentencing Commission expressly relied, 28 

U.S.C. § 994(h), directed the Commission to establish guidelines for multiple offenders who had been convicted of an 

offense described in section 401 of the Controlled Substances 

Act, of which conspiracy is not one. Accordingly, there was 

no congressional authority for the Guideline insofar as it 

applied to a conspiracy conviction. Naranjo would have us 

read Price as somehow standing for the proposition that the 

Congress has determined "that conspiracy to commit an 

offense does not warrant as harsh treatment as the actual 

commission of the offense which is the object of the conspiracy." Brief for Appellant Naranjo, at 32. Specifically, he 

argues that because the Congress did not in 28 U.S.C. 

§ 994(h) expressly direct the Sentencing Commission to impose an enhanced penalty upon a repeat drug offender convicted of a drug conspiracy, it could not have meant to do so 

when it enacted 21 U.S.C. § 846. Naranjo provides no 

authority for this curious leap of logic. The law that Naranjo 

violated, section 846, clearly states that a violator shall be 

punished as provided by section 841. This is neither complicated nor contravened by the reasoning of Price, which holds 

only that the Sentencing Commission may not exceed the 

bounds set for it by the Congress. Accordingly, we join the 

Tenth Circuit, see United States v. O'Brien, 52 F.3d 277, 278-

79 (1995), and the Eighth Circuit, see United States v. Wessels, 12 F.3d 746, 752 (1993), in holding that the mandatory 

provision for a life sentence in 21 U.S.C. § 841(b)(1)(A) 

applies to a conviction for conspiracy.

F. Drug Quantity

Finally, Naranjo argues that there was insufficient evidence to sentence him for having distributed more than four 

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kilograms of cocaine. The district court made express findings that Naranjo was responsible for the five kilograms of 

cocaine that he ordered from Colombia at the beginning of 

the conspiracy and for the 15 kilograms of cocaine that were 

delivered to government agents in Miami. Naranjo argues 

that these findings are erroneous, asserting that he ordered 

four, not five, kilograms at the beginning of the conspiracy 

and that he should not be held responsible for the cocaine 

purchase in Miami. Because the mandatory life sentence 

provision of section 841(b)(1)(A) applies as long as at least five 

kilograms of cocaine are attributed to a defendant with two or 

more prior drug convictions, we need determine only that 

Naranjo was responsible for at least five kilograms. United 

States v. Saro, 24 F.3d 283, 285-86 (D.C. Cir. 1994) (where 

sentence would not be affected by disputed quantity, any 

error in attributing quantity to defendant is harmless). Naranjo did not timely object to the district court's decision to 

attribute 20 kilograms of cocaine to him, so we review that 

determination for plain error only. Id. at 286.

The district court attributed the 15 kilograms of cocaine 

distributed in Miami to Naranjo for two independent reasons. 

First, the amount was reasonably foreseeable. Second, Naranjo was responsible as an aider and abettor of the sale. 

Naranjo argues that the 15-kilogram purchase was not foreseeable because his only agreement with his co-conspirators 

was to import and resell four kilograms of cocaine. The 

evidence showed, however, that Naranjo and Sanders had 

previously been involved together in deals for much greater 

amounts of cocaine. In addition, Naranjo directed Sanders to 

send Gaviria to Miami in order to meet with Zambrano, whom 

Naranjo considered capable of producing a large amount of 

cocaine. Finally, Gaviria testified that while Naranjo was 

waiting for the initial shipment of cocaine to arrive, he tried 

to obtain other shipments from Colombia. Accordingly, because Naranjo had already ordered four or five kilograms, 

was aware of Zambrano's ability to produce a large quantity 

of drugs, and was attempting to place new orders, it was 

reasonably foreseeable that his co-conspirators would purchase as much as 15 kilograms.

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Nor did the district court clearly err in holding Naranjo 

responsible for the 15 kilograms as an aider and abettor. 

The elements of aiding and abetting an offense are (1) the 

specific intent to facilitate the commission of a crime by 

another; (2) guilty knowledge (3) that the other was committing an offense; and (4) assisting or participating in the 

commission of the offense. United States v. Washington, 106 

F.3d 983, 1004 (D.C. Cir. 1997). Much of the evidence 

showing that the 15-kilogram purchase was foreseeable also 

supports the conclusion that Naranjo aided and abetted that 

purchase. Naranjo vouched for Zambrano and helped to 

arrange the meeting between Gaviria and Zambrano. The 

court permissibly inferred Naranjo's guilty knowledge of the 

crime from conversations among Naranjo, Gaviria, and Zambrano while the deal was taking place and from testimony 

that a cut of the proceeds of the transaction was sent to 

Naranjo's sister with Naranjo's knowledge. Finally, by facilitating Gaviria's trip to Miami, Naranjo assisted the commission of the crime. Accordingly, the district court did not err 

in attributing more than five kilograms of cocaine to Naranjo.

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