Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca11-15-12578/USCOURTS-ca11-15-12578-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Johana Leon
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

[PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

________________________

No. 15-12578

________________________

D.C. Docket No. 1:13-cr-20063-DLG-3

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee,

versus

JOHANA LEON, 

 Defendant - Appellant.

________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Southern District of Florida

________________________

(November 16, 2016)

Before JORDAN, ROSENBAUM, and SILER,

* Circuit Judges.

JORDAN, Circuit Judge: 

 

* The Honorable Eugene E. Siler, United States Circuit Judge for the Sixth Circuit, sitting 

by designation.

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A grand jury indicted Johana Leon on one count of conspiracy to commit 

wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1349, four counts of money laundering, in 

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i), and three counts of attempting to cause a 

financial institution to not file a required currency transaction report (a CTR), in 

violation of 31 U.S.C. § 5324(a)(1) & (d)(2). Following trial, a jury found Ms. 

Leon guilty of the three § 5324(a)(1) charges but acquitted her of the conspiracy

and money laundering charges. The district court, varying downward from the 

advisory guideline range, sentenced Ms. Leon to a term of imprisonment of 12 

months and one day. 

At no time during trial did Ms. Leon challenge the government’s theory of 

prosecution or object to the jury instructions given by the district court on the § 

5324(a)(1) charges. Now, on appeal, Ms. Leon contends for the first time that the 

government and the district court constructively amended the indictment, allowing 

her to be tried and convicted of violating § 5324(a)(3), and not § 5324(a)(1). She 

further argues, on a theory also not presented to the district court, that the evidence 

was insufficient to sustain her convictions. Reviewing for plain error, see United 

States v. Holt, 777 F.3d 1234, 1261 (11th Cir. 2015), we reject Ms. Leon’s

constructive amendment claim. We also conclude, again under plain error review, 

see United States v. Joseph, 709 F.3d 1082, 1103 (11th Cir. 2013), that Ms. Leon’s 

§ 5324(a)(1) convictions were supported by sufficient evidence.

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I

Federal law allows the Secretary of the Treasury to require, by way of 

regulations, that domestic financial institutions file reports of certain transactions. 

See 31 U.S.C. § 3513(a). Under one such regulation, domestic financial 

institutions have a legal obligation to report, through the filing of a CTR, “a 

transaction in currency of more than $10,000.” 31 C.F.R. § 1010.311. Such a 

report “shall be filed by the financial institution within 15 days following the day 

on which the reportable transaction occurred.” 31 C.F.R. § 1010.306(a)(1).

A “financial institution includes all of its domestic branch offices . . . for 

purposes of the transactions in currency reporting requirements[.]” 31 C.F.R. § 

1010.313(a). The so-called “aggregation” rule provides that, in “the case of 

financial institutions other than casinos, for purposes of the transactions in 

currency reporting requirements . . . multiple currency transactions shall be treated 

as a single transaction if the financial institution has knowledge that they are by or 

on behalf of any person and result in either cash in or cash out totaling more than 

$10,000 during any one business day[.]” 31 C.F.R. § 1010.313(b). 

In relevant part, 31 U.S.C. § 5324(a) provides that “[n]o person shall, for the 

purpose of evading the reporting requirements of section[s] 5313(a) or 5325 or any 

regulation proscribed under any such section . . . (1) cause or attempt to cause a 

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domestic financial institution to fail to file a report required under section[s] 

5313(a) or 5325 or any regulation prescribed under any such section,” or “(3) 

structure or assist in structuring, or attempt to structure or assist in structuring, any 

transaction with one or more domestic financial institutions.” As noted, the grand 

jury charged Ms. Leon with three violations of § 5324(a)(1).

We have explained that § 5324(a)(1) was “aimed at efforts to prevent a 

required CTR from being filed,” while § 5324(a)(3) “was aimed at structuring

[transactions] to evade the CTR requirements.” United States v. Phipps, 81 F.3d 

1056, 1060 (11th Cir. 1996). And we have held that “§ 5324(a)(1) is violated only 

when an individual causes [or attempts to cause] a financial institution not to file a 

CTR that it had a legal duty to file.” Id. at 1062 (holding that evidence was 

insufficient as a matter of law to sustain a defendant’s convictions under § 

5324(a)(1) because, as only checks were deposited, the bank was never required to 

file a CTR). So a person violates § 5324(a)(1) if he arranges financial transactions 

in an attempt to prevent a financial institution from complying with its duty to file 

a CTR for those aggregated transactions. See id. at 1061. On the other hand, a 

person violates § 5324(a)(3) if she structures financial transactions to evade 

reporting requirements and those transactions, individually or collectively, do not 

trigger the institution’s obligation to file a CTR. See id. See also Courtney Linn, 

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Redefining the Bank Secrecy Act: Currency Reporting and the Crime of 

Structuring, 50 Santa Clara L. Rev. 407, 449-52 (2010). 

II

This case centers on Paradise Is Mine, a Florida corporation which purported 

to offer investment opportunities in a residential real estate development project in 

Rum Cay, located in the Bahamas. Ms. Leon served as the registered agent of 

Paradise and was one of its corporate officers. She had sole signatory authority 

over Paradise’s bank accounts. Lawrence Foster, Ms. Leon’s co-defendant, was 

Paradise’s president. 

According to the indictment, Mr. Foster, Ms. Leon, and Jordon McCarty (a 

third co-defendant) made fraudulent misrepresentations and promises to investors 

about the Rum Cay project (e.g., that Paradise was a successful real estate 

company with large land holdings, that Paradise had been featured in hundreds of 

international publications, that investors would receive above-market fixed rates of 

return, and that investors would get back their full principal investments after a 

certain period of time). Ms. Leon, the government claimed, withdrew investor 

funds for herself and her co-defendants from accounts controlled by Paradise. 

As pertinent here, the indictment alleged that Ms. Leon—knowingly, 

willfully, and for the purpose of avoiding federal reporting requirements—

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attempted to cause Bank of America not to file required CTRs concerning currency 

transactions exceeding $10,000, while violating another federal law and as part of 

a pattern of illegal activity involving more than $100,000 in a 12-month period. 

See § 5324(a)(1) & (d)(2). According to Count 12, on January 30, 2012, she made 

five cash withdrawals in the amounts of $9,500, $5,500, $1,430, $1,000, and $400. 

According to Count 13, on July 9, 2012, she made three cash withdrawals in the 

amounts of $6,000, $3,995, and $500. And according to Count 14, on September 

20, 2012, she made two cash withdrawals in the amounts of $9,846 and $300. As 

the indictment was pled, the government essentially charged that these 

withdrawals, when aggregated on a daily basis, see 31 C.F.R. § 1010.313(b), 

triggered Bank of America’s obligation to file CTRs, and that Ms. Leon made the 

withdrawals in amounts of less than $10,000 to try to cause Bank of America to 

not file CTRs. 

At trial, the government presented evidence that, pursuant to Treasury 

regulations, a financial institution is required to file a CTR when there is a cash 

transaction of over $10,000. See D.E. 456 at 841-42; D.E. 455 at 732-33. An FBI 

forensic accountant explained that the chart contained in Government Exhibit 815 

separated the cashed checks and withdrawals by date and, using Counts 13 and 14 

as examples, testified that the currency transactions on the dates in question were 

added together to exceed the $10,000 reporting threshold. See D.E. 457 at 1030-

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31, 1041-42, 1050-52. Both the government and Ms. Leon, in their opening 

statements and closing arguments to the jury, understood that Counts 12-14 were 

based on an “aggregation” theory, even though that word was not used in the 

indictment. See D.E. 526 at 15-19 (government’s opening statement); D.E. 526 at 

35, 38, 40 (Ms. Leon’s opening statement); D.E. 461 at 54-55 (government’s 

closing argument); D.E. 528 at 25 (Ms. Leon’s closing argument). 

With respect to Counts 12-14 themselves, the evidence at trial, viewed in the 

light most favorable to the verdict, see, e.g., United States v. Wilson, 788 F.3d 

1298, 1309 (11th Cir. 2015), allowed the jury to find that Ms. Leon, who was the 

only signatory on Paradise’s four corporate bank accounts, had engaged in the 

charged currency transactions at Bank of America in 2012. See, e.g., Gov’t Ex. 

815; Gov’t Ex. 815c; D.E. 457 at 1032-36, 1050-51; D.E. 456 at 923-24. The 

evidence also allowed the jury to find that Ms. Leon acted with the intent to evade 

the reporting requirements because she arranged each of the charged transactions 

to be below $10,000 in an attempt to cause Bank of America to not file required 

CTRs. In addition to the charged withdrawals, the government presented evidence 

that, in a separate transaction in March of 2011, Ms. Leon told a teller at JP 

Morgan Chase that she was trying to avoid the filing of a CTR and asked the teller 

to reverse a particular transaction so that she would receive less than $10,000 in 

cash. See D.E. 456 at 845-849, 855. An internal JP Morgan Chase form filled out 

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by that teller reported that Ms. Leon had “done this several times before and has 

had similar transaction[s].” See D.E. 456 at 849, 855 (referring to Gov’t Ex. 701). 

III

A constructive amendment to an indictment occurs when the theory or 

evidence presented by the government, see, e.g., Holt, 777 F.3d at 1261-62, or the 

jury instructions, see, e.g., United States v. Williams, 527 F.3d 1235, 1245-46 (11th

Cir. 2008), alter the “essential elements” of the offense contained in the indictment 

to broaden the possible bases for conviction beyond what is charged. A 

constructive amendment, when established, is reversible error if the claim has been 

preserved. See, e.g., Stirone v. United States, 361 U.S. 212, 215-19 (1960). 

Ms. Leon’s contention is that the government’s theory and evidence, as well 

as the district court’s jury instructions, constructively amended the indictment by 

allowing her to be convicted of violating § 5324(a)(3) instead of § 5324(a)(1). 

Because Ms. Leon did not raise her constructive amendment argument in the

district court, our review is for plain error. See Holt, 777 F.3d at 1261; United 

States v. Madden, 733 F.3d 1314, 1319-22 (11th Cir. 2013). That means that Ms. 

Leon must show that there was error, that the error was plain, and that the error 

affected her substantial rights. If she carries her burden, we may correct the error 

if it seriously affects the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial 

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proceedings. See Madden, 777 F.3d at 1319-22 (discussing and applying United 

States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 732 (1993), to a forfeited constructive amendment 

claim).

A

According to Ms. Leon, the offense of “structuring” is prohibited by § 

5423(a)(3) but not by § 5423(a)(1). Building on this premise, Ms. Leon argues that 

there was a constructive amendment—allowing her to be convicted of uncharged 

§5342(a)(3) offenses—because the government repeatedly used the term 

“structuring” when referring to Counts 12-14. We are not persuaded. Both parties 

used the term “structuring” at trial, and the use of that term did not constructively 

amend the indictment.

In its opening statement, the government twice referred to Ms. Leon’s 

conduct as “structuring,” telling the jury that cash was withdrawn in amounts of 

less than $10,000 in order to try to avoid Bank of America filing CTRs. See, e.g., 

D.E. 526 at 16 (“This is structuring. This is a design.”); id. at 19 (“Ms. Leon is 

guilty of structuring, of withdrawing $9,985, $9,875, arranging those transactions 

so that the banks don’t report it.”). But the government was not alone in the use of 

the term “structuring.”

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In her opening statement, Ms. Leon told the jury that she was Mr. Foster’s 

personal assistant, that she had been romantically involved with Mr. Foster, that 

Paradise was in her name because Mr. Foster told her he had bad credit following a 

divorce, that she did not profit from Paradise, and that she made withdrawals from 

Paradise’s accounts based on instructions she received from Mr. Foster. See, e.g., 

id. at 33 (“She went to the bank as instructed. She made deposits and withdrawals 

as instructed.”). Like the government, she referred several times to Counts 12-14

as “structuring charges.” See id. at 35 (“And that’s important because of those 

structuring charges the government talked to you about.”); id. at 37 (“Because in 

order to find Johana Leon guilty of what they say she did, each one of those 

charges, each one, the wire fraud the government talked to you about, the money 

laundering, the structuring, require her to have knowingly [ ] participat[ed] in a 

fraud and acting to further it.”); id. at 38 (“The same thing with the structuring 

counts: she didn’t write them [the checks].”); id. at 40 (“I think the most important 

thing, going back to the structuring counts . . . the handwriting is not hers.”).

In its Rule 29 argument, and in its closing argument, the government again 

referred to Counts 12-14 as “structuring.” See D.E. 461 at 22 (government’s Rule 

29 argument: “she structured those transactions”); id. at 55 (government’s closing 

argument: “And she’s charged with structuring, taking that money out in under 

$10,000.”). But so too did Ms. Leon. See D.E. 461 at 24 (Ms. Leon’s Rule 29 

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argument: “With regard to the structuring counts, I’ll focus particularly on Count 

15[sic] . . . . So there’s just no evidence to suggest that this charge was structured 

in a way to avoid a reporting requirement.”); D.E. 528 at 25 (Ms. Leon’s closing

argument: “The structuring counts are the other series of counts involving Ms. 

Leon, and there are three of them, and in order . . . to find that Ms. Leon was 

structuring, you have to find that she arranged these transactions, they were each 

less than $10,000, but when you agglomerate them, they’re more than $10,000.”).

It is true that the word “structure” is contained in § 5324(a)(3) and not in § 

5423(a)(1), and that courts sometimes refer to the offense set out in § 5324(a)(3) as 

“structuring.” See, e.g., United States v. Lang, 732 F.3d 1246, 1247-48 (11th Cir. 

2013). But we do not think that the parties’ joint use of the term “structuring” as 

shorthand for arranging the withdrawals in question—the conduct charged in 

Counts 12-14—constructively amended the indictment. 

The title of § 5324 is “Structuring to evade reporting requirements 

prohibited.” Given that subsection (a)(1) is a part of § 5324, generally 

characterizing the conduct charged in Counts 12-14 as “structuring,” while maybe 

a bit loose, see Phipps, 81 F.3d at 1060, is not reversible error. In fact, some courts 

and commentators have referred to both § 5324(a)(1) and § 5324(a)(3) as 

“structuring” offenses, leading us to conclude that the parties’ word choice did not 

result in a constructive amendment. See United States v. Abdelbary, 496 F. App’x 

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273, 276, 2012 WL 5352515, at *2 (4th Cir. Oct. 31, 2012) (“Federal law 

criminalizes two types of structuring. The first type, imperfect structuring, is 

prohibited by § 5423(a)(1) and proscribes conduct designed ‘to defeat the bank’s 

responsibility to report.’ The second type, perfect structuring, is prohibited by § 

5423(a)(3) and criminalizes conduct designed ‘to avoid triggering the bank’s duty 

to report.’”) (quoting United States v. Peterson, 607 F.3d 975, 980 (4th Cir. 2010)); 

Linn, Currency Reporting and the Crime of Structuring, 50 Santa Clara L. Rev. at 

451 (“‘Imperfect’ structuring, as defined under subsection 5324(a)(1), is similar [to 

subsection 5324(a)(3)] . . . [and] occurs when a [person] attempts to defeat a 

financial institution’s reporting or recordkeeping requirement in a transaction or 

series of transactions that nonetheless implicate that duty.”); Steven Mark Levy, 

Federal Money Laundering § 13.11[A] (CCH 2016) (“Conduct prohibited by 

Section 5324(a)(1)—that [is] designed to defeat the financial institution’s 

responsibility to report—is known as ‘imperfect structuring.’”). See also United 

States v. Tobon-Builes, 706 F.2d 1092, 1098 (11th Cir. 1983) (referring, in case 

decided prior to codification of § 5324(a)(1), to conduct similar to Ms. Leon’s as 

“structuring”). Finally, a Treasury regulation defining the terms “structure” and 

“structuring” contemplates that one can “structure” currency transactions by 

splitting up withdrawals or deposits that together exceed the reporting threshold at 

a single bank on a single day, and explains that “structuring” is not limited to that 

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scenario. See 31 C.F.R. § 1010.100(xx) (“The transaction or transactions need not 

exceed the $10,000 reporting threshold at any single financial institution on any 

single day in order to constitute structuring within the meaning of this definition.”). 

B

We turn next to the district court’s jury instructions for Counts 12-14, which 

form the second ground for Ms. Leon’s constructive amendment claim. The 

instructions were as follows: 

. . . Counts 12 through 14 allege that defendant Johana Leon 

attempted to cause a financial institution to not file a report required 

by law. 

I will explain the law governing those substantive offenses in a 

moment . . . . 

It’s a federal crime under certain circumstances for anyone to 

knowingly evade a currency transaction reporting requirement.

Domestic financial institutions and banks (with specific 

exceptions) must file currency transaction reports, that’s a Form 4789, 

with the government. They must list all deposits, withdrawals, 

transfers, or payments involving more than $10,000 in cash or 

currency.

The defendant can be found guilty of this crime only if all the 

following facts are proved beyond a reasonable doubt:

(1) the defendant knowingly attempted to structure the 

transactions to cause a domestic financial institution to fail to file a 

report;

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(2) the purpose of the transaction was to evade the transaction

reporting requirements;

(3) the transactions involved one or more domestic financial 

institutions; and 

(4) the currency transaction with the domestic financial 

institutions furthered another federal crime as part of a pattern of 

illegal activity involving more than $100,000 in a 12-month period.

To “structure” a transaction means to deposit, withdraw, or 

otherwise participate in transferring a total of more than $10,000 in 

cash or currency using a financial institution or bank by intentionally 

setting up or arranging a series of separate transactions, each one 

involving less than $10,000, in order to evade the currency reporting 

requirement that would have applied if fewer transactions had been 

made. 

D.E. 528 at 40, 46-47. Ms. Leon did not object to these instructions at the charge 

conference. See D.E. 527 at 5. 

In support of her constructive amendment claim, Ms. Leon argues that the

instructions for the § 5324(a)(1) charges were the Eleventh Circuit “pattern 

instruction[s] for § 5324(a)(3)[.]” Br. of Appellant at 48. But that is not 

completely accurate. The instructions given by the district court were actually a 

modified version of the pattern instructions for § 5324(a)(3). The two substantive 

modifications from the pattern instructions were that element (1) was changed to 

reflect that Ms. Leon was charged with knowingly attempting to cause a financial 

institution to not file a CTR, and that the word “structured” was removed from 

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element (3). Compare Eleventh Cir. Pattern Jury Inst., Offense Inst. No. 112

(West 2010).1

 

Nevertheless, the instructions given by the district court were not perfect. 

They did not mention the Treasury’s “aggregation” regulation, under which the 

government was proceeding, and which provides that multiple currency 

transactions on the same day are treated a single transaction for CTR purposes if 

“the financial institution has knowledge that they are by or on behalf of any person 

and result, in either cash in or cash out totaling more than $10,000 during any one 

business day[.]” 31 C.F.R. § 1010.313(b). And the instructions could have been 

more clear that, as required by Phipps, 81 F.3d at 1062, a person cannot be 

convicted of violating § 5324(a)(1) unless the financial institution’s obligation to 

file a CTR has been triggered (through, for example, the application of the 

“aggregation” regulation). But these deficiencies did not, under plain error 

analysis, amount to a constructive amendment of the indictment. 

First, the instructions set out a number of elements consistent with the 

language of § 5324(a)(1). Those were that a person has to act with a purpose to 

evade the reporting requirements (the language in (a) preceding (1)), and that a 

 

1 The Eleventh Circuit does not have a pattern jury instruction for a § 5324(a)(1) offense. 

Nor, apparently, do any of our sister circuits. Given the issues raised in this case, it might be a 

good idea to create such a pattern jury instruction.

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person has to attempt to cause a financial institution to fail to file a report required 

by law (the language in (1)). 

Second, the use of the word “structure” in the instructions was prejudicial to 

Ms. Leon only if the jury also knew that there was a separate provision—i.e., § 

5324(a)(3)—that prohibited “structuring” in circumstances where the financial 

institution’s duty to report was not triggered. The jury did not know that, so there 

is no indication that the word “structure” was understood as anything other than 

“arrange.” That is certainly the way the parties understood the instructions during 

their closing arguments. See, e.g., D.E. 528 at 25 (Ms. Leon’s closing argument: 

“The structuring counts are the other series of counts involving Ms. Leon, and in 

order . . . to find that Ms. Leon was structuring, you have to find that she arranged

these transactions, they were each less than $10,000, but when you agglomerate 

them, they’re more than $10,000.”) (emphasis added). 

Third, although the Treasury’s “aggregation” regulation explains when and 

how a financial institution’s obligation to file a CTR is triggered through multiple 

daily transactions that are each individually below the reporting threshold, it is not 

clear that “aggregation” is, in and of itself, a distinct element of an “attempt to 

cause” charge under § 5324(a)(1). We have not issued any binding (or, for that 

matter, non-binding) decisions to that effect. The same goes for the financial 

institution’s knowledge that the separate transactions are by or on behalf of the 

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same person. We have never held, in a published or non-published opinion, that 

the financial institution’s knowledge, which allows for aggregation, is an element 

of a § 5324(a)(1) “attempt to cause” offense. And, as far as we can tell, nor has 

any other court. In this circuit, “[a] district court’s error is not ‘plain’ or ‘obvious’ 

if there is no precedent directly resolving the issue.” United States v. Magluta, 198 

F.3d 1265, 1280 (11th Cir. 1999).2

 

Fourth, even if we assume without deciding that the financial institution’s 

knowledge (which permits “aggregation” of separate transactions under the 

Treasury regulation) is an element of a § 5324(a)(1) offense, then the most that we 

are presented with are jury instructions that omitted an element of the crimes 

charged in Counts 12-14. Such a claim would also be reviewed for plain error 

because it was not asserted in the district court. See Johnson v. United States, 520 

U.S. 461, 466-70 (1997) (applying plain error review to forfeited claim that jury 

instructions omitted an element of the offense). But Ms. Leon’s claim is not that 

the instructions were missing a required element. It is, instead, a very different 

claim—that the instructions constructively amended the indictment and allowed 

 

2 Another problem for Ms. Leon in meeting the plain error standard is that we have also 

never said anything about the temporal nature of a financial institution’s knowledge. Assuming 

that such knowledge is an element of an “attempt to cause” charge under § 5324(a)(1), is the 

institution required to have knowledge on the date of the multiple transactions in question? Can 

it acquire the knowledge at any time before the CTR is due 15 days later? Or can it acquire the 

requisite knowledge any time before trial even though the 15-day period has expired? We leave 

these issues for another day. 

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her to be convicted of a non-charged offense. And we do not think that happened 

here. 

IV

Ms. Leon argues that there was no evidence “whatsoever” that she attempted 

to cause Bank of America to not file any CTRs, see Br. for Appellant at 53, but 

that one-sentence argument in her brief is devoid of any discussion of the record 

and fails to cite any cases or authorities. Her main assertion, as gleaned from the 

other parts of her brief, seems to be that the government failed to put on evidence 

that her transactions triggered Bank of America’s obligation to file CTRs on the 

dates in question. 

Normally we exercise plenary review over sufficiency challenges, see 

generally Jackson v. Virginia, 443 U.S. 307, 319 (1979), but Ms. Leon did not 

make this particular aggregation argument when she moved for a Rule 29 

judgment of acquittal in the district court, see D.E. 461 at 24-25, so we review for 

plain error. See Joseph, 709 F.3d 1103. Based on our independent review of the 

trial record, which we have summarized above, Ms. Leon has not met the plain 

error standard with respect to her sufficiency claim. 

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V

Under plain error review, the indictment as to Counts 12-14 was not 

constructively amended and the evidence was sufficient to support Ms. Leon’s 

convictions.

AFFIRMED.

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