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Parties Involved:
Eugenio Cerda
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FIFTH CIRCUIT

No. 18-41009

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee

v.

EUGENIO CERDA, 

 Defendant - Appellant

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of Texas

USDC No. 1:18-CR-5-1

Before KING, JONES, and COSTA, Circuit Judges.

PER CURIAM:*

The defendant in this case argues that the district court failed to 

establish an adequate factual basis for his guilty plea. Because he does not 

claim that the purported error affected his decision to plead guilty, we affirm.

I.

Defendant–appellant Eugenio Cerda pleaded guilty to: (1) conspiring to 

possess 400 grams of fentanyl with the intent to distribute, in violation of 21 

* Pursuant to 5TH CIR. R. 47.5, the court has determined that this opinion should not 

be published and is not precedent except under the limited circumstances set forth in 5TH 

CIR. R. 47.5.4.

United States Court of Appeals

Fifth Circuit

FILED

March 6, 2020

Lyle W. Cayce

Clerk

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U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1), 846, and (2) money-laundering conspiracy, in violation of 

18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i), (h). Before the change-of-plea hearing, Cerda and 

the government filed a statement of stipulated facts, and Cerda testified at the 

hearing that he had read and agreed with the contents of that statement. 

According to the statement, Cerda had couriers travel from Texas to “Louisiana 

and elsewhere” to collect proceeds of drug sales for him. Those proceeds would 

then be “forwarded . . . to Mexico” by Cerda’s codefendant David PantojaOrozco, whom the statement describes as a “distributor and money launderer.” 

Per his plea agreement, the district court sentenced Cerda to concurrent terms

of 210 months’ imprisonment on each of the two counts of conviction, to be 

followed by five years’ supervised release on the drug count and three years’ 

supervised release, to run concurrently, on the money-laundering count. Cerda 

timely appealed.1

II.

“Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 11(b)(3) requires courts to ‘make 

certain that the factual conduct admitted by the defendant is sufficient as a 

matter of law to establish a violation of the statute to which he entered his 

plea.’” United States v. Barton, 879 F.3d 595, 599 (5th Cir. 2018) (quoting 

United States v. Trejo, 610 F.3d 308, 313 (5th Cir. 2010)). Cerda appeals his 

conviction on this basis, but only as to the money-laundering count. The 

relevant statute provides that it is unlawful to “conduct[] or attempt[] to 

conduct” a “financial transaction” involving the proceeds of certain “specified 

unlawful activit[ies]”2 while knowing both “that the property involved . . . 

represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity” and “that the 

1 Although Cerda waived his right to appeal his conviction and sentence, the 

government concedes that the waiver does not bar this appeal. See, e.g., United States v. 

Nepal, 894 F.3d 204, 208 n.3 (5th Cir. 2018), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 831 (2019).

2 Specified unlawful activities include dealing in controlled substances. See 18 U.S.C. 

§§ 1956(c)(7)(A), 1961(1)(D); United States v. Fuller, 974 F.2d 1474, 1478 (5th Cir. 1992).

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transaction is designed in whole or in part . . . to conceal or disguise the nature, 

the location, the source, the ownership, or the control of the proceeds.”

§ 1956(a)(1). Cerda asserts that the stipulated facts did not establish his guilt 

under this statute because they said nothing about a design to conceal or 

disguise the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of the drug 

proceeds. 

“Because he raises this argument for the first time on appeal,” Cerda 

“must demonstrate plain error.” Barton, 879 F.3d at 598. That is, he must show 

“that a clear and obvious error affected his substantial rights.” United States 

v. Nepal, 894 F.3d 204, 208 (5th Cir. 2018), cert. denied, 139 S. Ct. 831 (2019).

If he makes such a showing, we will correct the error if it “seriously affects the 

fairness, integrity or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id. at 208-09 

(quoting Rosales-Mireles v. United States, 138 S. Ct. 1897, 1906 (2018)). Our 

review encompasses all the facts available to the district court and 

“[r]easonably drawn inferences from those facts.” Barton, 879 F.3d at 599.

III.

A.

“An error is plain, in this context, if it is ‘clear or obvious’ what the 

government must prove to establish the offense, and, notwithstanding that 

clarity, the district court accepts a defendant’s guilty plea without an adequate 

factual basis.” United States v. Alvarado-Casas, 715 F.3d 945, 951 (5th Cir. 

2013). It is clear that:

To obtain a conviction under § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i), the government 

must prove that [the defendant]: (1) conducted or attempted to 

conduct a financial transaction, (2) which he knew involved the 

proceeds of unlawful activity, (3) with the intent either to conceal 

or disguise the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of the 

proceeds of unlawful activity.

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United States v. Pipkin, 114 F.3d 528, 533-34 (5th Cir. 1997) (footnote omitted).

The third element may be proven by showing that “the transaction is part of a 

larger scheme designed to conceal illegal proceeds.” United States v. Ismoila, 

100 F.3d 380, 390 (5th Cir. 1996).

Cerda admitted that he had couriers “travel across state lines to 

Louisiana and elsewhere to collect currency from customers and return it to 

[him]” and that Pantoja-Orozco “then forwarded the narcotics proceeds to 

Mexico.” And Cerda admitted that Pantoja-Orozco was a “distributor and 

money launderer.” From these facts, the government argues that the district 

court could have inferred that Cerda gave Pantoja-Orozco the drug proceeds

and that he did so, at least in part, in order to launder them. By contrast, Cerda 

argues that “[n]o evidence was before the District Court to establish that any 

of the drug conspirators had a plan or scheme to launder money.” 

B.

We need not decide whether the district court committed a clear or 

obvious error, because Cerda fails to demonstrate that any error prejudiced 

him. Prejudice, in this context, would be “a reasonable probability that but for 

the error, he would not have pleaded guilty.” Alvarado-Casas, 715 F.3d at 951.

Cerda makes no argument to this effect.

Indeed, there is reason to believe that Cerda was not prejudiced. Because 

Cerda had two prior felony drug convictions, at trial the government would 

have sought a mandatory life sentence under the drug count alone. See

§ 841(b)(1)(A)(vi) (2017).3 And he faced up to twenty years in prison under the 

money-laundering charge. See § 1956(a)(1). By pleading guilty to both counts, 

3 This statute has since been amended. See First Step Act of 2018, Pub. L. No. 115-

391, § 401(a)(1)(ii), 132 Stat. 5194, 5220. Under the current version of the statute, Cerda 

would have faced a minimum sentence of twenty-five years in prison. See § 841(b)(1) (2018).

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Cerda secured a total sentence of 210 months’ imprisonment.4 In light of the 

substantial evidence of a drug conspiracy that the government had compiled—

including repeated seizures and controlled purchases of several kilograms of 

cocaine and fentanyl, as well as wiretapped phone calls between Cerda and his 

codefendants—it is understandable that Cerda does not assert that he would 

have rather proceeded to trial. But because he does not, there is no relief for 

us to provide. See United States v. London, 568 F.3d 553, 560 (5th Cir. 2009).

IV.

For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is 

AFFIRMED.

4 Under Cerda’s plea agreement, if the district court had not agreed to sentence Cerda 

to 210 months’ imprisonment, Cerda would have been given the opportunity to withdraw his

plea. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(c)(1)(C).

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