Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca10-14-02208/USCOURTS-ca10-14-02208-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Hai Gan
Appellant
United States of America
Appellee

Document Text:

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

TENTH CIRCUIT 

_________________________________ 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 

 Plaintiff - Appellee, 

v. 

HAI GAN, 

 Defendant - Appellant. 

No. 14-2208 

(D.C. No. 2:11-CR-02282-RB-1) 

(D.N.M.) 

_________________________________ 

ORDER AND JUDGMENT*

_________________________________ 

Before GORSUCH, McKAY, and BACHARACH, Circuit Judges. 

_________________________________ 

Apparently New Mexico’s Motor Vehicle Division (“MVD”) will issue 

driver’s licenses to illegal immigrants so long as they appear in person with some 

form of identification and two documents suggesting their residency in the state (the 

usual lease agreement, utility bill, bank statement, or the like). Knowing this much, 

Hai Gan devised a scheme to profit from it. In exchange for cash he offered to 

provide false residency documents to illegal aliens living in other states and help 

them navigate the logistics of applying for a license with the MVD. Mr. Gan 

 *

 After examining the briefs and appellate record, this panel has determined 

unanimously that oral argument would not materially assist in the determination of 

this appeal. See Fed. R. App. P. 34(a)(2); 10th Cir. R. 34.1(G). The case is therefore 

ordered submitted without oral argument. This order and judgment is not binding 

precedent, except under the doctrines of law of the case, res judicata, and collateral 

estoppel. It may be cited, however, for its persuasive value consistent with 

Fed. R. App. P. 32.1 and 10th Cir. R. 32.1. 

FILED 

United States Court of Appeals

Tenth Circuit 

February 23, 2016

Elisabeth A. Shumaker 

Clerk of Court

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solicited clients through advertisements in Chinese-language newspapers — and soon 

enough his business took off. Between 2009 and 2011, he charged dozens of illegal 

aliens up to $3,000 each to list one of his three New Mexico rental properties as their 

own. Neither did Mr. Gan’s services stop there. He also fabricated backdated lease 

agreements and encouraged his clients to sign up for renters insurance or utilities 

accounts so they could obtain the paperwork MVD required. And to round out his 

services, Mr. Gan scheduled his clients’ appointments with the MVD, shuttled them 

to and from the airport, driving school, and MVD offices, and forwarded the final 

licenses after they arrived in the mail. 

Mr. Gan’s business came to an abrupt end on May 11, 2011. That day he 

entered a border patrol checkpoint in Las Cruces after picking up two clients at 

separate MVD offices. When questioned by border patrol agents, Mr. Gan’s clients 

admitted that they were not U.S. citizens and that they didn’t have any immigration 

documentation. Soon enough, too, Mr. Gan waived his Miranda rights and gave the 

agents a detailed account of his driver’s license scheme. 

Eventually a jury convicted Mr. Gan of fifty-one counts of transferring false 

identification documents, eight counts of transporting illegal aliens, three counts of 

money laundering, and two counts of witness tampering. Sentenced to forty-one 

months in prison and facing deportation after that, Mr. Gan now appeals his 

conviction. Proceeding pro se, he raises what appears to be nineteen separate 

arguments, challenging everything from the constitutionality of his arrest to the 

legality of the jury’s instructions. 

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We discern nothing of merit here. To start and though we are mindful of our 

duty to construe Mr. Gan’s pleadings liberally, his opening brief offers no 

meaningful discussion of the issues he styles nine and fourteen through nineteen. We 

simply do not have enough to permit us to pass on these issues intelligently and so 

deem them waived. See Bronson v. Swensen, 500 F.3d 1099, 1104 (10th Cir. 2007) 

(“[W]e routinely have declined to consider arguments that are not raised, or are 

inadequately presented, in an appellant’s opening brief.”); Blackfeather v. Wheeler, 

623 F. App’x 907, 909-10 (10th Cir. 2015) (applying the same rule to a pro se 

litigant). Another eleven of Mr. Gan’s arguments — those he styles issues one 

through five, seven, eight, and ten through thirteen — were not raised before the 

district court, so we may review them only for plain error. And nothing in his 

briefing, however generously construed, leads us to believe there is any error, let 

alone plain error, to be found among these arguments. See generally United States v. 

Chavez-Marquez, 66 F.3d 259, 261 (10th Cir. 1995). 

That leaves one matter Mr. Gan preserved and fairly presented on appeal — 

his claim that the government presented insufficient evidence at trial to convict him 

of transferring false identification documents (or aiding and abetting their transfer) in 

violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1028(a)(2). In assessing a challenge to the sufficiency of the 

evidence we must of course view that evidence in the light most favorable to the 

jury’s verdict. United States v. Camick, 796 F.3d 1206, 1213-14 (10th Cir. 2015). 

And in that light there is plenty of evidence to sustain the verdict in this case. 

Twelve federal agents testified at Mr. Gan’s trial, as did one agent from New 

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Mexico’s tax fraud investigations division and nine of Mr. Gan’s former clients. 

Together they painted a vivid picture of Mr. Gan’s scheme to transfer false driver’s 

licenses, from his newspaper advertisements to his confession to border patrol agents, 

from his client spreadsheets to MVD driver’s license printouts largely matching those 

spreadsheets. Under these circumstances, we have no trouble concluding that a 

reasonable jury could have convicted Mr. Gan of violating and aiding and abetting 

the violation of § 1028. See, e.g., United States v. Haeng Hwa Lee, 602 F.3d 974, 

975-76 (9th Cir. 2010); United States v. Rashwan, 328 F.3d 160, 165 (4th Cir. 2003). 

Mr. Gan’s motion to supplement the record on appeal is denied and the 

judgment of the district court is affirmed. 

ENTERED FOR THE COURT 

Neil M. Gorsuch 

Circuit Judge 

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