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  [NOT FOR PUBLICATION - NOT TO BE CITED AS PRECEDENT]
 
                United States Court of Appeals
                     For the First Circuit
                      ____________________
                               
No. 98-1091
                               
                  UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
                               
                          Appellee,
                               
                              v.
                               
                   JORGE J. SOLANO-MORETA,
            a/k/a WES, a/k/a CABALLO, a/k/a PEDRO,
                               
                    Defendant, Appellant.
                               
                     ____________________
                               
                               
         APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
                               
               FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
                               
       [Hon. Salvador E. Casellas, U.S. District Judge]
                               
                     ____________________
                               
                            Before
                               
                   Torruella, Chief Judge,
Hall, Senior Circuit Judge,  
                   and Lynch, Circuit Judge.
                                
                      ____________________
                                
                                        Rafael Anglada-L¢pez for appellant.
        Miguel A. Pereira, Assistant U.S. Attorney, with whom
    Guillermo Gil, U.S. Attorney, was on brief, for appellee.     
       
                       ____________________
                                
                        December 1, 1998
  ____________________      
                                     �      LYNCH, Circuit Judge.  Jorge J. Solano-Moreta
    contends, among other things, that the district court erred in
    denying his requests to withdraw his guilty plea.  We affirm his
    conviction.
                                I
                                             On June 7, 1995, thirty-seven defendants, including
    Solano-Moreta, were indicted in connection with a violent drug
    conspiracy.  On May 29, 1996, the day that he was scheduled to
    go to trial, Solano-Moreta, the alleged leader of the
    organization, pled guilty to engaging in a continuing criminal
    enterprise in violation of 21 U.S.C. � 848(a) and (b) and to
    carrying firearms in relation to a drug trafficking crime in
    violation of 18 U.S.C. � 924(c)(1) and (2).
        Ultimately, only eight of the defendants went to
    trial.  On August 8, 1996, the jury convicted three of these
    defendants and acquitted five.
        Solano-Moreta filed a motion to withdraw his guilty
    plea in early December 1996, asserting that an agreement outside
    the bounds of the plea agreement had induced his plea and that
    his former counsel had not moved to challenge audiotapes or
    explained the plea agreement fully.  The court held evidentiary
    hearings on December 19 and December 27, 1996 and denied the
    motion on January 23, 1997.
        When Solano-Moreta appeared for sentencing, he again
    informed the court that he wished to withdraw his plea; with the
    assistance of new counsel, another motion to that effect was
    filed on May 21, 1997.  In addition to requesting
    reconsideration of the court's previous rulings, this motion
    added further claims of involuntariness, claimed that previous
    counsel had an unexplored conflict of interest, and asserted
    that the indictment was defective.  On December 10, 1997, after
    yet another evidentiary hearing, the motion was denied.
        Pursuant to the terms of a Federal Rule of Criminal
    Procedure 11(e)(1)(C) plea agreement, which the court accepted
    at sentencing, Solano-Moreta was sentenced to 540 months
    imprisonment.
                                II
                                             Solano-Moreta focuses his arguments on appeal on the
    district court's denial of his plea withdrawal motions.  In
    considering whether a defendant has made an affirmative showing
    of a "fair and just reason" for withdrawal of a guilty plea
    before sentencing, Fed. R. Crim. P. 32(e), the district court
    must consider all of the circumstances, focusing particularly on
    the plausibility of the reasons prompting the change of plea,
    the timing of the defendant's motion, the existence or
    nonexistence of an assertion of innocence, and whether the plea
    "appropriately may be characterized as involuntary, in derogation
    of the requirements imposed by Fed. R. Crim. P. 11, or otherwise
    legally suspect."  United States v. Sanchez-Barreto, 93 F.3d 17,
    23 (1st Cir. 1996), cert. denied, 117 S. Ct. 711 (1997); see
    also United States v. Pellerito, 878 F.2d 1535, 1537 (1st Cir.
    1989).  If these factors tilt in favor of the defendant, the
    court must also assess the prejudice to the government.  SeeUnited States v. Parrilla-Tirado, 22 F.3d 368, 371 (1st Cir.
    1994).
        A district court's ruling on such a motion is reviewed
    only for "demonstrable abuse of discretion."  Sanchez-Barreto, 93
    F.3d at 23.  In addition, "[t]he trial court's subsidiary
    factfinding in connection with plea-withdrawal motions can be
    set aside only for clear error."  Pellerito, 878 F.2d at 1538.
        As a preliminary matter, although Solano-Moreta makes
    numerous allegations that ineffective assistance by two of his
    three previous counsel prevented him from withdrawing his plea
    or from going to trial in the first instance, we decline to
    address the ineffective assistance claim on direct appeal.  The
    district court ruled on some of Solano-Moreta's specific claims
    of ineffectiveness and made factual findings relevant to the
    performance of counsel in the course of deciding the motions for
    withdrawal of the guilty pleas.  Nevertheless, we conclude after
    a careful review that the record on the various ineffective
    assistance claims is not fully developed.  (We note, as well,
    that Solano-Moreta has not aided matters by presenting several
    of his arguments on this topic to this Court in a cursory
    manner.)  Accordingly, we decline to address the ineffective
    assistance claims.  See United States v. Tuesta-Toro, 29 F.3d
    771, 776 (1st Cir. 1994) ("Ordinarily, a collateral proceeding
    . . . is the proper forum for fact-bound ineffective assistance
    claims.").
        Putting these claims aside, then, we find that the
    district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Solano-
    Moreta's motions to withdraw his guilty plea.  The court
    determined in two well-reasoned written opinions that all of the
    relevant factors weighed against permitting withdrawal.  The
    court found that Solano-Moreta's plea was fully voluntary and
    that his reasons for withdrawal were implausible.  The court
    specifically held that no outside agreement binding on the
    government existed (and that, even if Solano-Moreta's counsel
    told him otherwise, any reliance on those statements was not
    reasonable); that there was no support in the record for his
    claim that the indictment was defective; that he understood the
    plea agreement; and that there was no showing that his
    competence to plead was affected by prescription medication or
    any physical or psychological condition.  The court also found
    that Solano-Moreta's requests to counsel to move for withdrawal
    immediately after his guilty plea did not somehow cure his
    unreasonable delay in filing his motion, since, even if he
    "considered [moving for withdrawal] . . . prior to December 1996,
    it was always disregarded [as] he explored a more convenient
    path or legal strategy."  Finally, the court declined to credit
    any claim of innocence based on its observation that Solano-
    Moreta had perjured himself.
        Solano-Moreta repeats here many of the same arguments
    he advanced to the district court, but he provides no basis for
    this court to question the district court's factual findings or
    its weighing of the factors.  "Confronted with an attempt at
    plea retraction, the trial judge must make an idiocratic,
    particularistic, factbound assessment -- an assessment which is
    facilitated because the judge has overseen pretrial proceedings,
    conducted the Rule 11 inquiries, accepted the original guilty
    plea, and heard at first hand the reasons bearing on its
    withdrawal."  Pellerito, 878 F.2d at 1538.  Many of the findings
    at issue here are based on the district court's observation of
    the demeanor of the defendant and the credibility of various
    witnesses.  In this case, we will not second-guess these first-
    hand observations, especially since the district court's
    consideration of Solano-Moreta's claims was particularly careful
    and thorough.
        Finally, we also reject Solano-Moreta's challenge to
    the district court's acceptance of his plea agreement at
    sentencing.  "Before accepting a plea agreement that contains a
    specific sentence under Fed. R. Crim. P. 11(e)(1)(C), a
    sentencing court is required to satisfy itself either that: 
    'the agreed sentence is within the applicable guideline range;
    or (2) the agreed sentence departs from the applicable guideline
    range for justifiable reasons.'"  United States v. Carrozza, 4
    F.3d 70, 87 (1st Cir. 1993) (quoting U.S.S.G. � 6B1.2(c)). 
    Ignoring the second of the two options provided by � 6B1.2(c) of
    the guidelines, Solano-Moreta rests his challenge on the bare
    assertion that the stipulated sentence exceeded the guideline
    range set forth in the pre-sentence report.  Accordingly, he has
    made no showing that the district court erred in accepting the
    plea agreement and imposing the 540-month sentence that he
    acceded to when he signed it.  Nor has he made any showing that
    the court erred in refusing to "mitigat[e]" his sentence.
        We have considered all of defendant's arguments
    properly presented on direct appeal and find them without merit. 
    Defendant's conviction is affirmed.
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