UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 09-4611

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v.

EDUARDO PUENTES, a/k/a Carlos, a/k/a The Columbian,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of 

Maryland, at Greenbelt. Alexander Williams, Jr., District 

Judge. (8:08-cr-00043-AW-6)

Argued: January 26, 2011 Decided: March 1, 2011

Before MOTZ, KING, and GREGORY, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

ARGUED: Marc Gregory Hall, HALL & CHO, PC, Rockville, Maryland, 

for Appellant. Christen Anne Sproule, OFFICE OF THE UNITED 

STATES ATTORNEY, Greenbelt, Maryland, for Appellee. ON BRIEF:

Rod J. Rosenstein, United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, 

for Appellee.

Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit.
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PER CURIAM:

A jury convicted Eduardo Puentes of conspiracy to violate 

the Mann Act for his role in a prostitution ring based in Prince 

Georges County, Maryland. The district court sentenced Puentes 

to 41 months in prison followed by three years of supervised 

release. Puentes appeals, challenging his conviction and 

sentence. We affirm.

I.

At a seven-day jury trial, the Government introduced 

evidence that Puentes conspired with others, including Aida 

Pereira, to transport at least one hundred women from out of 

state to Maryland for the purpose of employing them as 

prostitutes, in violation of the Mann Act, 18 U.S.C. § 371. The 

Government offered evidence of extensive phone records and 

transcripts from wiretapped phone conversations between the coconspirators, as well as two handguns found in the home of

Pereira, the leader of the conspiracy. Puentes testified on his 

own behalf, asserting his innocence.

At the conclusion of the trial, the district court gave the 

jury a willful blindness instruction. The jury returned a 

verdict finding Puentes guilty of the charged offense. In

sentencing Puentes, the district court applied a two-level 

sentencing enhancement based on his false testimony at trial and 
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sentenced him to 41 months imprisonment, followed by three years

supervised release. Puentes noted a timely appeal, asserting 

three arguments.

II.

First, Puentes contends that the district court erred in 

admitting evidence of the two handguns. Puentes moved in limine 

to bar the admission of the handguns, which were found pursuant 

to a search of Pereira’s home. Puentes contended that the guns

lacked relevance and that their prejudice outweighed their 

probative value. Specifically, he maintained that the guns were 

neither directly connected to him nor recovered from properties 

related to him, and that the court should therefore prohibit 

their admission at his trial. The Government countered that the 

handguns were relevant to and probative of the conspiracy charge 

because evidence showed that the guns were a tool in furtherance 

of the conspiracy. The Government proffered eyewitness

testimony that Puentes played a security role in defending the 

brothels from robbery and that a recorded call revealed Puentes 

referring to Pereira’s guns as “toys” and discussing their 

whereabouts. The court admitted the handguns, determining that 

they were relevant and that their prejudicial effect did not 

outweigh their probative value.
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A trial court possesses broad discretion in ruling on the 

admissibility of evidence, and we will not overturn an 

evidentiary ruling absent an abuse of discretion. See United 

States v. Hedgepeth, 418 F.3d 411, 418-19 (4th Cir. 2005). We 

need not reach the issues of relevance and prejudice, however, 

when the admission of the evidence in question is harmless. See

United States v. Weaver, 282 F.3d 302, 313 (4th Cir. 2002) (“To 

properly answer the question before us, we need not discuss the 

merits of [the defendant’s] claims [about relevance and 

prejudice] because the admission of the evidence was 

harmless.”). We have frequently declined to decide whether 

evidence was properly admitted because its admission would be

“nonetheless harmless.” Hedgepeth, 418 F.3d at 421. This is 

such a case.

In determining whether the admission of evidence was 

harmless, we inquire whether it “is probable that the error 

could have affected the verdict reached by the particular jury 

in the particular circumstances of the trial.” United States v. 

Simpson, 910 F.2d 154, 158 (4th Cir. 1990) (internal quotations 

omitted). In this case, three former prostitutes testified that 

Puentes worked with or otherwise assisted Pereira, whom they 

identified as the head of the prostitution ring. Two of them 

identified Puentes in court; one testified that Puentes

delivered condoms and did accounting work for the prostitution 
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business. Testimony and wiretap transcripts also demonstrated

that Puentes rented the apartments that functioned as brothels; 

transported women who were working as prostitutes; served as a 

“lookout” to protect the brothels from robbery; purchased and 

insured three 15-passenger vans used to transport prostitutes 

between New York and New Jersey, where they lived, and Maryland, 

where they worked as prostitutes; purchased a car that Pereira 

used to “transport herself” and “pick up the women”; delivered 

condoms; and spoke about working with Pereira’s prostitution 

ring in order to “pay off his debts.” Wiretap evidence further

revealed that Puentes was in regular contact with Pereira and 

the other co-conspirators throughout the period of the 

conspiracy.

In short, the Government presented a very strong case 

establishing Puentes’s guilt. The handgun evidence “was 

harmless in light of the overwhelming evidence against” Puentes. 

Weaver, 282 F.3d at 314.

III.

Puentes also maintains that the district court erred in its 

jury instruction. Over his objection, the court gave the jury 

the following willful blindness instruction:

You may infer that the defendant acted knowingly from 

circumstantial evidence or from proof that a defendant 

deliberately closed his eyes to what would otherwise 
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have been obvious to him. Stated another way, a 

defendant’s knowledge of a fact may be inferred from 

willful blindness to the existence of that fact.

On appeal, Puentes argues that the facts of his case do not 

warrant the instruction.

“The decision of whether to give a jury instruction and the 

content of an instruction are reviewed for abuse of discretion.” 

United States v. Abbas, 74 F.3d 506, 513 (4th Cir. 1996). “A

willful blindness instruction is warranted where . . . the 

defendant asserts a lack of guilty knowledge but the evidence 

supports an inference of deliberate ignorance.” United States 

v. Mir, 525 F.3d 351, 358-59 (4th Cir. 2008) (internal 

quotations omitted).

A willful blindness instruction is appropriate if: (1) the 

defendant “asserted a lack of guilty knowledge,” and (2) “the 

evidence supported an inference of deliberate ignorance.” 

Abbas, 74 F.3d at 514. If both predicates are present, a “jury 

could find that [the defendant] consciously closed his eyes to 

the fact that he was involved in” the charged crime, and the 

trial court does “not err in giving the jury a willful blindness 

instruction.” Id.

Puentes argues that the willful blindness instruction was 

unwarranted in his case because he never asserted a lack of 

guilty knowledge. He maintains that he “admit[ted] knowledge of 
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Pereira’s prostitution business and simply denie[d] his 

involvement.” Br. of Appellant at 15.

The record offers no support for this contention. Rather, 

at trial, Puentes repeatedly, and under oath, asserted his lack 

of guilty knowledge. He testified that he did not conclude that 

Pereira was in the business of prostitution until “around 2005.”*

The evidence also supports an inference of Puentes’s 

deliberate ignorance. According to his own testimony, Puentes

allowed Pereira to move in with him, saw huge boxes of condoms 

at their apartment, but claimed not to know what they were, and 

purchased large passenger vans for Pereira’s use but “never

. . . ask[ed] her” their purpose.

 

He conceded that he had heard rumors that Pereira was in the 

prostitution business, but that Pereira denied this and he 

believed her when she told him that she had a “small 

housecleaning company.” Indeed, in response to questions at 

trial as to whether he “den[ied] any knowledge whatsoever about 

Ms. Pereira’s criminal conduct,” Puentes replied in the 

affirmative, claiming that he “realize[d] too late what she was 

doing.”

In sum, as in Abbas, “there was sufficient evidence from 

which the jury could find that [the defendant] consciously 

 * The jury convicted Puentes of conspiracy to violate the 

Mann Act between September 2003 and November 2005.
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closed his eyes,” 74 F.3d at 514, and the district court

therefore did not abuse its discretion in giving the willful 

blindness instruction.

IV.

Finally, Puentes contends that the court erred in applying 

a two-level sentencing enhancement for obstruction of justice 

under United States Sentencing Guidelines § 3C1.1 based on 

Puentes’s false testimony at trial. Puentes argues that United 

States v. Dunnigan, 507 U.S. 87 (1993), and United States v. 

Smith, 62 F.3d 641 (4th Cir. 1995), obligated the sentencing 

court to make specific findings as to elements of perjury in 

order to support the enhancement, which it failed to do.

Puentes misreads the law. Although Dunnigan and Smith hold 

that a “district court must review the evidence and make 

independent findings necessary to establish a willful impediment 

to or obstruction of justice, or an attempt to do the same, 

under the perjury definition,” they explicitly direct that such 

findings must be made only if the defendant objects before the

trial court to the obstruction of justice enhancement. Smith, 

62 F.3d at 647 (quoting Dunnigan, 507 U.S. at 95). In this 

case, Puentes did not object before the trial court to the 

enhancement. Accordingly, Smith and Dunnigan offer him no 

support.
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Because Puentes failed to object to the enhancement in the 

district court, we review for plain error. See United States v.

Rooks, 596 F.3d 204, 212 (4th Cir. 2010). Under the plain error 

standard, Puentes bears the burden of showing that (1) an error 

occurred, (2) the error was plain, and (3) it affected his 

substantial rights. See United States v. Olano, 507 U.S. 725, 

732 (1993). If he makes such a showing, the correction of such 

error lies within our discretion, which we do “not exercise 

. . . unless the error seriously affects the fairness, 

integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings.” Id.

(internal quotation marks and alterations omitted).

Here, Puentes has demonstrated no error. We have held that 

to apply the obstruction of justice enhancement based on false 

testimony, a sentencing court must find three elements: “(1) 

the defendant gave false testimony, (2) concerning a material 

matter, (3) with the willful intent to deceive (rather than as a 

result of confusion, mistake, or faulty memory).” United States 

v. Sun, 278 F.3d 302, 314 (4th Cir. 2002) (citing Smith, 62 F.3d 

at 646).

In this case, the sentencing court made specific findings 

as to Puentes’s false testimony at trial, concluding that his 

testimony was “incredible” and “contrary to what the transcript 

reflected.” The court also made implicit findings as to the 

materiality of Puentes’s misstatements, for example when Puentes
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“never recalled picking up any money or making any deliveries” 

despite that “the transcript reflected him significantly 

involved in the business.” Finally, the court found Puentes’s 

deception intentional, i.e., “just a lie.” The court concluded 

that Puentes was simply “not telling the truth” when he “flat 

out denied” his participation in the prostitution business. 

Having made the requisite findings, the district court did not 

err –- plainly or otherwise –- in applying the two-level 

sentencing enhancement for obstruction of justice.

V.

For all of these reasons, the judgment of the district 

court is 

AFFIRMED.