United States Court of Appeals

For the Seventh Circuit

Chicago, Illinois 60604

Argued June 13, 2007

Decided June 26, 2007

Before

Hon. JOHN L. COFFEY, Circuit Judge 

Hon. JOEL M. FLAUM, Circuit Judge 

Hon. ANN CLAIRE WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge

No. 06-3307

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appeal from the United States 

Plaintiff-Appellee, District Court for the Northern 

District of Illinois, Eastern Division.

v.

No. 05 CR 375

PATRICK HROBOWSKI,

Defendant-Appellant. Samuel Der-Yeghiayan,

Judge.

O R D E R

Patrick Hrobowski was indicted in April 2005 for being a felon in possession

of a handgun, see 18 U.S.C. § 922(g)(1), and knowingly possessing a handgun with

an obliterated serial number, see 18 U.S.C. § 922(k). In March 2006 a jury found

him guilty on both counts. The district court subsequently denied his motions for

acquittal and for a new trial, and sentenced him to 264 months’ imprisonment. 

Hrobowski appeals, arguing that the evidence at trial was insufficient to support a

conviction on either count. We affirm.

We review the following evidence admitted at trial, and all reasonable

inferences that may be drawn from it, in the light most favorable to the

government. United States v. Hendrix, 482 F.3d 962, 966 (7th Cir. 2007); United

NONPRECEDENTIAL DISPOSITION

To be cited only in accordance with

 Fed. R. App. P. 32.1
No. 06-3307 Page 2

States v. Romero, 469 F.3d 1139, 1151 (7th Cir. 2006). According to August Palmer,

a heroin addict and lifelong acquaintance of Hrobowski who became a government

witness, Hrobowski possessed the handgun in question on numerous occasions

while he was living with Palmer in September 2004. Palmer and two of

Hrobowski’s relatives testified that on September 6 they drove to Hrobowski’s

girlfriend’s house to pick him up for a party. Officer Dwayne Wheeler of the

Maywood Police Department testified that he happened to be conducting

undercover surveillance of the same house because it was a suspected site of drug

use and sales. All the eyewitnesses agreed that Palmer went into the house and

returned with Hrobowski. Officer Wheeler recognized Hrobowski and knew he was

a felon; his criminal history was also stipulated to at trial. 

When he emerged from the house, Hrobowski did not yet have a gun with

him. But he promptly sent Palmer back inside to retrieve clothes of his that were

sitting on a chair in the bedroom. According to Palmer, the clothes included a pair

of jeans that had a gun sticking out of a pocket, and he immediately recognized the

gun as the one Hrobowski routinely carried with him. Palmer collected the clothes

with the gun and took them outside to Hrobowski. Officer Wheeler saw Palmer

carrying a pair of jeans with a handgun sticking out of the pocket. All eyewitnesses

agreed that Hrobowski took the jeans from Palmer, though his two relatives in the

car denied seeing the gun. Hrobowski and Palmer got into the car with the others

and drove away. 

Officer Wheeler pursued Hrobowski. He followed the car and called for

backup on the main dispatch radio channel. He and his two backup officers

testified that they then switched to an alternate radio channel and Officer Wheeler

informed them that they were going to conduct a felony stop involving a handgun. 

Palmer testified that when Hrobowski saw the officers flash their emergency lights,

he handed the gun to Palmer and told him to run with it once the car stopped. 

Palmer refused. All three officers confirmed that when they stopped the car, they

ordered everyone’s hands in the air, but Hrobowski instead reached down toward

the floor. When the officers removed the passengers from the car, they found the

jeans and the loaded handgun on the floor where Hrobowski had been reaching. 

The officers arrested Hrobowski.

A firearms expert determined that all three serial numbers on the handgun

had been intentionally obliterated, but he was able to recover them with the use of

an acid-etching process. A special agent from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,

Firearms, and Explosives determined that the handgun was manufactured in

Argentina.

Hrobowski argues on appeal that his conviction was not supported by

sufficient evidence. He claims that Palmer is not a credible witness because of his
No. 06-3307 Page 3

continued heroin addiction, his interest in not being prosecuted in exchange for his

testimony, and the inconsistencies between his trial testimony and his grand jury

testimony. He adds that the testimony of the officers was inconsistent, exposed a

botched investigation, and revealed that they never actually saw Hrobowski with a

gun, making their testimony unworthy of admission to a jury.

Hrobowski bears a “heavy burden” to show that no rational trier of fact could

find the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt based on the

evidence in the record. Hendrix, 482 F.3d at 966; Romero, 469 F.3d at 1151. When

reviewing the sufficiency of the evidence, we will not second-guess a jury’s credibility

determinations absent exceptional circumstances: when it was physically impossible

for a witness to have observed what he claims occurred or when it is impossible

under the laws of nature for that occurrence to have taken place at all. United

States v. Radziszewski, 474 F.3d 480, 485 (7th Cir. 2007).

None of the factual questions identified by Hrobowski undermine the

sufficiency of the evidence against him. All his arguments are merely attacks upon

the credibility of the witnesses, and none of his attacks approach the demanding

standard required to reconsider their credibility. See Radziszewski, 474 F.3d at 485. 

He points out, for instance, that Officer Wheeler misidentified the color of the car

carrying Hrobowski as grey instead of green, and reported a license plate number

that was incorrect by one digit. He calls into question whether the officers ever saw

Hrobowski with a gun, because Officer Wheeler’s initial call for backup on the

recorded dispatch channel did not mention a gun. Officer Wheeler supposedly

informed the other officers of the gun only on an unrecorded radio channel. 

Moreover, a member of Hrobowski’s family testified that she saw Officer Wheeler

driving in his vehicle at the time he claimed to be conducting surveillance, and she

disputed his account of how the pursuit began. Also, some testimony suggested that

Palmer handed Hrobowski the jeans inside the car, where Officer Wheeler could not

have seen Hrobowski accept the gun. 

While Hrobowski may interpret the evidence to show that the prosecution’s

case is based on untruths, we cannot accept his speculative arguments over the

jury’s own credibility determinations. See United States v. Humphreys, 468 F.3d

1051, 1053 (7th Cir. 2006). Hrobowski had the opportunity at trial to attack the

credibility of the government’s witnesses, and he did so. Those attacks simply did

not persuade the jury.

AFFIRMED.