2000 Decisions

Opinions of the United

States Court of Appeals

for the Third Circuit

9-18-2000

United States v. Wert-Ruiz

Precedential or Non-Precedential:

Docket 99-5332

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Recommended Citation

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Filed September 18, 2000 

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS 

FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT 

NO. 99-5332 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

v. 

SANDRA WERT-RUIZ, a/k/a THE LADY 

Sandra Wert-Ruiz, Appellant 

On Appeal From the United States District Court 

For the District of New Jersey 

(D.C. Crim. No. 96-00073-8) 

District Judge: Honorable Dickinson R. Debevoise 

Argued: April 24, 2000 

Before: BECKER, Chief Judge, WEIS and 

OAKES,* Circuit Judges. 

(Filed: September 18, 2000) 

 EDNA B. AXELROD, ESQUIRE 

 (ARGUED) 

 76 South Orange Avenue, Suite 305 

 South Orange, NJ 07079 

Counsel for Appellant 

_________________________________________________________________ 

* Honorable James L. Oakes, United States Circuit Judge for the Second 

Circuit, sitting by designation. 
 ROBERT J. CLEARY, ESQUIRE 

 United States Attorney 

 GEORGE S. LEONE, ESQUIRE 

 Assistant United States Attorney 

 970 Broad Street, Room 700 

 Newark, NJ 07102 

 NORMAN J. GROSS, ESQUIRE 

 (ARGUED) 

 Assistant United States Attorney 

 United States Federal Building and 

 United States Courthouse 

 401 Market Street, Fourth Floor 

 Camden, NJ 08101-2098 

 Counsel for Appellee 

OPINION OF THE COURT 

BECKER, Chief Judge. 

Sandra Wert-Ruiz, the operator of a check cashing and 

money remitting agency, appeals her conviction for taking 

part in a conspiracy to launder drug money in violation of 

18 U.S.C. S 1956(h). The District Court gave a willful 

blindness charge--informing the jurors that they could 

convict Wert-Ruiz if they concluded that she had 

deliberately avoided learning that she was dealing with the 

proceeds of illegal activity and that the transactions were 

designed to conceal or disguise the nature or source of 

those funds. Wert-Ruiz argues on appeal that: (1) there was 

sufficient evidence to support a jury conclusion that she 

had actual knowledge of the illegal source of the laundered 

money, but not that she had willfully blinded herself to the 

funds' origin; and (2) the District Court therefore should 

not have given a willful blindness charge. We agree that 

there was sufficient evidence of actual knowledge, but note 

that the jury might have credited only portions of the 

government's evidence and concluded that willful blindness 

was afoot. Because there was sufficient evidence from 

which a jury could find willful blindness, we hold that the 

District Court properly charged the jury. We will therefore 

affirm Wert-Ruiz's conviction. 

 2 
In reaching our conclusion, we reject Wert-Ruiz's subtle 

contention that so long as there is sufficient evidence of 

actual knowledge, a willful blindness charge is at all events 

inappropriate. Rather, we follow our holding in United 

States v. Stewart, 185 F.3d 112, 126 (3d Cir. 1999), that, 

assuming there to be sufficient evidence as to both

theories, it is not inconsistent for a court to give a charge 

on both willful blindness and actual knowledge. This is so 

because, if the jury does not find the existence of actual 

knowledge, it might still find that the facts support a 

finding of willful blindness. In view of our conclusion, we 

need not reach the government's alternative contention that 

an erroneous giving of a willful blindness instruction is per 

se harmless error.1 

I. 

Sandra Wert-Ruiz earned a medical degree in the 

Dominican Republic. In 1986, she and her husband, 

Franklin Ruiz, moved to the United States. Wert-Ruiz 

became a United States citizen in 1989. In 1991, Wert-Ruiz 

and her husband opened S&F Check Cashing and S&F 

Associates. S&F 's main office was in West New York, New 

Jersey, and was managed by Wert-Ruiz, while Franklin 

_________________________________________________________________ 

1. Wert-Ruiz makes a number of additional arguments that we dispose of 

summarily. She asserts that the prosecutor made improper remarks 

during closing arguments on rebuttal. Because Wert-Ruiz's trial attorney 

failed to object to these statements, we review them only for plain error 

and conclude that they fail to rise to that level. Wert-Ruiz also objects 

to 

other statements made in the rebuttal that allegedly implied that she 

and her counsel had colluded to produce false evidence at trial. Having 

reviewed the statements, we do not find a clear implication of such 

conduct. At all events, Wert-Ruiz's attorney objected, the District Court 

gave a cautionary instruction afterwards, and defense counsel did not 

request a further remedy. Under the circumstances, we find no 

constitutional error. We also conclude, contrary to Wert-Ruiz's 

arguments, that she was not prejudiced by the government's purported 

incorporation of evidence into leading questions and that the government 

did not improperly vouch for Angel Rayo's credibility and bolster his 

testimony. Finally, in light of the preceding, we conclude that there was 

not an accumulation of errors that combined to deprive Wert-Ruiz of a 

fair trial. 

 3 
Ruiz managed a branch in Guttenberg, New Jersey. S&F 

Check Cashing only handled check cashing services, 

whereas S&F Associates provided additional services such 

as money orders, Western Union transmittals, bill 

payments, and phone card sales. Wert-Ruiz testified that 

the businesses were dealing with millions of dollars 

annually, which included moving thirteen million dollars 

through Western Union money transmittals and over 

twenty-one million dollars through check cashing activities 

in 1994 alone. 

In 1994, Wert-Ruiz's portion of the business became

involved in laundering drug money. The conspiracy touched 

Wert-Ruiz through the business of money remitting, which 

is a legitimate financial service used to send funds from one 

country to another. In a typical money remitting 

transaction an individual gives cash to a remitting agency 

in one country with direction that an individual in another 

country be paid. The remitter contacts a similar agency in 

the transferee country, provides the name of the funds' 

intended recipient, and transmits the funds. The recipient 

then collects the money from the transferee agency.

Because the funds entering the remitting system are in the 

currency of the transferor country while those paid out are 

in the currency of the transferee, the tangible moneys 

received by the transferor remitting agency are not sent 

directly to the end recipient. Instead, they are sold to 

parties who need that particular currency to conduct their 

business (such as importers in foreign nations) in exchange 

for the currencies needed to pay out the remittances. 

Money remitting provides an avenue for placing currency 

into the banking system, making it a mechanism through 

which illegally obtained funds (like those acquired through 

drug trafficking) may be laundered. False receipts generated 

to record false remitting transactions create a paper trail 

indicating that money sent abroad is "clean," when in fact 

the foreign agency gives the transferred funds to the drug 

traffickers. Transactions of this nature were at the heart of 

the case against Wert-Ruiz. While there were no allegations 

that Wert-Ruiz was in any way involved with the actual sale 

of illicit drugs, federal prosecutors contended that she was 

a participant in a conspiracy to use her business to launder 

drug money. 

 4 
Wert-Ruiz's involvement with money launderers arose in 

connection with an ongoing operation of Fabio Castro and 

Angel Rayo, the owners of a money remitting service known 

as International Services. In addition to conducting 

legitimate transactions, International Services was

laundering drug money. Because the volume of transfers 

handled by International Services was potentially large 

enough to attract the attention of law enforcement, Rayo 

sought another agency to handle money transfers and

asked Wert-Ruiz to become an agent of International

Services. According to the government's evidence, Wert-Ruiz 

participated in the money laundering conspiracy by 

generating false receipts designed to conceal transfers of 

money. Specifically, drug trafficking proceeds were delivered 

in cash form to Wert-Ruiz, who then prepared or directed 

the preparation of false remitting receipts. These efforts, in 

turn, created a paper trail that suggested that the money 

was entering the banking system through legitimate 

channels. 

After a time, Wert-Ruiz obtained her own license to

function as a remitter, and began operating through a new 

corporation she formed named Latin American Services 

("LAS"). Wert-Ruiz continued to receive money acquired 

through drug trafficking--often packed inside of gym bags 

--and continued to prepare fraudulent receipts. 

At the time of trial, Castro was a fugitive. Rayo testified 

on behalf of the government under a plea agreement. WertRuiz did not dispute that money had been laundered 

through her business, but she denied knowing anything 

about the other conspirators' intentions. The government 

presented evidence that Wert-Ruiz and her employees

handwrote thousands of fictitious receipts for cash

delivered to LAS that was supposedly going to individuals 

in the Dominican Republic. The government presented

expert testimony that Wert-Ruiz attempted to disguise her 

handwriting in preparing these receipts. Investigators 

testified that out of a sample of well over one hundred 

receipts seized from Wert-Ruiz, they had been unable to 

find a single person identified on any of the receipts, 

indicating that the receipts were false. At trial, Wert-Ruiz 

testified that she had prepared the forged receipts from 

 5 
actual receipts provided by International Services that 

purportedly reflected real transactions. These latter receipts 

were not produced at trial, and the government presented 

evidence that Wert-Ruiz had never admitted to writing the 

forged LAS receipts during interviews with law enforcement 

officials conducted after her arrest but before trial. 

Additional evidence established that the conspirators 

used codes in conducting phone conversations about 

aspects of the conspiracy. Though Wert-Ruiz was not privy 

to many of the codes, she knew that the conspirators used 

the word "tarjetas" (Spanish for "cards") to mean money, 

and she was aware of their practice of dropping zeros when 

discussing sums of money, thus describing $10,000 as 

$1,000. 

A jury convicted Wert-Ruiz of violating 18 U.S.C. 

S 1956(h) (conspiracy to commit money laundering).2 She 

_________________________________________________________________ 

2. The statute provides that "[a]ny person who conspires to commit any 

offense defined in this section . . . shall be subject to the same 

penalties 

as those prescribed for the offense the commission of which was the 

object of the conspiracy." Id. The relevant portion of the money 

laundering statute implicated by this clause is 18 U.S.C. S 1956(a)(1), 

which provides for liability for: 

 Whoever, knowing that the property involved in afinancial 

 transaction represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful 

 activity, conducts or attempts to conduct such afinancial 

 transaction which in fact involves the proceeds of specified 

unlawful 

 activity-- 

 (A)(i) with the intent to promote the carrying on of specified 

 unlawful activity; or 

 (ii) with intent to engage in conduct constituting a violation of 

 section 7201 or 7206 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986; or 

 (B) knowing that the transaction is designed in whole or in part-- 

 (i) to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, 

the 

 ownership, or the control of the proceeds of specified unlawful 

 activity; or 

 (ii) to avoid a transaction reporting requirement under State or 

 Federal law[.] 
The statute provides a list of offenses that qualify as "specified 

unlawful 

activity," among them the sale or distribution of controlled substances. 

 6 
received a six-year prison sentence and filed a timely notice 

of appeal. The District Court had jurisdiction under 18 

U.S.C. S 3231. We have appellate jurisdiction under 28 

U.S.C. S 1291. 

II. 

At trial, the District Court instructed the jury on the 

issue of willful blindness as follows: 

 When knowledge of the existence of a particular fact 

 is an essential part of an offense, such knowledge may 

 be established if a defendant is aware of a high 

 probability of its existence, unless she actually believes 

 that it does not exist. 

 So with respect to the issue of a defendant's 

 knowledge in this case, if you find from all the evidence 

 beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant

 deliberately and consciously tried to avoid learning that 

 certain currency was the proceeds of some form of 

 illegal activity, and that the defendants deliberately and 

 consciously tried to avoid learning that the transaction 

 was designed in whole or in part to conceal or disguise 

 the nature, location, source, ownership or control of 

 the proceeds of the unlawful activity, you may treat 

 such deliberate avoidance of positive knowledge as the 

 equivalent of knowledge. 

 I must emphasize, however, that the requisite proof 

 of knowledge on the part of a defendant cannot be 

 established by demonstrating she was negligent, 

 careless or foolish. 

_________________________________________________________________ 

See id. S 1956(c)(7). Though knowledge that the funds have been 

obtained illegally is required, knowledge of what the specified unlawful 

activity is is not, for the statute defines "knowing that the property 

involved in a financial transaction represents the proceeds of some form 

of unlawful activity" as meaning that the person involved "knew the 

property involved in the transaction represented proceeds from some 

form, though not necessarily which form, of activity that constitutes a 

felony under State, Federal, or foreign law, regardless of whether or not 

such activity is specified in paragraph (7) [which defines the specified 

unlawful activities]." Id. S (c)(1)." 

 7 
Wert-Ruiz argues that the government adduced evidence 

only of her actual knowledge of the conspiracy and its 

objects, and that there was insufficient evidence of willful 

blindness to allow a jury to conclude that she had 

deliberately avoided learning about the illegal activities for 

which her business was used. Because such evidence was 

absent, the argument continues, the instruction was

unjustified, and had the effect of diluting the government's 

burden of proof by creating the risk of convicting Wert-Ruiz 

if the jury concluded that she merely should have known 

about the criminal activities. See United States v. Hilliard, 

31 F.3d 1509, 1517 (10th Cir. 1994). 

Our review of a challenge to the propriety of the willful 

blindness instruction is plenary. See United States v. 

Stewart, 185 F.3d 112, 126 (3d Cir. 1999). In evaluating 

the charge, we view the evidence and the inferences drawn 

therefrom in the light most favorable to the government. 

See United States v. Sharpe, 193 F.3d 852, 871 (5th Cir. 

1999). 

A. 

A willful blindness instruction is often described as 

sounding in "deliberate ignorance." See United States v. One 

1973 Rolls Royce, 43 F.3d 794, 807-08 (3d Cir. 1994). Such 

instructions must be tailored, as the District Court's was 

here, to avoid the implication that a defendant may be 

convicted simply because he or she should have known of 

facts of which he or she was unaware. Willful blindness is 

not to be equated with negligence or a lack of due care, see 

id. at 809 n.13, for "willful blindness is a subjective state of 

mind that is deemed to satisfy a scienter requirement of 

knowledge," id. at 808. The instruction"must make clear 

that the defendant himself was subjectively aware of the 

high probability of the fact in question, and not merely that 

a reasonable man would have been aware of the 

probability." United States v. Caminos, 770 F.2d 361, 365 

(3d Cir. 1985). If such a charge is supported by sufficient 

evidence, it is not inconsistent for a court to give a charge 

on both willful blindness and actual knowledge, for if the 

jury does not find the existence of actual knowledge, it 

 8 
might still find willful blindness. See United States v. 

Stewart, 185 F.3d 112, 126 (3d Cir. 1999). 

Wert-Ruiz does not challenge the legal adequacy of the 

instruction as it was worded, but rather the propriety of 

giving it under the circumstances of her case.3 She urges 

that there was insufficient evidence of willful blindness to 

justify the instruction. 

B. 

Wert-Ruiz concedes that there was sufficient evidence to 

convict her of knowingly participating in the conspiracy. As 

noted above, however, she maintains that none of the 

government's evidence supported a willful blindness

instruction. Wert-Ruiz contends that each piece of the 

government's evidence can be interpreted in only one of two 

ways: either she was a knowing participant in the 

conspiracy (if the government's evidence is believed) or she 

was an unknowing innocent who became ensnared in it (if 

the government's evidence is not believed). Mindful that we 

must interpret each piece of evidence (and draw all

supportable inferences) in favor of the government, and 

mindful that the jury was entitled to decide that only part 

of the government's evidence was credible, we conclude that 

Wert-Ruiz's challenge must fail. 

_________________________________________________________________ 

3. Wert-Ruiz does, however, make an additional legal challenge to the 

instruction. She argues that the instruction was error under the 

circumstances because it is impossible to be willfully blind to 

participation in a conspiracy. Citing United States v. Scotti, 47 F.3d 

1237 

(2d Cir. 1995), she maintains that it is "logically impossible for a 

defendant to intend and agree to join a conspiracy if [s]he does not know 

that it exists." Id. at 1243. This contention flounders on our ruling to 

the 

contrary in United States v. Anderskow, 88 F.3d 245, 254 (3d Cir. 1996), 

which affirmed a conspiracy conviction where "the jury had ample 

evidence with which to conclude that, at a minimum,[the defendant] 

had willfully blinded himself to the fact that" a criminal conspiracy 

existed. 

 9 
1. 

a. 

Wert-Ruiz first points to the testimony of Angel Rayo. At 

trial Rayo claimed to have recruited Wert-Ruiz to 

participate in illegal laundering activities. Rayo testified 

through an interpreter that he recruited Wert-Ruiz to pose 

as an agent of International Services by specifically asking 

her to engage in activities to support the "illegal aspects" of 

International Services' transactions, stating "I also propose 

is that she do appear as an agent where transfers would be 

done that were not real in order to support the illegal 

aspects of International Services." Rayo also testified that 

Wert-Ruiz subsequently generated false receipts for

nonexistent money remitting transactions to create a paper 

trail that would make sending drug money abroad appear 

legal. 

Wert-Ruiz characterizes each of these portions of Rayo's 

testimony as evidence of actual knowledge, but not willful 

blindness. It is true that a jury could find from this 

evidence that Wert-Ruiz knew she was participating in a 

conspiracy to launder funds that had been generated by 

illegal activities. It is essential, however, to remember the 

precise contours of the instruction. The District Court 

specifically focused the willful blindness instruction on the 

source of the laundered funds and the purpose of the 

transactions in which she engaged. To be sure, the 

evidence recounted above, if believed by the jury, could 

have been used to conclude that Wert-Ruiz knew the illegal 

source of the money and the precise purpose of her 

activities. The evidence is not, however, inconsistent with 

the conduct of an individual who willfully blinded herself 

from the source of the funds with which she dealt and the 

nature of those activities. 

"Illegal aspects" (the wording employed by Rayo in his 

testimony) is a vague term, encompassing a range of

activities that may not have involved the laundering of drug 

money. Wert-Ruiz could have knowingly generated the false 

receipts in exchange for the commissions she received while 

willfully blinding herself to the source of the cash or the 

 10 
purpose of the transactions even if she knew her activities 

had "illegal aspects." Indeed, Rayo himself testified that he 

had been willfully blind about the funds that he was 

laundering for quite some time. When asked what he 

understood about the source of the funds, he stated"I 

never asked the question. The truth is I did not want to 

know." Similarly, Rayo testified that Wert-Ruiz never asked 

him about the source of the money that she would be

transferring. A jury could have credited both Wert-Ruiz's 

denial of knowledge and the evidence of her participation in 

the concealment activities, concluding that the reason that 

Wert-Ruiz did not know of the source of the illicit funds 

was her deliberate ignorance of the circumstances 

surrounding her activities. Willful blindness instructions 

have previously been upheld under similar circumstances. 

See United States v. Gonzales, 90 F.3d 1363, 1371 (8th Cir. 

1996) (upholding willful blindness instruction where the 

defendants, who were charged with laundering drug money, 

failed to inquire about the source of the money and used 

incorrect names and addresses on documents when wiring 

money). 

In short, a jury could have credited Rayo's testimony as 

implying that Wert-Ruiz knew that she was being invited to 

engage in activities designed to conceal the source of 

certain moneys without being specifically told the source of 

the funds. The fact that Wert-Ruiz did not ask the natural 

follow-up question to determine the source of those funds 

could be reasonably considered by a jury to be evidence of 

willful blindness, especially when combined with the 

additional evidence discussed below. 

Finally, we must remember that the jury was entitled to 

disbelieve all or part of Rayo's testimony. Thus, even if we 

were to agree with Wert-Ruiz that Rayo's testimony only 

supports a finding of actual knowledge, there was other 

evidence in the record on which a jury could have relied to 

find that Wert-Ruiz had willfully blinded herself to the 

illegal source of the funds she was transferring. 

b. 

Wert-Ruiz points also to the testimony of Yuri Acosta, 

who testified that he delivered bags of money to Wert-Ruiz 

 11 
and claimed that Wert-Ruiz advised him that, if he were 

ever caught with the funds, he should say that he was 

bringing money from International Services or another 

cashier. Wert-Ruiz claims that this is evidence of knowledge 

of illegality. Again, in our view, the evidence indicates 

knowledge of concealment, but is not exclusively evidence 

of knowledge of the illicit source of the money. In light of 

Wert-Ruiz's denial that she ever knew the illegal source of 

the funds, a jury could accept the denial and conclude that 

her conduct evidenced willful blindness. Further, as with 

Rayo's testimony, because the jury could selectively 

discredit some of the evidence in the prosecution's case, the 

existence of evidence that points to actual knowledge does 

not preclude consideration of other evidence that points to 

a finding that Wert-Ruiz was wilfully blind to the source of 

the drug money. 

c. 

The ability of the jury to have discounted aspects of the 

government's case is important in light of the last piece of 

evidence that, according to Wert-Ruiz, demonstrates that 

her culpability was either knowing or innocent, but not 

deliberately ignorant. After Wert-Ruiz's arrest, she spoke to 

a customs agent who testified that Wert-Ruiz described her 

activities and admitted that she received bags of money in 

such large volume that she herself was suspicious about it. 

The agent testified that after he asked her if she thought 

the money came from the sale of narcotics, "[Wert-Ruiz] 

replied that she was an educated woman, and where else 

would money come from in that amount." 

This statement, if credited by the jury, would indeed 

suggest actual knowledge and not willful blindness. Still, in 

juxtaposition with Wert-Ruiz's claims at trial not to have 

known the source of the funds, it could arguably be viewed 

as an example of willful blindness--in other words, she 

never asked questions while participating in the conspiracy, 

but when the truth was revealed she was not at all 

surprised about what really had happened. 

2. 

Wert-Ruiz further claims that the government's 

summation confirms that the evidence previously recounted 

 12 
pertained only to actual knowledge. We do not agree. She 

bases her argument on segments of the summation where 

the prosecution emphasized Rayo's testimony that he told 

Wert-Ruiz that she would be a pretend agent for 

International Services and the evidence that Wert-Ruiz 

created fake receipts for transactions that never took place. 

Again, we do not believe this evidence supports only an 

actual knowledge charge, as it could be taken to 

demonstrate either that Wert-Ruiz figured out that the 

funds with which she was dealing came from an illegal 

source or that she willfully avoided drawing that inference 

and therefore never "knew" that to be the case. Moreover, 

as Wert-Ruiz concedes, the government did indeed argue 

that even if the jury accepted some of the defendant's 

arguments, the evidence indicated that she still"clos[ed 

her] eyes to what was obviously illegal." 

3. 

Even if some of the evidence discussed above tends to be 

consistent only with a finding of actual knowledge, the 

government presented ample additional evidence from

which a reasonable inference of willful blindness could be 

drawn. The government points out that evidence was 

introduced demonstrating that Wert-Ruiz knew that in 

many of the transactions the co-conspirators would refer to 

large dollar amounts by dropping digits, but still she did 

not raise questions as to this practice. Similarly, there is 

evidence that she and members of the conspiracy would 

refer to money by the code word "tarjetas" (the Spanish 

word for cards). A reasonable jury, having discounted 

evidence of Wert-Ruiz's actual knowledge of the conspiracy 

or its objects, could rationally conclude that the practice of 

using code words for transactions and minimizing dollar 

amounts--not to mention her receipt of large amounts of 

cash in gym bags--must have alerted her to the possibility 

that her money transfer activities were actually in service of 

a money laundering operation, and that her failure to 

inquire further evinced willful blindness. This is not to say 

that Wert-Ruiz did not proffer alternative explanations, but 

the verdict indicates that the jury did not credit them. 

Because the evidence supports that verdict, we will not 

second guess that decision. 

 13 
III. 

Failing to uphold the District Court's instruction under 

these facts could carry harmful results. There was little 

direct evidence that Wert-Ruiz specifically knew that she 

was helping to launder the proceeds of illegal activity--most 

of the evidence in this regard was circumstantial. It would 

seem that a reasonable person could have drawn few other 

conclusions given the nature of the transactions, yet WertRuiz claimed not to have known that she was engaging in 

money laundering activity. If Wert-Ruiz deliberately avoided 

learning the source of the funds, she could have honestly 

claimed to have lacked knowledge. In this light, a willful 

blindness instruction served the important purpose of 

preventing Wert-Ruiz from evading culpability if the jury 

concluded that due to a willful refusal to connect the dots, 

Wert-Ruiz actually did not know of the purposes of her 

money laundering activities. See United States v. Sharma, 

190 F.3d 220, 231 (3d Cir. 1999) (approving instruction 

when jury could have inferred the defendant's lack of 

knowledge, and the willful blindness instruction"ensured 

that a juror who believed that a defendant turned a blind 

eye toward his co-defendant's conduct would not vote to 

acquit the willfully blind defendant"). Deliberate ignorance 

cannot become a safe harbor for culpable conduct. 

In sum, we conclude that a reasonable jury could have 

concluded that Wert-Ruiz deliberately avoided learning 

about the source of the enterprise's funds. Because we so 

hold, there is no need to address the government's 

contention that the giving of a willful blindness instruction 

when there is insufficient evidence of the same is per se 

harmless error. The judgment of the District Court will be 

affirmed. 

A True Copy: 

Teste: 

 Clerk of the United States Court of Appeals 

 for the Third Circuit 

 14