Opinion ID: 794243
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Florez's Intentional Flight from Justice

Text: 19 After conducting an evidentiary hearing, the district court concluded that the evidence overwhelming[ly] indicated to a high probability that the defendant fled shortly after his brother[ Chepe's] arrest on June 10, 1998, and thereafter concealed himself for a number of years for the sole purpose of avoiding prosecution. Pretrial Tr. June 23, 2004, at 19. This evidence took various forms, starting with Florez's statements to two co-workers that his brother was in trouble. That acknowledgment, together with evidence that Florez and Chepe were joint participants in a large-scale drug trafficking operation, permitted the district court to infer Florez's awareness that law enforcement authorities were — or soon would be — seeking to apprehend him as well as Chepe. 20 The evidence further showed that, after June 10, 1998, the day of Chepe's arrest, Florez never returned to his workplace, although he had been employed there for approximately twelve years. Similarly, he ceased residing at the Queens home he had shared with Chepe. In response to law enforcement inquiries over the ensuing weeks and months, family and co-workers reported that Florez had returned to his native Colombia. Indeed, in 2001, Florez told a female acquaintance, Girleza Silva, that he had just returned from Colombia when he asked if he could list her Queens address — where he never lived — as his residence on a New York State driver's license application. Florez also used Silva's bank account to conduct financial transactions. 21 Although the totality of these circumstances strongly supports the district court's finding of flight with the intent to avoid arrest and prosecution, Florez submits that no such conclusion could be drawn in light of other evidence showing that (1) prior to June 1998, he routinely took several months' leave from his job during the summer months; and (2) he had lived openly at two Queens addresses, one belonging to a relative, the other to a friend, between October 2000 and January 2004. His argument is unconvincing. 22 However routine it may have been for Florez to take extended summer leaves from his employment, what was not typical was his total failure to return to his job, as occurred in the years after his brother's June 1998 arrest. The district court did not clearly err in rejecting the argument that Florez's disappearance from all known New York locations after that day was merely coincidental to his brother's arrest. It reasonably concluded from the totality of the evidence that Florez fled at that time with the specific intent to avoid arrest and prosecution. See United States v. Martin, 426 F.3d 68, 77 (2d Cir.2005) (`The fact that an innocent explanation may be consistent with the facts alleged' does not negate court's factual finding (quoting United States v. Fama, 758 F.2d 834, 838 (2d Cir.1985))); United States v. Maher, 108 F.3d 1513, 1530 (2d Cir.1997) (ruling that district court was entitled to reject defendants' belated innocent explanations for their conduct and to credit inculpatory evidence); cf. United States v. MacPherson, 424 F.3d 183, 190 (2d Cir. 2005) (holding that defendant's innocent explanations for conduct did not preclude jury from inferring requisite mens rea from other inculpatory evidence). 23 The fact that, at some point in 2000 or 2001, Florez may have returned to Queens, does not undermine this inference. To the contrary, the fact that Florez deliberately did not use either of the Queens addresses where he purportedly lived in securing his New York State driver's license, preferring instead falsely to list Girleza Silva's address as his residence, strongly indicates Florez's continued intent to conceal his true whereabouts in order to avoid being apprehended. That purpose is further evidenced by Florez's use of Ms. Silva's bank account, as opposed to that of the relatives or friends with whom he was actually residing, to deposit a $13,000 check for back pay from his former employer. Indeed, the fact that Florez paid Ms. Silva $3,600 — more than 25% of the check's value — for this use of her bank account indicates the particularly high value the defendant placed on effecting a rather routine transaction in a way that would minimize anyone's ability to locate him. Although Florez later tried to add his name to Ms. Silva's account to facilitate his access to the deposited funds, his hasty departure from the bank when he thought a teller was attempting telephonically to confirm his identification documents, further evidences his determination to avoid any inquiry that might draw official attention to himself and possibly lead to his arrest. 24 Finally, we identify no clear error in the district court's conclusion that the government's efforts to locate Florez throughout the period from June 10, 1998 to May 24, 2003, were reasonably diligent. Pretrial Tr. June 23, 2004, at 21. From June 10, 1998, well into 1999, law enforcement authorities actively sought to locate Florez at various Queens locations only to be told by co-workers and family members that he was in Colombia. When, in February 2001, officials received information that Florez had returned to the United States, relatives continued to insist that he was, in fact, still in Colombia. In February 2002, upon learning that Florez had used Girleza Silva's address to secure a New York State driver's license, authorities questioned Ms. Silva, who admitted her contacts with the defendant and denied actual knowledge of his whereabouts, but provided various leads, none of which bore fruit. Re-interviewed in February 2003, Ms. Silva provided further cooperation; nevertheless, ensuing surveillance efforts to locate Florez again proved unsuccessful. Florez was finally located on May 24, 2003, when, in reporting himself to be the victim of a carjacking, he provided local police with a Queens address. 3 Far from indicating law enforcement neglect in searching for Florez, this evidence of the government's prolonged inability to locate him despite numerous efforts over a five-year period supports the district court's conclusion that defendant's intent throughout was to avoid arrest and prosecution. See United States v. Greever, 134 F.3d at 780 n. 1 (observing that where government's reasonable efforts to locate the defendant are unsuccessful, court may infer that defendant was acting with the intent to avoid arrest or prosecution) (internal quotation marks omitted). 25 In sum, we conclude that the district court (1) correctly construed the flight requirement of § 3290; (2) committed no clear error in finding that Florez was intentionally fleeing from justice from June 10, 1998, to May 24, 2003; and (3) properly tolled the statute of limitations during that five-year period, rendering meritless Florez's timeliness challenge to his January 2004 indictment.