Opinion ID: 152718
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Conspiracy to Retaliate Against a Witness

Text: Sanchez also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction for conspiracy to retaliate against a witness. The retaliation statute makes it a crime to knowingly, with the intent to retaliate, take[ ] any action harmful to any person ... for providing to a law enforcement officer any truthful information relating to the commission or possible commission of any Federal offense. 18 U.S.C. § 1513(e). Sanchez argues that there was no evidence to permit the jury to infer beyond a reasonable doubt that he plotted to kidnap Ignacio Vega and Maria Jimenez in retaliation for their testimony against Vasquez at his trial. We agree. There is no record evidence from which the jury could infer that Sanchez even knew that Vega and Maria Jimenez had testified against Vasquez, let alone that the motive for the kidnapping was to retaliate against them for that testimony. Rather, the evidence strongly supports the inference that Sanchez targeted the kidnapping victims because he believed they owed Vasquez money. The government responds that the jury could have inferred that Sanchez learned about Vega's and Maria Jimenez's testimony from Vasquez himself or from someone associated with the Mexican drug cartel. But no evidence supports either inference; this argument relies entirely on speculation. See United States v. Robinson, 161 F.3d 463, 472 (7th Cir.1998) (`[W]e recognize that in reviewing a guilty verdict based on circumstantial evidence, we must insure that the verdict does not rest solely on the piling of inference upon inference....' (quoting United States v. Moore, 115 F.3d 1348, 1364 (7th Cir.1997))). The inference might be sustainable had the government offered evidence to show that the victims' testimony at Vasquez's trial was widely publicized and that Sanchez was so closely tied to the underlying conspiracy that he might reasonably be presumed to have knowledge of that trial. See, e.g., United States v. Johnson, 903 F.2d 1084, 1087-89 (7th Cir.1990). But there was no such evidence in this case. The evidence established instead that Sanchez thought his targets owed Vasquez money and that that was the reason for the kidnapping. Accordingly, we vacate Sanchez's conviction for conspiracy to retaliate against a witness.