Opinion ID: 695501
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Evidence of Money Laundering

Text: 30 Rodriguez also challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his conviction under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) for money laundering. 12 He contends that the prosecution presented insufficient evidence to demonstrate that he knew that the $1,000 cash payment of earnest money on the Pulaski house came from drug sale proceeds. 13 Rodriguez argues that the evidence established only that Luis Corral, who was involved in a controlled drug sale earlier that day, gave him the $1,000 in United States currency to use for the deposit, and that his conviction for money laundering was thus based solely on guilt by association. We disagree. Section 1956(a)(1)(B)(i) prohibits 31 conduct[ing] a financial transaction knowing that the property involved in the transaction represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity and knowing that the transaction is designed in whole or in part to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership, or the control of those proceeds. 32 United States v. Koller, 956 F.2d 1408, 1411 (7th Cir.1992). To support a conviction, the prosecution must demonstrate that the defendant had either actual knowledge of the tainted source of funds, or consciously avoided obtaining actual knowledge, because [i]t is well settled that wilful blindness or conscious avoidance is the legal equivalent to knowledge. United States v. Antzoulatos, 962 F.2d 720, 724 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 331, 121 L.Ed.2d 250 (1992). The trial court properly instructed the jury that it could infer knowledge from a combination of suspicion and indifference to the truth. 14 33 The government presented the evidence of several witnesses to establish that Rodriguez knew, or at a minimum consciously avoided knowing, that the funds he used for an earnest money deposit on the purchase of a house were proceeds from narcotics sales. Initially, we note that Rodriguez does not dispute that the serial numbers on the sixteen bills he gave to the realtor matched the serial numbers on bills from a DEA controlled drug sale. His argument focuses on the fact that real estate agent Rapp, who sold the Pulaski property, testified that he observed Luis Corral hand the $1,000 earnest money to Rodriguez. Rapp heard the two men converse in Spanish, but could not understand what they were saying. 34 Although this evidence, by itself, might not support a finding that the defendant actually knew, or consciously avoided knowing, the illegal source of the earnest money, the prosecution presented considerable and compelling evidence which inextricably entwined Rodriguez in a complex web of real estate transactions, obviously designed to conceal the ownership of the various properties purchased and the source of funds used for those purchases. Rodriguez participated in two separate real estate purchases, one with Gilberto and one with Luis Corral. When Rodriguez and Gilberto purchased the house on Towle Street, they used two cashier's checks, one purchased by Rodriguez and the other by Gilberto, but placed the title to the house in Rodriguez's cousin's name. When Rodriguez and Corral purchased the house on Pulaski, they used the $1,000 proceeds from Corral's drug sale to the DEA informant along with Rodriguez's apparently legitimate savings. See Jackson, 983 F.2d at 768 (commingling legal money with illegal [is] suggestive of a design to hide the source). Although Rodriguez and his wife paid for this home, and his wife's name was substituted for Corral's on the purchase agreement, Gilberto and Maria Cabello made this property their home. 15 35 This evidence, combined with the testimony of Elizabeth Santos, who observed Rodriguez participate in one drug delivery, clearly supports a finding that Rodriguez had actual knowledge of the drug ring's operations and actively participated in its real estate transactions. If, in fact, Rodriguez was not aware that the $1,000 in bills he used as earnest money for the purchase of the Pulaski house, his lack of knowledge amounted at a minimum to wilful blindness or conscious avoidance of the truth. Antzoulatos, 962 F.2d at 724. Accordingly, we refuse to overturn the jury's finding of guilt.