Opinion ID: 707621
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Chemical tests and dog sniffs of cash deposited with money launderers

Text: 63 The district court admitted expert testimony from a Drug Enforcement Administration chemist that cash processed by the Andonian money-laundering organization tested positive for cocaine. The court similarly admitted government testimony that dog sniffs had identified cocaine on money that was to be deposited in an account controlled by the Sharir money-laundering organization. None of the identified funds were traced directly to Air North or Golb, but purchase funds were traced from Golb to these two organizations. That this input cash was tainted with cocaine supports the government's claim that Andonian and Sharir were in the cocaine money-laundering business and thus that the purchase funds were also drug proceeds. 64 Golb contests the reliability of the tests and dog sniffs, and further argues that all money has cocaine on it. The government counters that these were no faint traces (like flour in a bakery shop according to the government's expert [6/2/92 RT at 120-21] and that the chemical tests used were more reliable than previous methods. In any case, in admitting the evidence, the district court did not abuse its discretion or violate Fed.R.Evid. 403, which allows for the exclusion of evidence if its probative value is substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice. The defense had its own expert who testified about experiments in which he detected cocaine on innocent sample bills; it was within the jury's province to resolve these competing opinions and determine what weight to accord the government's evidence.