Opinion ID: 769431
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Efrain Santos

Text: 9 Efrain Santos appeals only his money laundering convictions, arguing that the evidence was insufficient to convict him of money laundering because his cash payments to the bolita's collectors and winners were essential transactions of the illegal gambling business, and thus cannot also constitute transactions under the promotion provision of the money laundering statute, 18 U.S.C. sec. 1956(a)(1)(A)(i). 10 A defendant bears an extremely heavy burden in attempting to overturn a conviction on the basis of insufficient evidence; United States v. Vega, 72 F.3d 507, 513 (7th Cir. 1995), and we will reverse a conviction only if, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the government, we determine that no rational trier of fact could have found the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Id. Title 18 U.S.C. sec. 1956(a)(1)(A)(i) of the money laundering statute provides: 11 Whoever, knowing that the property involved in a financial transaction represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity, conducts or attempts to conduct such a financial transaction which in fact involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity-- 12 (A)(i) with the intent to promote the carrying on of specified unlawful activity [shall be punished]. 13 To prove money laundering under this promotion provision, the government must show that the defendant: 1) conducted a financial transaction with the proceeds of an illegal activity; 2) knew that the property represented illegal proceeds; and 3) conducted the transaction with the intent to promote the carrying on of the unlawful activity. United States v. Emerson, 128 F.3d 557, 561 (7th Cir. 1997). 14 While Santos acknowledges that he used illegal proceeds to pay the bolita's collectors and winners, he contends that his transactions merely completed the substantive offense of illegal gambling, and thus did not promote the carrying on of the bolita. He claims that since the money laundering statute created the separate crime of money laundering, it only punishes the practice of reinvesting the proceeds of an already completed unlawful activity to promote the expansion of that unlawful activity, and thus the government failed to prove that his transactions satisfied the statute's promotion requirement. 15 A transaction satisfies the promotion provision of the money laundering statute if it constitutes the practice of plowing back proceeds of [the illegal activity] to promote that activity. United States v. Jackson, 935 F.2d 832, 842 (7th Cir. 1991). In Jackson, we affirmed a money laundering conviction in which a defendant, Joseph Davis, used the proceeds of drug transactions to purchase telephone paging beepers that were used to contact drug couriers and instruct them on the location of additional money pickups. We determined that since Davis purchased the beepers with the intent to promote the continued prosperity of his criminal enterprise by plowing money back into his drug operation, he violated sec. 1956(a)(1)(A)(i) of the money laundering statute. Id. at 841. According to Jackson, therefore, the money laundering statute created a separate crime of money laundering that is distinct from the substantive offense (in this case gambling) that initially generated the illegal funds, see United States v. Heaps, 39 F.3d 479, 486 (4th Cir. 1994); and it punishes transactions that promote the continued prosperity of the underlying offense. See United States v. Conley, 37 F.3d 970, 979 n. 12 (3d Cir. 1994) (evidence of the defendant's use of illegal gambling proceeds to pay vendors to service illegal poker machines constituted an offense under the promotion provision of 18 U.S.C. sec. 1956(a)(1)). 16 In this case, the government established that Santos reinvested the bolita's proceeds to ensure its continued operation for over 5 years, well beyond the 30 days required to complete the substantive offense of illegal gambling under 18 U.S.C. sec. 1955. Furthermore, his own records show that the income to his bolita expanded from approximately $250,000.00 per year for the years 1989 to 1992, to $330,000.00 for 1993, and up to $410,000.00 for 1994. His payments to his collectors, Diaz and Morales, compensated them for collecting the increased revenues and transferring those funds back to him. And his payments to the winning players promoted the bolita's continuing prosperity by maintaining and increasing the players' patronage. See United States v. Cole, 988 F.2d 681, 684 (7th Cir. 1993) (the defendant's payment of interest to defrauded investors promoted the fraudulent investment scheme.). Therefore, the government produced sufficient evidence to enable a reasonable jury to find Santos guilty of money laundering beyond a reasonable doubt. 2