Opinion ID: 866145
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Factual Inconsistencies

Text: Díaz-Arias' final challenge to the admission of the voice identification testimony is that the testimony was factually flawed. He makes the case that, in the recordings of the wiretapped conversations, Hipólito represented that he was facing certain events and circumstances in his life which are directly at odds with the events and circumstances surrounding Díaz-Arias' life in 2004. Firstly, he notes that in the recordings, Hipólito identified himself as being age 34 and that he was born in the month of April. Conversely, Díaz-Arias claims he is 41 years of age and that his birthday falls on January 29. Secondly, he notes that in the recordings, Hipólito made reference to the sacrifices he was making for Angie, who presumably was his daughter. DíazArias now claims that the evidence at trial revealed that he only had three children, none of whom were named Angie. Thirdly, on one of the calls, Hipólito mentioned that he had not been able to see a certain woman, because she had put a restraining order on him, and that this, in turn, had prevented him from seeing his oldest daughter, whom he had raised. Díaz-Arias argues that the recording does not identify the woman as Jacqueline Fresa, that the government did not elicit testimony from Fresa going to her efforts to impede Díaz-Arias from seeing his oldest daughter, and that Fresa's oldest daughter was in fact fathered by a man named Jason Pina, which makes it extremely unlikely that Díaz-Arias would have -23- been the one that raised her. Lastly, Díaz-Arias contends that the speaker in the recordings was not clear on whether he had one or more daughters with the woman he spoke about. Having thoroughly reviewed the record, including DíazArias' smorgasbord of aliases and liaisons, we are convinced that a reasonable jury may still have elected to credit Trooper Cepero's testimony, despite these seeming inconsistencies. In fact, many of the inconsistencies cited by Díaz-Arias are not inconsistencies at all. First of all, the Presentence Report (PSR) lists Díaz-Arias as having been born on January 29, 1971. In the summer and fall of 2004, Díaz-Arias would have been 33 years old, turning 34 the following year. In his brief, he states that he is 41 years old, but that probably refers to his age in 2012, when the brief was written. That said, there is a valid question as to the month of his birthday, January vs. April, but the record in this case establishes that Díaz-Arias was an avid user of false identities, which allowed him to assume several false dates of birth. Therefore, a reasonable jury would have acted well within in its discretion in concluding that Díaz-Arias was merely being untruthful when he asserted that he was 34 years old as of April. It was also free to surmise that Díaz-Arias' true date of birth was not conclusively established at trial. Likewise, Díaz-Arias' assertion that he only had three daughters, none of whom were named Angie, is unsupported by the -24- record. First of all, the record indicates that it was Fresa, and not Díaz-Arias, who testified that she only had three daughters, two with Díaz-Arias and one with Jason Pina. Second, having reviewed the pertinent transcripts, it is apparent to us that Hipólito never explicitly stated that he had procreated Angie with the woman who placed the restraining order against him, and whom the government argued was Fresa. Hipólito only appeared to mention that he had raised Angie and that the woman in question had taken her away from him. Third, there was evidence that DíazArias had romantic relationships with other women, and so the jury could have inferred that Angie was another one of Díaz-Arias' daughters, procreated with someone other than Fresa. In fact, the PSR noted that Díaz-Arias reported having four other children, including two with Angie Christo, one of his former girlfriends. In any case, it is difficult to argue that the reference to Angie could have created any reasonable doubt within the minds of the jurors while evaluating the sufficiency of the evidence against Díaz-Arias. We are similarly unpersuaded by Díaz-Arias' remaining arguments, to the effect that the recordings did not identify Fresa as the woman who had placed the restraining order against him. The content of the recorded phone conversations, Fresa's testimony, and the admission of the restraining order itself (which was filed only a few days before Hipólito referred to it in the recordings) as -25- well as the other evidence presented at trial, comprised enough circumstantial evidence for the jury to conclude that it was Fresa who filed the restraining order against Hipólito. Any uncertainty as to the amount of children Hipólito had with Fresa is minimal compared to the corroborating circumstantial evidence presented at trial, which strongly indicated that Hipólito was indeed Díaz-Arias. Moreover, it is the prerogative of the jury to choose between varying interpretations of the evidence. United States v. Sánchez-Badillo, 540 F.3d 24, 32 (1st Cir. 2008)(citing United States v. Wilder, 526 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2008)); see also United States v. Rodríguez-Durán, 507 F.3d 749, 758 (1st Cir. 2007) (The government need not succeed in eliminating every possible theory consistent with the defendant's innocence . . . and circumstantial evidence alone may be sufficient to provide a basis for conviction. (internal quotations and citations omitted)); United States v. Martínez, 922 F.2d 914, 923 (1st Cir. 1991)(The evidence need not exclude every reasonable hypothesis inconsistent with guilt, and the jury is entitled to choose among varying interpretations of the evidence so long as the interpretation it chooses is a reasonable one.). Based on the foregoing, we find that the district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing Trooper Cepero’s voice identification testimony. -26-