Opinion ID: 52760
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: juan bautista lugo

Text: Lugo makes three contentions on appeal. His first two contentions involve $9000 in cash that was seized on May 11, 2004 from an automobile that he was driving. On that date, Deputy Michael Kenyan of the Manatee County, Florida Sheriff’s Department pulled over Lugo’s automobile after he discovered that the number on the car’s license plate was registered to a different vehicle. Lugo informed Officer Kenyan that he had rented the car and gave Officer Kenyan a copy of the rental contract. Kenyan took the agreement and returned to his patrol car to verify Lugo’s account with the rental car company. Approximately two minutes after the traffic stop began, another police officer, Deputy Preston Spear, arrived on the scene. While Officer Kenyan was contacting the rental car company, Deputy Spear asked Lugo for permission to search his vehicle. Lugo consented, and Spear searched the car, finding $9000 in the car’s center console. The cash was divided into denominations of $900. (The 7 fact that the money was divided into $900 denominations is significant because Ismael Ayala and his co-conspirators sold heroin in quantities priced at $900.) Lugo told Deputy Spear that the money constituted proceeds from a car sale that he had completed earlier in the day, but Lugo had no documentation of the sale. When Deputy Spear informed Lugo that he had to seize the money, Lugo assented without protest. After Deputy Spear finished the search, Officer Kenyan issued a warning ticket to Lugo for driving a vehicle with a license plate that was registered to another vehicle. The entire stop lasted twenty-five minutes. Lugo’s first two contentions on appeal are: (1) that the search of his vehicle violated the Fourth Amendment because Officer Kenyon unreasonably and deliberately delayed issuing the warning ticket so that Deputy Spear could search his car; and (2) that the district court committed plain error by admitting testimony at trial about the $9000 without first requiring the government to admit either photographs of the money or the currency itself. We review the trial court’s findings of fact for clear error, but we review de novo the application of those facts to the law. United States v. Simmons, 172 F.3d 775, 778 (11th Cir. 1999). The Fourth Amendment permits the police to stop an automobile if there is probable cause to believe that a traffic violation has occurred. Id. (citing Whren v. United States, 517 U.S. 806, 810, 116 S. Ct. 1769, 8 1772 (1996)). Here, Lugo does not dispute that there was probable cause for the initial stop of his vehicle. His only contention is that he would have been able to stop Deputy Spear’s search before the $9000 was discovered if Officer Kenyan had not unreasonably delayed issuing the warning ticket to him. Before trial Lugo filed a motion to exclude the $9000. The district court found that Deputy Kenyan had not unreasonably delayed issuing the warning ticket, removing any issue about the validity of the consent. Lugo points to nothing on appeal to persuade us that the district court’s factfindings were clearly erroneous, and the district court’s legal conclusion that the duration was reasonable is correct. As for his second contention—that the district court committed plain error by admitting testimony about the $9000 without first requiring the government to admit either photographs of the $9000 or the cash itself—Lugo has apparently overlooked the fact that the district court did admit photographs of the $9000 into evidence. Hence, there was no error. Lugo’s third and final contention is that his sentence is unreasonable. The only argument Lugo clearly makes in support of this contention is that his sentence is the same sentence that he would have received pre-Booker under a mandatory sentencing guidelines regime. That is a specious argument, because 9 nothing in Booker requires that a court impose a sentence outside of the advisory guidelines range. Lugo’s conviction and sentence are due to be affirmed.