Opinion ID: 28811
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Entrapment of Mohammad Mahmoud Abdallah

Text: Mohammad argues that he was entrapped by undercover federal agents, who sought to induce him and intimidate him into giving them cash for food stamps. Under the affirmative defense of entrapment, once the defendant makes a prima facie case that he was induced to commit the crime by government officials and that he was not predisposed to engage in the criminal conduct, an entrapment instruction must be given and the burden shifts to the government to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant was either predisposed to commit the offense or was not induced. United States v. Pruneda-Gonzalez, 953 F.2d 190, 197 (5th Cir. 1992); United States v. Thompson, 130 F.3d 676, 689 (5th Cir. 1997). In the present case, the jury concluded beyond a reasonable doubt that Mohammad was not entrapped as to any count in the 5 indictment. We review the jury’s finding for sufficiency of the evidence. Id. at 688-89. The evidence showed that, at least with respect to a couple of the counts, government agents were persistent in attempting to obtain cash for benefits, for example when an agent came back to the store within the same afternoon after an initial brush-off to confirm a correct PIN for her card, or when an agent told Mohammad that she had “never had a problem” getting a large amount of cash from another employee. However, we need not conclusively resolve whether these tactics rose to the level of inducement, because there was in any event ample evidence for the jury to conclude that Mohammad was predisposed to engage in food stamp fraud, based on evidence of: the number of transactions, some of which involved no apparent resistance; the fact that any resistance was short-lived (as opposed to being worn down by an agent only after a period of pleading or harassment); the fact that he took a profit on the transactions rather than providing full cash value of the benefits to the customer, as would be consistent with his explanation that he was simply trying to get the customers to leave the store quickly; his coordination of transactions with other stores; and his instruction on August 12 to an undercover agent that if she came back into the store for another transaction, not to ask for any other employee if she did not see him. The jury was entitled to conclude from all the circumstances that Mohammad did not cave into badgering or a perceived threat from the undercover agents, but was predisposed to commit food stamp fraud for personal gain.