Opinion ID: 76388
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Defendants as a Whole

Text: 11 It is important to note that the government prosecuted this case under two alternate theories: that defendants actually believed that the money came from drug trafficking, or, according to a deliberate ignorance theory, that they deliberately closed their eyes to what they had every reason to believe was the illegal nature of the money they were wire-transferring. We first discuss the evidence incriminating all defendants and then detail the cases against each individual defendant. 12 The evidence showed that in the course of the DEA investigation, GEC and the Puches were touted and known for their capacity and willingness to transmit a high volume of cash by wire. Indeed, the agents were referred to GEC after already having done business with other money transmittal companies. Previous to any meetings with the Puches, Oliva offered Rojas and Serna-Osorio opportunities to assist in his new venture in Orlando by transporting heroin from Miami to Orlando in hidden compartments in cars, an offer the GEC employees rejected. Serna-Osorio instead expressed interest in the running of the money part of Oliva's operations. Oliva told Serna-Osorio that he wanted to transfer larger amounts of cash and would prefer to visit the GEC office at least twice a week to conduct the transactions. It was then that the GEC employees, who knew of the agents' drug connections and told the agents that the Puches were very cautious now in the way they do these things, introduced the agents to Orlando. The jury could reasonably infer that as part of this introduction, Serna-Osorio informed one, some, or all of the Puches of the agents' illegal activities. 13 It is equally plausible for the jury to have concluded that the Puches' suspicions should have been and were in fact aroused by the size of the cash deliveries, their frequency, and the manner in which they were presented. At their first meeting on June 21, Orlando told Agent Oliva that his employee had already told him what the agents needed. Over the next three months, the agents arranged with GEC on eight occasions to have large amounts of cash, ranging from $50,000 to $170,000, wired by GEC to overseas bank accounts. The cash was always delivered in small denominations and brought in duffel bags or boxes. 14 Furthermore, bank records established that more than ninety-two million dollars had passed through GEC's bank accounts from May 18, 2000, through November 9, 2000. The government showed that the average amount of cash transferred by an individual customer at a money transmittal company is $250, thereby necessitating 368,000 customers in order to have transmitted the ninety-two million dollar amount in six months. In addition, Detective LuAnn Smith's testimony regarding GEC's structuring of its bank deposits reveals that GEC frequently made deposits of less than $10,000, thereby circumventing the requirement of submitting a currency transaction report. The structuring took the form of multiple deposits into the same bank account at different times on the same day or at different bank branches on the same day. A reasonable jury could conclude that this structuring was part of an effort to minimize suspicion over the unnaturally large amounts of money coming through GEC. 15 The evidence also shows that the Puches held weekly board meetings to discuss GEC's business. Though the government presented no direct evidence of whether illicit activity was discussed at those meetings, Orlando testified that Casamayor and Davidoff were mentioned and discussed. Through evidence of these meetings and by the Puches' familial associations, the jury could easily have found that Mauricio and Enrique were apprised of the content of Orlando's more frequent contacts with the agents. Yet, as we discuss infra, Mauricio's and Enrique's convictions do not lie solely on their familial connections to Orlando.