Opinion ID: 569192
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ronald Descoteaux

Text: 49 The government adduced enough evidence to enable a reasonable jury finding that Descoteaux was a cocaine dealer sent by his supplier, Lemieux, to launder drug money through Isabel. 18 Lemieux testified that he told Descoteaux to contact Isabel to get a check like I get. After he was asked whether Descoteaux had been to see him, Isabel told Lemieux that he had taken care of it and was giving Ronnie some checks. During a two-year period, while Descoteaux had no source of income except drug trafficking, Isabel issued $11,000 in payroll checks to Descoteaux. There was no evidence that Descoteaux performed services for Isabel, or gave Isabel any other consideration for the payroll checks. The evidence was sufficient, at the very least, to show that Descoteaux knew that the payroll checks received from Isabel were designed to conceal or disguise Descoteaux's unlawful cocaine trafficking proceeds, which was the very reason Descoteaux went to see Isabel in the first place at the behest of Lemieux. See Massac, 867 F.2d at 177-78 (evidence that defendant was drug trafficker and used unusual channels to transfer cash, sufficient to show knowledge of laundering design of transfers). A fortiori, the jury reasonably could have concluded that Descoteaux knew that these check transactions involved proceeds of some form of unlawful activity. 50 There was sufficient evidence as well that Descoteaux in fact entered into the payroll check scheme; i.e., that he and Isabel actually conducted one or more financial transactions involving proceeds of specified unlawful activity. The direct evidence took the form of Isabel's admission to Lemieux, that Isabel had taken care of it and was giving Ronnie [Descoteaux] some checks, and the $11,000 in M.G. Masonry checks Isabel made out to Descoteaux. Considered in the context of the circumstantial evidence that Descoteaux had no legitimate source of income, the evidence was sufficient to support a reasonable inference that Descoteaux, having gone to Isabel to arrange for the laundering of drug trafficking proceeds, as Isabel was doing for Lemieux, managed to accomplish his purpose with Isabel, at least to the extent indicated by the $11,000 in checks for which no other plausible explanation can be gleaned from the record. 19