Opinion ID: 77692
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Offense Conduct and Trial

Text: 2 During Edouard's trial, the Government introduced the testimony of several witnesses, many of whom were admitted co-conspirators testifying in exchange for immunity from prosecution for their roles in Edouard's charged offenses and/or a possible reduction in their sentences. The evidence established the following: 3 At Edouard's direction, his brothers, Hughes and Hubert Edouard, began smuggling cocaine from Haiti into the United States from 1995 to 1996 by concealing it in their clothing and their shoes. Hughes and Hubert also hired others, at Edouard's behest, to smuggle cocaine into the U.S. using this method. In 1996, Hughes and Hubert began smuggling Edouard's cocaine by hiring couriers to carry the cocaine in suitcases and fly as passengers on commercial airliners from Port-au-Prince, Haiti to New York's John F. Kennedy Airport (JFK). Hughes and Hubert purchased cocaine in Haiti with money provided by Edouard, who lived in New York at this time. The brothers loaded the cocaine into suitcases and gave them to couriers who took the suitcases to the Port-au-Prince airport, where Haitian police officers and airport security workers, paid by Edouard, would ensure that the couriers and the suitcases went through security without difficulty. Once the suitcases arrived at JFK, an airline employee, also paid by Edouard, would surreptitiously retrieve the suitcases and deliver them to Edouard, who would then sell the cocaine for approximately $22,000 to $24,000 per kilogram. Hughes and Hubert each received approximately $10,000 to $15,000 per shipment. According to the brothers, Edouard smuggled one or two suitcases, twice per month, each packed with twenty-one to twenty-three kilograms of cocaine. 4 In 1997, Edouard and his brothers stopped using suitcases to smuggle cocaine and began using cargo boxes shipped via American Airlines' cargo service. At some point in 1997, Edouard returned to Haiti and asserted greater control over the Haitian end of his operation. Shortly thereafter, Jacques Jean Louis took over the cargo shipments in New York from Hughes and Hubert while Edouard received the proceeds in Haiti. 5 During 2000, Hughes became re-involved in the airline cargo shipments by collecting the proceeds from the cocaine sales in New York and sending them back to Edouard in Haiti. According to Hughes, he sent approximately $500,000 to $1,000,000 to Edouard three to four times per month via American Airlines employees and other couriers who concealed the money in their carry-on bags. Hughes estimated that from 1997 to 2000, Edouard shipped between 3,000 and 5,000 kilograms of cocaine via cargo boxes smuggled through American Airlines' cargo service. 6 In May 2000, Edouard encountered Clifford Sibilia during a party in Haiti at the home of drug-trafficker Jacques Ketant. Sibilia had first met Edouard in 1998 while they were both in federal custody in Miami, Florida. During the party, Edouard, Sibilia, and Ketant discussed various methods of smuggling cocaine from Haiti into America. According to Sibilia, the men devised a plan to use a cargo boat to ship poultry products from the United States to Haiti in a shipping container equipped with a secret compartment. 7 In September 2000, Sibilia returned to Florida to establish Cool Beverage, the company that would serve as the legitimate front for the smuggling operation he, Edouard, and Ketant had discussed in Haiti. After establishing Cool Beverage, Sibilia returned to Haiti where Edouard gave him money to purchase a forty-foot shipping container and the poultry products to be shipped inside the container. After purchasing the container in the U.S., Sibilia brought the container to Haiti. There, Edouard hired workers to construct a twenty-foot-long, secret compartment in the top of the container. Edouard and Ketant purchased twenty-five kilograms of cocaine, which they, along with Sibilia, concealed in the secret compartment. They then placed the container on a cargo boat headed to Port Everglades, Florida. 8 Using binoculars, Sibilia watched the boat's arrival at the shipyard in Port Everglades and noted that the container had cleared U.S. Customs without any delay. Sibilia had the container delivered to the yard of the poultry supplier, and during the night, he retrieved the cocaine from the secret compartment. Sibilia then sold the cocaine for $500,000, taking $100,000 for himself and shipping $400,000 back to Haiti for Edouard and Ketant via the secret compartment of the now poultry-filled container. Once the container arrived at the shipyard in Haiti, Edouard retrieved the $400,000. 9 After the success of this initial venture, Sibilia, Edouard, and Ketant shipped 90 to 100 kilograms of cocaine to Port Everglades via this cargo-boat method in October and November 2000. In December 2000, however, U.S. Customs officials discovered the secret compartment during an inspection and seized 100 kilograms of cocaine. Upon noticing that the container took longer than usual to clear Customs and that Customs officials had followed the container to the poultry supplier, Sibilia notified Edouard and abandoned the load. 10 In November 2000, Sibilia learned that Edouard was also smuggling cocaine from Haiti to New York via commercial airliners. Sibilia testified regarding the details of this aspect of Edouard's operation based on information he had received from Edouard. Sibilia also claimed that he twice sent cocaine through Edouard using this method and that he was paid by Hughes after the cocaine was sold in New York. 11 Sometime in late 2000 or early 2001, Edouard ceased using American Airlines' cargo service to smuggle his cocaine, and instead began using the metallic boxes that the airlines use to store suitcases (airline containers). The night before a shipment was to leave the Port-au-Prince airport, Romaine Lestin, the chief of airport security, and other Haitian police officers would unlock an airport warehouse so that someone hired by Edouard could gain access to the airline containers. Once inside the warehouse, Edouard's employee would construct a secret compartment in an airline container and fill the compartment with cocaine. The container was then loaded with suitcases and placed onto a flight headed for JFK. In addition to Lestin, Edouard also received help from Oriel Jean, the chief of security for Haiti's then-president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Jean testified that he provided Edouard with a palace security badge so that the Haitian police would not search his person or vehicles, thus allowing Edouard to transport cocaine and money to and from the airport without police interference. In exchange for the badge, Jean received a share of the proceeds from Edouard's cocaine sales, either directly from Edouard or from others in Edouard's organization (including Lestin). In total, Edouard smuggled between 10,000 and 12,000 kilograms of cocaine into the U.S. using this method. 12 In August 2001, Edouard shipped 100 kilograms of cocaine from Haiti to Miami International Airport via three suitcases ticketed to travel to Europe. Once the suitcases arrived in Miami, airport workers, paid by Edouard, changed the tags on the suitcases to ensure that they did not go through Customs and on to Europe. Hughes and Hubert, who had traveled from Haiti, along with Max LaFontan went to the Miami airport to retrieve the suitcases on August 28, 2001. Phone records showed that from August 26th to August 28th, approximately forty phone calls had been made between Hubert's cell phone and Edouard's phone number in Haiti. After retrieving the suitcases, Hubert brought them to his apartment in Doral, Florida and gave twenty kilograms of the cocaine to Richard Scutt. Shortly thereafter, Hubert and Scutt were arrested. Hubert was ultimately convicted of conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine. 13 Eddy Aurelien worked in Edouard's drug-trafficking operation as a courier from 1999 to 2003. According to Aurelien, at Edouard's direction, he would pick up suitcases containing cocaine from a hotel in Haiti and deliver them to Edouard two or three times per month, with each delivery containing between thirty and sixty kilograms of cocaine. In return for Aurelien's services, Edouard would ship three or four kilograms of cocaine for Aurelien to New York, Miami, or Canada, where it would be sold. The proceeds from the sales were shipped back to Haiti on commercial airliners arriving at the Port-au-Prince airport. Aurelien estimated that he received between $14,000 and $15,000 per kilogram of cocaine sold. Aurelien also testified about the roles Lestin, Jean, and Hughes had played in Edouard's operation. 14 In addition to his cocaine-trafficking operation, Edouard also owned and operated Perseverance Borlette (Perseverance), a lottery business that he had inherited from his father. Hughes, Hubert, and Sibilia testified that Edouard used the lottery business as a front to launder the proceeds from his drug-trafficking operation. According to Hughes and Hubert, customers would purchase lottery tickets from Perseverance in Haitian currency (gourds), and from 1993 until 1999, the company made approximately 6,000 gourds (or $1,000 U.S.) per month in profit. In 2000, Edouard used the proceeds from his trafficking operation to open several additional Perseverance locations, and the company's profits increased to between $12,000 and $15,000 per month. Although all of the customers used Haitian gourds to buy their lottery tickets, Perseverance employees were paid in U.S. currency. 15 Despite the modest profits generated by the lottery business, bank records showed that Edouard's business account contained millions of dollars in U.S. currency. Bank records also showed that between 1997 and 2004, Edouard had deposited more than $15 million into various Haitian bank accounts and had withdrawn approximately the same amount. Edouard also had deposited millions of dollars into bank accounts held in the names of his children. In addition to accumulating a large amount of cash, according to witnesses, Edouard also owned four houses worth between $200,000 and $400,000 each; a large plot of land worth approximately $2 million; a commercial building in downtown Port-au-Prince purchased for $500,000; an apartment purchased for $200,000; a motel purchased for $5 million; and several luxury automobiles. 16 In 2003, Edouard attempted to start a rice-selling business. Michelle Pean Berret, owner of a commodities trading company, the Boripea Group, testified that in October 2003, Edouard negotiated a deal to buy rice from her company at a price that would allow him to make a profit on the resale. Edouard ordered 5,000 bags of rice and wired $91,000 to the Boripea Group as payment. The rice was delivered to Miami per Edouard's instructions. In May 2004, Edouard ordered 12,500 metric tons of rice and wired $636,000 to Berret as a deposit for the order. After placing the order, however, Edouard called Berret to cancel and demanded that she refund his deposit. Berret explained that the sale could not be cancelled because her company had already obtained a line of credit to finance the order. She also asserted that her company did not have the funds to refund the entire $636,000 in a single payment. Edouard, however, insisted that his deposit be returned and threatened to kill Berret and her employees if she failed to comply. Thereafter, Berret agreed to refund Edouard's deposit, and, per Edouard's instructions, she issued checks in the amounts of $20,000 and $30,000 to Edouard's then-attorney Walter DeLoatch, $50,000 in the name of Celeste Peterson, and $24,000 to Fabiola Edouard. Berret also made wire transfers of $25,000 and $40,000 to Dominican bank accounts. 17 On June 30, 2005, a grand jury returned a multi-count, superseding indictment charging Edouard with conspiracy to import five kilograms or more of cocaine, in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 952(a) and 963 (Count 1); conspiracy to commit money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1956(h) and 1957 (Count 2); and money laundering, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1957 (Counts 3-11). The indictment also included a forfeiture count pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 982 and 21 U.S.C. § 853. 18 At the close of the Government's case, Edouard moved for judgment of acquittal on all counts. The district court denied the motion. Edouard then announced that he would not call any witnesses or otherwise present evidence. After stating for the record that Edouard had renewed his motion for judgment of acquittal, the court denied Edouard's renewed motion. The jury convicted Edouard on all counts.