Opinion ID: 2675586
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Participation in Theft Scheme at Local Mall

Text: Lastly, Marfo contends that the district court “plainly erred when it allowed the government to introduce evidence that Marfo participated in an unrelated theft scheme because it is not probative of anything.” (Appellant’s Br. 58.) At trial, Styron testified that (apart from smoking marijuana with Marfo) when he met Marfo, he occasionally sold Marfo items of clothing stolen by Styron’s friends from a local mall. Styron, however, did not implicate Marfo in the theft of the clothes or even assert that Marfo knew that they were stolen. There was thus no 25 “bad act” attributed to Marfo beyond buying clothes from Styron, which, by itself, is not a “bad act.” Regardless, we find that Styron’s testimony was intrinsic to how Marfo and Styron met and how Marfo recruited Styron into the stolen money order scheme. See Kennedy, 32 F.3d at 885 (“Evidence of uncharged conduct is not considered ‘other crimes’ evidence if it arose out of the same series of transactions as the charged offense, or if it is necessary to complete the story of the crime on trial.” (quotation marks and alterations omitted)). Even if not intrinsic, this evidence would have been properly admitted pursuant to Rule 404(b), as the Government may “provide context relevant to the criminal charges.” Cooper, 482 F.3d 658, 663 (4th Cir. 2007). The district court thus did not err.