Opinion ID: 3171028
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Money Laundering Instructions

Text: On the last day of trial, the district court granted Prieto's motion for acquittal of the ten money laundering charges against him on the basis of the Supreme Court's holding in United States v. Santos, 553 U.S. 507 (2008) (plurality opinion).7 The 6 It follows that the limitation on funding and the effective exclusion of the industry witness did not affect Prieto's due process right to a fair trial. United States v. Butt, 955 F.2d 77, 85 (1st Cir. 1992) (A trial judge has wide discretion concerning the admission of expert testimony, and we sustain such decisions where there has been no abuse.). 7 In Santos, the Supreme Court limited the reach of the federal money laundering statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1956, to preclude prosecution of those individuals charged with laundering the proceeds derived from a given criminal activity when the proceeds were merely being reinvested to sustain that very activity. Id. at 514 (plurality opinion). The bases of the money laundering charges against Prieto were the payments made by his organization to the straw purchasers in return for their participation in the scheme. In dropping the charges, the district court ruled that the payments - 19 - court excised all references to the money laundering charges from the instructions read to the jurors. The jurors were instructed: You were previously advised that the indictment in this case contained one count charging mail fraud and ten counts charging money laundering. The money laundering counts are no longer before you and it will not be necessary for you to return a verdict on those counts. Only the charge of mail fraud is before you. Prieto did not object to these instructions at the time, nor did he propose alternative ones. He now argues that these instructions failed to provide clear direction to the jurors on how to separate the money laundering evidence from the scheme to defraud evidence. We review an unpreserved objection to jury instructions for plain error. United States v. Colon, 744 F.3d 752, 757 (1st Cir. 2014). Seeking reversal under this standard, Prieto faces the heavy burden of showing (1) that an error occurred; (2) that the error was clear or obvious; (3) that the error affected his substantial rights; and (4) that the error also seriously impaired the fairness, integrity, or public reputation of judicial proceedings. United States v. Riccio, 529 F.3d 40, 46 (1st Cir. 2008). ran afoul of Santos since they amounted to only one necessary step in the perpetration of the larger scheme. - 20 - It is a burden he cannot shoulder. Here, the instructions to the jury, considered as a whole, see Colon, 744 F.3d at 757, effectively steered jurors clear of the money laundering charges and sufficiently guarded against the danger that reasonable jurors would have thought those charges were still in the mix. The jury instructions did not infect the trial with plain error.