Opinion ID: 204040
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Post-Trial Threats and Harassment

Text: Caraballo, Andino, and Urbina argue that the district court abused its discretion in declining to grant them a new trial based on their post-trial allegations that Lugo and others discouraged them, through threats and harassment, from testifying. As background, the Defendants were found guilty on June 16, 2006. Six months later, during a December 6, 2006 sentencing hearing, Urbina alleged for the first time that Lugo and other unnamed individuals had issued veiled threats that had discouraged him, Caraballo, and Andino from testifying at trial on their own behalf. Urbina further asserted that he, Caraballo, and Andino would have testified that they were not at the purported board meetings concerning the loans from the Union to the Health Plan. On February 2, 2007, Caraballo, Andino, and Urbina moved for a new trial, arguing that the alleged threats constituted newly discovered evidence under Rule 33(b)(1) of the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure. The district court denied the motion, finding that any threats had not been serious enough to dissuade the defendants from testifying and that their decision not to testify was in fact a strateg[ic] one. Caraballo, Andino, and Urbina renew their arguments on appeal, and contend that they are entitled to a new trial. We review a district court's denial of a new trial motion for manifest abuse of discretion. United States v. Del-Valle, 566 F.3d 31, 38 (1st Cir.2009). The remedy of a new trial must be used sparingly, and only where a miscarriage of justice would otherwise result. Id. (citing United States v. Conley, 249 F.3d 38, 45 (1st Cir.2001)). A defendant who seeks a new trial on the basis of newly discovered evidence bears a `weighty burden' of establishing that: (1) the evidence was unknown or unavailable to the defendant at the time of trial; (2) failure to learn of the evidence was not due to lack of diligence by the defendant; (3) the evidence is material and not merely cumulative or impeaching; and (4) the emergence of the evidence will probably result in an acquittal upon retrial of the defendant. Id. There was no abuse of discretion. First, if their claims of threats were true, then obviously they would have known about the threats during trial. Thus, their evidence cannot be newly discovered, as they cannot claim that the threats were unknown or unavailable to [them] at the time of trial. See United States v. Wright, 625 F.2d 1017, 1019 (1st Cir.1980). Second, they cannot show any prejudice. This is because their claim that they would have testified that they did not participate in purported board meetings concerning the loans from the Union to the Health Plan would have supported the government's theory that these meetings never occurred and that minutes over those loan meetings were doctored.