Opinion ID: 612156
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Prior Transactions as Part of the Same Course of Conduct

Text: 14 Cedano also contends that the district court erred in including in the calculation of his base offense level the amount of cocaine involved in the uncharged prior transactions between Rios and Cedano. Cedano argues that there is insufficient evidence to include the prior purchases from Rios because Rios' testimony about those transactions is uncorroborated by any physical evidence. Moreover, Cedano maintains that, even if those transactions were to be credited, there is insufficient evidence to show that the prior transactions are part of the same course of conduct as the offense of conviction. 15 As to Cedano's first contention, the lack of physical corroboration to support Rios' testimony about the prior transactions is immaterial. The testimony of one witness, even one arguably biased against the defendant, is sufficient to support a finding of fact. See United States v. Caicedo, 937 F.2d 1227, 1236 (7th Cir.1991). [S]o long as the information which the sentencing judge considers has sufficient indicia of reliability to support its probable accuracy, the information may properly be taken into account in passing sentence. United States v. Lueddeke, 908 F.2d 230, 234 (7th Cir.1990) (quoting United States v. Miller, 891 F.2d 1265, 1270 (7th Cir.1989)). The district court found Rios' testimony about the prior transactions credible and consistent with Cedano's tape-recorded statements indicating that there had been earlier transactions. The determination that such transactions had taken place is not clearly erroneous. 16 We also reject the defendant's second contention that the prior transactions were not part of the same course of conduct. Whether the transactions are part of the same course of conduct as the offense of conviction depends upon the similarity, regularity and temporal proximity of the incidents in question. United States v. Mullins, 971 F.2d 1138, 1144 (4th Cir.1992); United States v. Hahn, 960 F.2d 903, 910 (9th Cir.1992). Although temporal proximity is a significant consideration in finding a course of conduct, a lapse of time between the prior conduct and the charged offense is not necessarily dispositive of the issue. Mullins, 971 F.2d at 1144. A respite is unlikely to be fatal in the finding of a course of conduct if the interruption was not the choice of the players. In such circumstances, the lapse does not indicate that the course was abandoned but only that, in spite of the efforts of the participants, the venture was inadvertently put on hold. In United States v. Nunez, 958 F.2d 196, 198 (7th Cir.), cert. denied, --- U.S. ----, 113 S.Ct. 168, 121 L.Ed.2d 115 (1992), for example, a two-year break from the time of the uncharged drug sales to the time of the offense of conviction was held not to upset a finding that the prior transactions were part of the same course of conduct, in part because the lapse resulted from the buyer's arrest and incarceration. See also United States v. Santiago, 906 F.2d 867, 873 (2d Cir.1990) (eight-month interruption due to arrest). Moreover, finding a course of conduct in the absence of regularity and temporal proximity may not be clearly erroneous when there is a stronger showing of similarity between the offense of conviction and the uncharged conduct. Mullins, 971 F.2d at 1144 (quoting Hahn, 960 F.2d at 910). In considering the similarity of the conduct in question, a court must look to the identity of the participants and their roles in the events at issue, as well as the nature, structure and location of the allegedly related transactions, to determine whether the transactions are sufficiently related for purposes of § 1B1.3(a)(2). See Santiago, 906 F.2d at 872; Ebbole, 917 F.2d at 1496 n. 3. 17 In the present case, the prior transactions to which Rios testified occurred between October, 1987, and May, 1988. The offense of conviction occurred on April 19, 1990--approximately two years later. To be sure, we must be cautious and exacting in permitting such relatively stale dealings to be included in the same course of conduct as the offense of conviction. Nonetheless, we are satisfied that the prior transactions here are sufficiently related to the offense of conviction for inclusion. First, the two-year respite can be explained by the fact that Rios had lost his supplier and was having difficulty in obtaining cocaine. Moreover, the drug transactions were conducted in substantially similar fashion: each took place in Chicago and involved a relatively large amount of cocaine; the cocaine was fronted to Cedano by Rios and picked up by mules, or carriers working on behalf of Cedano. Accordingly, the district court's finding that forty kilos were part of the same course of conduct in calculating Cedano's base offense level was not clearly erroneous. 18