Opinion ID: 2799819
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Colon

Text: Colon argues that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient for the jury to find him guilty of murdering Delquan Alston while engaged in the narcotics conspiracy, in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 848(e)(1)(A), though Colon does not challenge the sufficiency of the evidence with respect to his committing the underlying murder. We have held that Section 848(e)(1)(A) liability does not require active involvement in drug distribution. United States v. Santos, 541 F.3d 63, 65, 73 (2d Cir. 2008) (ʺThat [the defendant] did not participate in the narcotics conspiracy in some way other than carrying out the murders does not undermine the sufficiency of the evidence that he was a co‐conspirator.ʺ). ʺ[T]he government need only prove beyond a reasonable doubt that one motive for the ‐ 13 ‐ killing . . . was related to the drug conspiracy.ʺ United States v. Desinor, 525 F.3d 193, 202 (2d Cir. 2008) (emphasis in original). Parsons testified that on August 27, 2010, he and Colon shot and killed Alston. Parsons was at a restaurant in the Bronx with Harrison and Colon when Harrison told Colon that Alston was selling fake crack cocaine to CAC customers, and that Alston was rumored to be a law enforcement informant. Harrison asked Colon and Parsons to kill Alston, promising to pay them. On the night of the murder, Colon, Parsons, and Alston sat on a bench and talked near a Courtlandt Avenue apartment building. Parsons asked Alston to go buy some rolling paper for marijuana. Parsons and Colon followed him as he walked to the store. On the way, Alston stopped to urinate against the wall of a building. When he turned back around, Colon shot him in the head with a .40 caliber pistol that Parsons had given to him. Though Colon does not dispute that he murdered Alston, he points to testimony by a government witness that he told someone he met in pretrial detention that he killed Alston not as part of a contract murder, but because Alston threatened to kill one of Colonʹs friends. Colon also contends that he could not have been a part of the narcotics conspiracy because he was released ‐ 14 ‐ from juvenile detention only a month before Harrisonʹs death, and that he was selling drugs independently from CAC, and often in direct competition with CAC. At trial, however, the government presented contrary evidence, including the evidence described above that Colon killed Alston at Harrisonʹs request because Alstonʹs actions were threatening CACʹs narcotics activity. Hence, the jury could have rationally inferred that Colon had the requisite intent to commit the murder in aid of the drug trafficking conspiracy. See Santos, 541 F.3d at 73.