Opinion ID: 597413
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Sufficiency of Evidence of Intent

Text: Appellants contend that there was insufficient evidence to prove that they intentionally possessed the cocaine with the intent of importing or distributing it. This argument fails. We review the convictions only for clear and gross injustice because appellants failed to renew their motions for judgments of acquittal under Fed.R.Crim.P. 29(a) after presenting evidence on their own behalf. United States v. Hadfield, 918 F.2d 987, 996 (1st Cir.1990); United States v. Clotida, 892 F.2d 1098, 1102-03 (1st Cir.1989). Appellants fail to meet this standard. There was evidence for the jury to conclude that appellants were guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. Appellants were in one of two vessels over which a suspect aircraft hovered. The suspect aircraft met the profile criteria of a drug transporting aircraft in that it had no lights, no flight plan, and was flying at a dangerously low altitude. It made a series of hard maneuvers approximately three hundred to five hundred feet above the appellants' vessel. Both vessels appeared to be signalling the suspect aircraft with their lights. The vessels then turned their navigation lights off and headed towards the shore once appellants had retrieved four bales of cocaine from the water. The jury could reasonably infer that the vessels were attempting to evade detection by law enforcement officials. This inference is further strengthened by the fact that appellants attempted to avoid the police helicopter that was well lit and clearly identified by lettering, twelve to sixteen inches high, and a coat of arms on the side. The jury quite reasonably declined to believe Luis Alvarado's tale that he and Juan Lorenzi possessed the cocaine only because they were en route to turn it over to the police. Appellants importuned the jury to believe that they heard bales of cocaine drop into the water twenty miles southwest of Puerto Rico, while they were fishing in El Investigador, which is only seven or eight miles off the coast. Moreover, fishing gear was not in working order and there was no bait found aboard their vessel. Nor was the fishing net they cast upon the water recovered in the area of El Investigador. The jury could reasonably have found the appellants' version of the events that night to be incredible. Since the evidence overwhelmingly supports the verdicts of the jury, appellants' convictions are not grossly unjust.