Opinion ID: 203973
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Promotion or Concealment

Text: The district court held correctly that the government had to prove the mental state for either promotional or concealment money laundering to obtain a conviction on the indictment. See United States v. Garcia-Torres, 341 F.3d 61, 66 (1st Cir.2003) ([W]here an indictment charges in the conjunctive several means of violating a statute, a conviction may be obtained on proof of only one of the means .... (quotation marks and citation omitted)). Therefore, the conviction must be affirmed if the government presented evidence sufficient to prove that Cedeño possessed either the mental state required for promotional money laundering or the mental state required for concealment money laundering. Without suggesting that the evidence was insufficient to prove promotional money laundering, we focus on the charge of concealment money laundering. In support of his claim that the evidence was insufficient to prove that he knew that the August 4, 2003 transaction was designed to conceal the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of the money, Cedeño points out that he did not instruct Ortiz to deposit the money in a bank account or to purchase real estate methods associated with laundering money. Nor did he mention anything to Ortiz about concealing the transferred funds. Lastly, ICE encountered Cedeño only once during the course of its investigation into the Tolozas, and, as discussed above, Cedeño was not known to the Toloza family. We disagree with this assessment of the evidence. The jury's conclusion that Cedeño knew the transaction was designed... to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership, or the control of the money is well supported by the evidence. Our conclusion is guided by the Supreme Court's recent interpretation of the same language in Cuellar v. United States, ___ U.S. ___, 128 S.Ct. 1994, 170 L.Ed.2d 942 (2008), where the Court dealt with the transportation provision of the money laundering statute. Under the transportation provision, it is unlawful to transport money outside the United States knowing that [the money] involved in the transportation ... represent[s] the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity and that such transportation ... is designed... to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership, or the control  of the money. 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(B)(i) (emphasis added). In the context of the money laundering statute, the Court said, `design' means purpose or plan; i.e., the intended aim of the transportation. Cuellar, 128 S.Ct. at 2003. Thus, to obtain a conviction, the evidence had to show that the purpose of the transportation was to conceal the funds, not simply that the funds had been concealed during transportation. [5] Id. at 2005-06. Because the Court's reasoning turns on the plain meaning of the statutory text, and because the text of the design element of the transportation provision is identical to the text of the design element of the transactional provision of the money laundering statute at issue here, we apply that reasoning to the facts of this case. Thus, to obtain a conviction for concealment money laundering, the evidence must show that the purpose of the financial transaction is to conceal the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of the transacted proceeds. The Court wrote in Cuellar that where the consequences of an action are commonly known, a trier of fact will often infer that the person taking the action knew what the consequences would be and acted with the purpose of bringing them about. Id. at 2005 n. 8; see also 1 Wayne R. LaFave, Substantive Criminal Law § 5.2, 5.2(a) (2d ed.2008) (describing this inference). Here, instead of transportation, the underlying criminal conduct is a financial transaction involving the proceeds of an unlawful activity. See 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1). A rational jury could have concluded that Cedeño, in agreeing to carry out a financial transaction with Ortiz, engaged in conduct that was commonly known to conceal the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of the proceeds. For example, Cedeño employed code words to identify callers and to establish a meeting location free of police presence. He packaged the money in a bag, kept the bag in his trunk, and delivered it in a mall parking lot, which had the effect of hiding the money and rendering the transaction relatively inconspicuous. A rational jury could have reasoned that, since it is commonly known that engaging in such conduct would have the effect of concealing the location, source, ownership or control of the money being transferred, it was Cedeño's purpose in so acting to conceal those traits of the proceeds. See also Corchado-Peralta, 318 F.3d at 259 (holding the evidence was insufficient where nothing about [the defendant's conduct] points toward concealment or disguise). This conclusion is supported by other evidence as well, including some of the same evidence that showed Cedeño's knowledge of the unlawful source of the funds. First, during the transaction with Ortiz, Cedeño repeatedly expressed concern that the money be handed over without alerting the police. He was reluctant to take the bag out of his car, and would not do so until Ortiz told him it was safe. Second, Ortiz testified that he told Cedeño he needed to receive the money before 2 p.m., because he did not want to stay through the night with it. [6] The jury could have concluded that Cedeño knew that Ortiz was going to deposit the money in a bank. In light of this, the jury could have further concluded that Cedeño understood that the highly secretive transfer in the parking lot was designed to conceal from the authorities the origin of the money Ortiz was to deposit; otherwise, there would have been no reason not to wire, or publicly deliver, the money to Ortiz. In short, there was ample evidence to support the jury's verdict that Cedeño knew the financial transaction with Ortiz was designed in whole or in part ... to conceal or disguise the nature, the location, the source, the ownership, or the control of the proceeds. 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(1)(B)(i). Affirmed.