Opinion ID: 76388
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Orlando Puche

Text: 16 The agents had the first and most frequent contact with Orlando. At their first meeting on June 21, Orlando did not lodge any objection to Oliva's proposal to have $100,000 to $200,000 in cash wired by GEC twice a week. During the June 23 meeting, Oliva proffered various false identifications and persistently asked whether the wire transfers could be done in different names. Not giving into their repeated requests, Orlando insisted that the actual person who was wiring the cash had to come into the GEC office to conduct the transaction. Orlando also asked Oliva for his driver's license and social security number. Oliva produced a driver's license in the name of Leonardo Casamayor but claimed that he did not have his social security card on him at that time. On that occasion, Oliva left a bag containing $50,000 with Orlando, instructing him to do whatever [he] had to do. Orlando wired the money to an account in Canada that Oliva had designated. Oliva stated to Orlando that the name on the account was Davidoff, like the cigar company. Four days later, Serna-Osorio asked Oliva for his social security card and Oliva faxed GEC a copy of a social security card in the name of Leonardo Casamayor. The $50,000 wire transfer to Canada by GEC had occurred well before Oliva supplied his social security information to Serna-Osorio. 17 On June 29, Oliva returned to GEC with another $50,000 in cash to be wire-transferred. Oliva also asked Orlando whether he could exchange money for him, and remarked that he might send an emissary to do the exchange. Orlando answered that he would do it as a favor but preferred that Oliva appear personally. On July 7, Miranda, stating that he was there on behalf of Leonardo, came to GEC with $51,530 in cash to be wire-transferred. 3 Orlando made no protest and instead came out of his office to greet Miranda and help him carry the three boxes containing the cash into his office. 18 On July 21, Wilder Moreno asked Oliva about his business. Oliva answered that he marketed [d]ifferent products and that in Canada we are sending the money to Davidoff, which is like the tobacco company. During the same conversation, Moreno asked Oliva if they always pay you in singles, to which Oliva replied, Hey, how they pay me, I have to take it. In Moreno's absence, Oliva pressed Orlando about why Moreno asked so many questions, and Orlando responded that he brought Moreno in to count the money because he was very quick, but also noted that Moreno was very curious about his business. Orlando strongly advised Oliva not to tell Moreno anything about his business. Oliva brought in $70,000 on that visit. 19 On July 28, again with concern about Moreno's inquisitiveness, Oliva intimated to Orlando that his business was traqueteo or drug dealing, to which Orlando responded, No, no, no and repeated that Oliva should not tell Moreno anything about where the money was coming from. Orlando then processed the $79,000 in cash Oliva brought in that day. On August 11, in front of Orlando, Agent Miranda remarked about receiving so many $1 bills from Pablo's house, the crackheads up there. On that visit, Oliva brought in $100,000 to be wired. On August 25, the agents told Orlando that they wanted the cash, this time in the amount of $125,000, transferred to the Canadian account instead of the English one because the latter was too slow in releasing the money. Miranda stated that they were going to be shorted five cosos [a slang word for kilograms of cocaine] on the next shipment because of the delay. If the jury found that Orlando actually heard these remarks, it is difficult to imagine what more the agents had to do, short of telling the Puches outright, to represent that the cash was coming from illegal activity. 20 On September 8, Oliva told Orlando that until December, he would need to transfer $400,000 to $600,000 in cash a week, and suggested that it be accomplished by dividing the amount into two transfers wired out in the same week. Orlando asked Oliva to let him know beforehand how much cash he would be bringing to GEC and recommended that he deliver the cash for transfers on Mondays and Thursdays, or Mondays and Wednesdays. 21 On September 25, Orlando further suggested that he did not want to do the transfers too close together. He added that Oliva should wait before bringing in the money because he wanted to hold off before dealing with the larger transfers. Orlando also notified Oliva that he was about to have two of GEC's bank accounts closed due to too much movement or too much money going through his bank accounts. 22 During the same September 25 meeting, Orlando assured Oliva that there had not been any problems with past transactions. Previous to the meeting, GEC employee Serna-Osorio alerted Oliva that GEC had received a letter regarding Leonardo but that she did not know the precise contents. In fact, the letter had come from the IRS, dated August 29, 2000, stating that a currency transaction report filed by GEC on June 30 for Leonardo Casamayor was inaccurate or incomplete because there was no match between the name reported and the corresponding social security number or employee identification number. On September 8, after having received this IRS notice, GEC still conducted another financial transaction with Oliva in his guise as Leonardo Casamayor. Orlando never questioned the agents' identities. 23 Overall, we have no doubt that a reasonable factfinder could have found that Orlando's suspicions were aroused and that his failure to make further inquiries amounted to deliberate ignorance. Even if the jury did not believe that Orlando heard or understood the drug-related terms used in front of him by the agents, they could have found that Orlando's requests in response to Oliva's revelation of his business and request to Oliva not to discuss his business with Wilder Moreno also amounted to deliberate ignorance. As for the representation element, the agents' repeated drug-related references, on top of the increasing sums of cash and Oliva's repeated attempts to use different identities, could have reasonably led the jury to conclude that the agents made enough of a representation that their money was coming from illegal activity. Defendants' argument that the agents never made affirmative and explicit representations fails for its impracticability. To require sting operators to admit to the illegality of their business would render sting operations prohibitively difficult. See United States v. Starke, 62 F.3d 1374, 1382 (11th Cir. 1995) (citing United States v. Arditti, 955 F.2d 331, 339 (5th Cir.1992)).