Opinion ID: 616972
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: False Bills of Lading

Text: The jury heard evidence which showed not only that the bills of lading were suspicious, but also fraudulent. The defendant admitted to Agent Ramos that he was familiar with the bills although he had not composed them. The bills of lading were so erroneous that Moreno-Gonzalez could not have made a delivery to the locations listed on them. While the jury also heard testimony that it was not unusual for drivers to receive a change of location or more specific directions for delivery while en route, it is possible that they discounted that alternative given the other evidence presented. It is also possible that the jury thought, having looked at the bills of lading, that an innocent person would have been suspicious enough to inquire further before setting out on the journey. The falsity of the bill of lading need not be enough to arouse an innocent person’s suspicion. The question we must ask is whether or not the bills were so false that the jury deemed it unlikely that a drug operation would have left an innocent driver with those faulty bills of lading without the driver having knowledge of the true destination. It is entirely possible that in conjunction with the large quantities of drugs, the jury believed it was unlikely that a drug smuggler would leave an unwitting dupe to risk making a delivery to an 5 No. 10-40684 unknown or non-existent destination, or risk having him get to the destination listed on the bill of lading, only to be turned away. In other words, the jury could have inferred that because of the large quantity of drugs and the false bill of lading, the driver must have had knowledge of the drugs in the trailer, of the real final destination for delivery to the drug operation, and that the bill of lading was just a cover. As the prosecutor argued in his closing argument: Where is he supposed to take that stuff? Not to QVC, not to North Carolina. He gets a call to take it somewhere else? If he doesn’t know, is he going to do it or not? If you get a call saying, “Hey, you know what, I’m in South Carolina, or New Jersey, or Seattle, or Portland. That’s where you need to go now, and go behind the gas station and drop it off.” If you’re the owner of that marijuana, do you really want to risk the driver saying, “Huh-uh. Thanks, but no thanks. I don’t know what’s going on –” or opening it up, and to his surprise, seeing marijuana in there and calling the police? No. Is that really reasonable to think that the person driving the stuff does not know that it’s in there? The lack of a legitimate bill of lading, the implausible explanation MorenoGonzalez provided to investigators, and the large quantities of drugs could have been enough for the jury to find the knowledge element of the crime. It is implausible that a sophisticated drug operation would leave such a large quantity of drugs in the hands of an unwitting dupe with no way of retrieving them. See Villarreal, 324 F.3d at 324; Garcia-Flores, 246 F.3d at 455. Furthermore, upon rejection of the delivery, the innocent driver would be more likely to open the trailer and discover the large quantity of drugs. Upon 6 No. 10-40684 discovery, an innocent person would have involved the police. The jury could very well have found that these myriad potential pitfalls likely meant that it was entirely implausible that a sophisticated drug operation would leave an innocent person in possession of such a valuable stash of drugs with a false destination. Having been presented with this evidence at trial, we do not need to delve into the exact rationale of the jury, or their weighing of potential explanations. It suffices to say that there was plausible evidence presented that would link Moreno-Gonzalez with the knowledge that he was transporting a significant quantity of illegal narcotics.