Opinion ID: 771970
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Goods as Self-Evidently Stolen

Text: 24 The government maintains that because Elaiho aided in the pickup of stolen goods, he intended to participate in the crimes charged. Government's Brief at 18-21. This argument rests upon the unproven assumption that Elaiho knew that the goods were stolen. This knowledge cannot be reasonably inferred from the evidence before us. Even taking as true all of the government's claims as to what Elaiho saw and did, the evidence is insufficient to prove that Elaiho knew that the boxes in question contained stolen goods, or further that he knew these goods had been stolen by means of credit card fraud. 25 The agent testified that on November 13, 1998, Samaria placed one large box in Elaiho's car. The evidence provided no further description of the box, its dimensions, any exterior markings, or whether it was open or sealed. In respect to the November 18, 1998 pickup, the agent testified that she saw Samaria leaving the Mailboxes, Etc. store with two boxes, one large, one small. Significantly, however, there was no evidence that Elaiho, who sat behind the steering wheel of his car the entire time, saw Samaria bringing the boxes out of the store. The agent testified that the trunk of Elaiho's car was open and that she herself couldn't see exactly what occurred with the boxes prior to Samaria hailing a yellow cab into which Samaria loaded the two boxes. According to the only testimony on the matter, Elaiho stated that he saw the two boxes only after Elaiho had followed the yellow cab for a few blocks and after Samaria had unloaded them from the cab onto the curb. 26 What Elaiho saw during these pickups was not necessarily or even reasonably indicative of any criminal activity at all, much less sufficient to support the conclusion that Elaiho knew that the goods were stolen or purchased through credit card fraud. Even if Elaiho suspected that Samaria and Glover were involved in a criminal enterprise of some sort, the exterior appearance of the boxes was equally consistent with any number of different criminal offenses including the receipt and possession of drugs, illegal weapons, counterfeit currency, or the receipt of legal goods such as drug paraphernalia that would later be employed in a criminal endeavor. 5