Opinion ID: 700633
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The CCE Conviction

Text: 10 Jefferson first challenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support his CCE conviction. The governing provision, 21 U.S.C. Sec. 848(b), provides that a person engages in a CCE if: 11 (1) he violates any provision of [title 21] the punishment for which is a felony, and 12 (2) such violation is part of a continuing series of violations of [title 21]-- 13 (A) which are undertaken by such person in concert with five or more other persons with respect to whom such person occupies a position of organizer, a supervisory position, or any other position of management, and 14 (B) from which such person obtains substantial income or resources. 15 The testimony established that Jefferson was the leader of a large cocaine distribution conspiracy that ran from 1988 to 1992, employing more than twenty people at any given time and making up to $6000 daily. Jefferson argues that his conviction should nevertheless be reversed because the evidence against him primarily consisted of the testimony of ten accomplices, all of whom had accepted plea bargains from the government in return for testifying. This argument lacks merit. 16 It is well-settled that credibility determinations are the sole province of the jury. See, e.g., United States v. Bailey, 444 U.S. 394, 414-15, 100 S.Ct. 624, 637, 62 L.Ed.2d 575 (1980) (It is for [jurors] and not for appellate courts, to say that a particular witness spoke the truth or fabricated a cock-and-bull story.). We have held that [a] conviction may rest solely on the uncorroborated testimony of one accomplice if the testimony is not insubstantial on its face. United States v. Gibson, 55 F.3d 173, 181 (5th Cir.1995) (citing United States v. Gardea Carrasco, 830 F.2d 41, 44 (5th Cir.1987)). Jefferson's role in the enterprise was corroborated by taped telephone conversations and financial data from The Side Effect, bank records and Western Union records. The abundant evidence concerning Jefferson's role in the conspiracy and the income he derived from it was sufficient to support the CCE conviction.