Opinion ID: 6216405
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Mendoza’s Conviction for RICO Conspiracy

Text: Mendoza next challenges the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction for RICO conspiracy. Of the five elements of a RICO conspiracy set out in the jury instructions, Mendoza challenged only one: whether he actually “became a member of the conspiracy knowing of its object and intending to help further or facilitate” it. And as with the drug conspiracy count, we may rely on circumstantial evidence. See Mincoff, 574 F.3d at 1192. 20 UNITED STATES V. MENDOZA The government’s theory, at trial and on appeal, is that Mendoza was a part of the CRO’s racketeering conspiracy because he sold drugs for the gang—the same theory the government pursued as to Mendoza’s drug conspiracy charge. For these parallel theories, the government offered parallel evidence: the same evidence supported both the drug conspiracy charge and the RICO conspiracy charge. And unsurprisingly, Mendoza countered with the same argument that he used to challenge the drug conspiracy charge—that he was a mere drug user, not a conspirator in distributing drugs to others—and with the same counterevidence. The government’s RICO conspiracy case turns on the same element of proof and on the same evidence as did its drug conspiracy case. So, the outcome here is the same as with the drug conspiracy: insufficient evidence supports Mendoza’s conviction for RICO conspiracy. Cf. EspinozaValdez, 889 F.3d at 659 (analyzing as a whole the overlapping evidence for two separate conspiracy convictions and finding insufficient evidence for either).