Opinion ID: 393808
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: pacheco

Text: 12 We similarly think that the evidence properly supported appellant Pacheco's conspiracy conviction. The proof at trial showed that at the time of the arson Pacheco was acting director of the Criminal Investigations Corps of the Puerto Rican Police, an office containing within it the arson investigation section. Pacheco had a longstanding social relationship with appellant Benmuhar, Charles, and at least one other Delta employee. 13 Pacheco intervened in the Delta arson investigation in a number of instances. Immediately after the fire, police refused to permit Charles to remove business documents from a fireproof room. Charles then asked an employee to call Pacheco at his home. Pacheco responded by coming to the scene and securing the documents released. 14 The day after the fire, Pacheco summoned a staff investigator on the case to his office, where Pacheco was meeting with three representatives from Delta. Before these potential arson suspects, Pacheco questioned the investigator about the progress of his work on the case. He responded that the matter was still under investigation. The investigator said at trial that such questioning of an investigator before potential suspects was unprecedented and at odds with the section's policy about public disclosure. He further testified that it was very unusual for persons affected by a fire to immediately come to our office to know what is going on. 15 Pacheco made other unusual requests for inside information on the Delta investigation. About two months after the fire, he asked another investigator on the case if (he) had any suspects, if (he) had any information. What would happen. What (he) found, and what (he) had relating to the investigation. Pacheco made three or four such inquiries of this investigator. The investigator stated that (n)ever, never before had Pacheco made such requests, nor was he able to recall any subsequent investigations about which Pacheco had so inquired. 16 Pacheco's superior also had observed Pacheco meeting with Delta employees after the fire. One of the men the superior knew only as Mr. Benmuhar. The superior then ordered investigating agents to avoid disclosing information on the investigation to anyone, with specified exceptions that did not include Pacheco. One reason for his order was the fact that Pacheco had met with executives of the Delta Company after the fire. The superior testified that it was against policy to disclose information concerning investigations to persons who might be affected by the investigation. 17 About two months after the fire, Charles bought a new Pontiac car in Miami for about $6000 in cash. None of the sales documents bore Charles' name, although some were signed in the name of William Pacheco Nieves. The government handwriting expert could neither confirm nor exclude the possibility that Pacheco in fact had penned the signatures. The car was shipped to Pacheco in Puerto Rico, where it was registered under Pacheco's name until it was sold to a third party in 1979. 18 This evidence, although not overwhelming, is sufficient to support Pacheco's conviction. The jury could have found from the testimony that Pacheco attempted to take advantage of his official position to gain otherwise secret information about the progress of the Delta arson investigation. The unusual character of his meeting with potential defendants immediately after a suspected criminal event could create an inference that conspiratorial activity was afoot, and Pacheco's unprecedented interest in ascertaining the status of this investigation manifested in one instance by improper questioning in the presence of potential suspects could support the accompanying inference that Pacheco intended to relay this information directly or indirectly to his coconspirators. Although the government's failure to prove that Pacheco succeeded in obstructing the investigation weakens its case, this does not conclusively rebut the foregoing inferences since the jury could have believed that Pacheco would have done more, but for the evident vigilance and caution of his superior. Finally, Charles' apparently surreptitious purchase of the car in Pacheco's name provides a credible motive for Pacheco's involvement in the conspiracy. The government therefore produced substantial evidence from which the jury could have concluded that Pacheco, a high police official, undertook unusual and improper actions for the benefit of potential arson suspects during the course of an arson investigation in consideration for an apparently improper and secret gift. We cannot say that no reasonable jury could have concluded from this that Pacheco was guilty beyond reasonable doubt of knowing participation in the conspiracy to defraud Delta's insurers.