Court Opinion

ID: 9400815
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-06-09 16:00:55.867374+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:19:48.154132
License: Public Domain

NOT FOR PUBLICATION                           FILED
                    UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS                        JUN 9 2023
                                                                     MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK
                                                                       U.S. COURT OF APPEALS
                           FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,                       No.   16-50327

                Plaintiff-Appellee,             D.C. No.
                                                2:09-cr-00933-CAS-1
 v.

RONALD GERARD BOYAJIAN, AKA                     MEMORANDUM *
Ronald G. Boyajian, AKA Ronald Geral
Boyajian, AKA Ronald Gerald Boyajian,
AKA John,

                Defendant-Appellant.

                   Appeal from the United States District Court
                       for the Central District of California
                   Christina A. Snyder, District Judge, Presiding

                       Argued and Submitted May 10, 2023
                              Pasadena, California

Before: HURWITZ and R. NELSON, Circuit Judges.**

      Ronald Boyajian was convicted of traveling with intent to engage in illicit

sexual conduct with a minor in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2423(b) (Count One),

      *
             This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent
except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3.
      **
            This case was decided by quorum of the panel. See 28 U.S.C. § 46(d);
Ninth Circuit General Order 3.2(h).
engaging in illicit sexual conduct with a minor in foreign places in violation of 18

U.S.C. § 2423(c) (Count Two), and commission of these offenses while required to

register as a sex offender in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2260A (Count Three). We have

jurisdiction over this appeal under 18 U.S.C. § 3742 and 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and

affirm.

      1. The jury instruction on Count Two was erroneous because it would allow

conviction even if Boyajian had stopped traveling at the time of the offense. See

United States v. Pepe, 895 F.3d 679, 691 (9th Cir. 2018). But the error was harmless.

See United States v. Conti, 804 F.3d 977, 980–81 (9th Cir. 2015). The evidence that

Boyajian was traveling in Cambodia when he committed the offense was

overwhelming. In the nine years before the offense, he had traveled to Asia thirty-

five times, each time returning to California. He traveled on a United States

passport, had a California driver’s license, described his travels to custom officials

as for “vacation” or “business,” told those officials that he lived in California, and

stayed in various guesthouses in Cambodia. He described Cambodia as a “dirty”

“third-world country” and had booked a return flight to the United States for the day

after he was arrested in Cambodia. See United States v. Johnson, 823 F. App’x 485,

488–89 (9th Cir. 2020) (upholding a § 2423(c) conviction and noting that “during

the nine-year period in which Johnson avers he resided in Cambodia, he maintained

a permanent residence in Oregon, held an Oregon driver’s license, and took other

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actions consistent with that of a citizen of the United States traveling temporarily

overseas. On U.S. passport forms, for example, Johnson would describe his ‘trips

abroad’ as ‘temporary.’”).

      2.   We rejected the claim that § 2423(c) regulates activity outside of

Congress’s foreign commerce powers in United States v. Pepe, 895 F.3d 679, 689–

90 (9th Cir. 2018).

      3. Contrary to Boyajian’s argument, § 2423(b), which prohibits “travel[ ] in

foreign commerce, for the purpose of engaging in any illicit sexual conduct with

another person,” does not require that the illicit conduct be a but-for purpose of the

travel. See United States v. Flucas, 22 F.4th 1149, 1156–57, 1164 (9th Cir. 2022).

      4. Boyajian’s argument that his convictions violate the doctrines of dual

criminality and specialty also fails. These doctrines apply to transfers occurring

through extradition treaties. See Ker v. Illinois, 119 U.S. 436, 443 (1886). The

United States and Cambodia have no such treaty, and the Cambodian Supreme Court

expressly determined that Boyajian’s transfer to this country was not an extradition.

      5. In sentencing, the district court invoked U.S.S.G. § 2G1.3(d)(1), which

provides that “[i]f the offense involved more than one minor,” grouping rules “shall

be applied as if . . . each victim had been contained in a separate count of

conviction.” Boyajian argues that his abuse against children other than the named

victim was not within “the offense” of conviction because “it fell well outside the

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temporal scope of the conduct charged in the indictment.” See United States v.

Schock, 862 F.3d 563, 567 (6th Cir. 2017).

      However, any error in applying the Guideline enhancement was harmless.

The district court imposed the statutory maximum sentences on Counts One and Two

and explained why those sentences were necessary. United States v. Munoz-

Camarena, 631 F.3d 1028, 1030 n.5 (9th Cir. 2011) (per curiam).

      6. The district court did not err in denying Boyajian’s motion to suppress

evidence seized in his room at a Cambodian guesthouse during a joint raid by United

States and Cambodian officials. The Cambodian Supreme Court found the search

illegal under Cambodian law, and “compliance with foreign law alone determines

whether the search violated the Fourth Amendment.” United States v. Barona, 56

F.3d 1087, 1092 n.1 (9th Cir. 1995). But United States law “governs whether

illegally obtained evidence should be excluded, and the essence of our inquiry is

whether exclusion serves the rationale of deterring federal officers from unlawful

conduct.” United States v. Peterson, 812 F.2d 486, 491 (9th Cir. 1987).

      The Fourth Amendment exclusionary rule does not apply when “law

enforcement officers have acted in objective good faith.” United States v. Leon, 468

U.S. 897, 908 (1984). The search of Boyajian’s room was found illegal under

Cambodian law because it was conducted without the guesthouse owner’s written

consent—a rule with no counterpart in our jurisprudence. Moreover, the United

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States officials conducting the search reasonably relied on representations by their

foreign counterparts that the prosecutor’s verbal submission sufficed, and the

government presented testimony from multiple Cambodian officials and legal

experts who believed that this advice was accurate when given. See Peterson, 812

F.2d at 492.

      7. We review a district court’s finding that a defendant has knowingly and

voluntarily waived his Sixth Amendment right to counsel de novo and a finding that

the waiver was unequivocal for clear error. See United States v. Mendez-Sanchez,

563 F.3d 935, 944 (9th Cir. 2009). We find no error.

      Boyajian did not condition his request to proceed pro se below on an alleged

decision by the district court denying him new counsel. Rather, Boyajian stated that

“I am simply asking to go pro se and nothing else,” and that “the only thing I want

is pro se.     I don’t want anything else. . . . Hundred percent.”        He thereafter

complained that standby counsel was overstepping his role; filed a “Standing

Objection to the Court Advancing Standby Counsel George Buehler to Trial

Counsel”; and stated during sentencing that “I do not want under Faretta [standby

counsel] to speak at all in this courtroom, at all, and I’d like to make that record very

clear.” He repeatedly confirmed that he did not want his pro se status revoked.

      8. Boyajian also argues that he was denied the right to counsel during a

hearing concerning a fee dispute between Boyajian and former counsel. The district

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court, however, merely required that the lawyers who sought to argue about “ethics

issues” become counsel of record. Their refusal to do so did not violate Boyajian’s

constitutional rights.

          9.   “[A] federal court properly may exercise ancillary jurisdiction over

attorney fee disputes collateral to the underlying litigation.” K.C. ex rel. Erica C. v.

Torlakson, 762 F.3d 963, 968 (9th Cir. 2014) (cleaned up). However, the exercise

of that jurisdiction is discretionary. See id. at 971. The district court did not abuse

its discretion in declining to exercise ancillary jurisdiction over the fee dispute. The

court noted that adjudicating that dispute would cause further delay in the already

extended criminal proceedings, Boyajian provided “no reason why he cannot resolve

his fee dispute in state court as a state law claim for breach of contract,” and he failed

to show how resolving this dispute would “facilitate the resolution of his criminal

trial.”

          AFFIRMED.

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