Court Opinion

ID: 9895230
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-11-06 16:00:43.565208+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:11:47.940574
License: Public Domain

21-3008-cr
United States v. Castillo

                                 UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
                                     FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT
                                         SUMMARY ORDER

RULINGS BY SUMMARY ORDER DO NOT HAVE PRECEDENTIAL EFFECT.
CITATION TO A SUMMARY ORDER FILED ON OR AFTER JANUARY 1, 2007, IS
PERMITTED AND IS GOVERNED BY FEDERAL RULE OF APPELLATE
PROCEDURE 32.1 AND THIS COURT’S LOCAL RULE 32.1.1. WHEN CITING A
SUMMARY ORDER IN A DOCUMENT FILED WITH THIS COURT, A PARTY
MUST CITE EITHER THE FEDERAL APPENDIX OR AN ELECTRONIC DATABASE
(WITH THE NOTATION ”SUMMARY ORDER“). A PARTY CITING A SUMMARY
ORDER MUST SERVE A COPY OF IT ON ANY PARTY NOT REPRESENTED BY
COUNSEL.

      At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit,
held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the
City of New York, on the 6th day of November, two thousand twenty-three.

         PRESENT: RAYMOND J. LOHIER, JR.,
                          BETH ROBINSON,
                          ALISON J. NATHAN,
                                  Circuit Judges.
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         UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

                            Appellee,

                            v.                                                  No. 21-3008-cr

         JORGE CASTILLO, AKA Sealed Defendant 1,
         AKA Jorge Alexis Castillo-Romero,

                          Defendant-Appellant.
         ------------------------------------------------------------------

         FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT:                                  John L. Russo, J.L. Russo, P.C.,
                                                                   Astoria, NY
      FOR APPELLEE:                               Daniel H. Wolf, Olga I.
                                                  Zverovich, Assistant United
                                                  States Attorneys, for Damian
                                                  Williams, United States
                                                  Attorney for the Southern
                                                  District of New York, New
                                                  York, NY

      Appeal from a judgment of the United States District Court for the

Southern District of New York (Gregory H. Woods, Judge).

      UPON DUE CONSIDERATION, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED,

AND DECREED that the judgment of the District Court is AFFIRMED in part

and the appeal is DISMISSED in part as moot.

      Jorge Castillo appeals from a November 29, 2021 judgment of the United

States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Woods, J.) convicting

him of one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§

1341, 1349 and sentencing him principally to a term of imprisonment of 30

months. Castillo challenges two of the District Court’s evidentiary rulings and

also argues that his sentence was procedurally and substantively unreasonable.

We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts and the record of

prior proceedings, to which we refer only as necessary to explain our decision to

affirm in part and dismiss in part.

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      I.    Background

      Castillo was employed as a delivery driver for United Parcel Service

(“UPS”), which counted Sprint, a telecommunications company, among its

clients. Other individuals sought to fraudulently obtain cellphones from Sprint

by impersonating existing Sprint customers and ordering cellphones billed to

those accounts to be sent to locations in upper Manhattan. In 2017, a Sprint

investigator, James Patrick Goetz, identified a single phone number that

appeared to be the source of many of these fraudulent orders. After identifying

two fraudulent orders of iPhones from that phone number in December 2017 and

April 2018, Goetz allowed the orders to proceed but directed that each shipment

include an iPhone on which the “Find My iPhone” cellphone tracking program

had been activated. Goetz used the program to track the iPhones to a location

corresponding to Castillo’s home address. Goetz also determined that Castillo

had received over ten telephone calls from the suspect phone number on a day

that Castillo had delivered a fraudulently ordered phone.

      Sprint notified UPS about its investigation into Castillo. On May 31, 2019,

when Castillo was scheduled to deliver additional orders of cellphones that had

been identified as fraudulent, two UPS investigators observed Castillo reporting

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packages as delivered when, in fact, they were still in his truck. The

investigators confronted Castillo, who confessed to giving packages to

individuals with multiple different identifications in exchange for payments of

$100 or $200. Castillo subsequently repeated his confession to the police.

      At trial, Castillo maintained that his confession had been coerced and

coached, and that, as a native Spanish speaker, he did not understand the

English words that the UPS investigators had told him to say to the police. The

jury convicted Castillo of conspiracy to commit mail fraud but acquitted him of

aggravated identity theft.

      II.   The Find My iPhone Evidence

      Castillo first challenges the District Court’s decision to admit both (1)

Goetz’s testimony concerning his use of the Find My iPhone program to locate

certain cellphones that had been fraudulently ordered and (2) screenshots

showing the phones’ locations at certain times. In support of his challenge,

Castillo points to Goetz’s limited use of the Find My iPhone program, his failure

to corroborate the results of the program’s application using “plotted locations in

the field,” and his lack of familiarity with the program’s performance in upper

Manhattan. Appellant’s Br. 34–35.

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      The parties dispute whether the “deferential abuse of discretion standard,”

United States v. McGinn, 787 F.3d 116, 127 (2d Cir. 2015), or the “plain error

standard” of review, United States v. Simels, 654 F.3d 161, 168 (2d Cir. 2011),

applies to Castillo’s claim here. But under either standard, we reject Castillo’s

argument. Federal Rule of Evidence 901, which governs the authentication of

evidence, “does not erect a particularly high hurdle” to the admission of

evidence. United States v. Dhinsa, 243 F.3d 635, 658 (2d Cir. 2001) (quotation

marks omitted). Evidence is admissible if its proponent produces “evidence

sufficient to support a finding that the item is what the proponent claims it is,”

such as “[e]vidence describing a process or system and showing that it produces

an accurate result.” Fed. R. Evid. 901(a), (b)(9). “Rule 901’s requirements are

satisfied if sufficient proof has been introduced so that a reasonable juror could

find in favor of authenticity or identification.” United States v. Tin Yat Chin, 371

F.3d 31, 38 (2d Cir. 2004) (quotation marks omitted).

      Goetz laid a sufficient foundation to admit his testimony and the

screenshots. Goetz explained the nature of the Find My iPhone program and

how it can be used to show the location of an iPhone. He also explained that he

had tested the application by using it on the tracked phones when they were in

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his possession and again when they were held by a colleague in another office in

a different state. Goetz further testified that he took screenshots of the map that

showed the location of phones he was tracking. Goetz’s testimony was

sufficient for a reasonable juror to conclude that the screenshots that the

Government introduced showed the location of the tracked phones at issue in

this case. Castillo’s arguments regarding the reliability of Find My iPhone in

upper Manhattan relate only to the “persuasive force” of the evidence, and thus

raise a question for the jury to decide. Tin Yat Chin, 371 F.3d at 38. We

therefore affirm the District Court’s decision to admit the Find My iPhone

evidence.

      III.   The Practices of UPS Drivers

      Castillo also challenges the District Court’s exclusion of evidence that he

claims would have shown that UPS drivers routinely engaged in actions he

undertook and that the Government portrayed as illegal conduct. The

Government moved in limine to exclude the evidence, and the District Court

granted the motion, reasoning that it was inadmissible evidence of prior good

conduct and that the probative value of the evidence was outweighed by the

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likelihood that it would cause jury confusion.

      Even assuming that the District Court erred, we conclude that any error

was harmless. First, the evidence of Castillo’s guilt, including his confessions

and the Find My iPhone screenshots, was overwhelming. Moreover, at trial,

Castillo was able to testify that customers would commonly call and tip him, and

that he occasionally met them at places other than the delivery address provided

by UPS to deliver packages. Castillo’s attorney referred to this testimony

during closing statements. We can thus “conclude with fair assurance that” the

exclusion of additional evidence showing the same common practices “did not

substantially influence the jury.” United States v. Mercado, 573 F.3d 138, 141 (2d

Cir. 2009).

      IV.     Castillo’s Challenge to his Sentence

      Castillo challenges his 30-month term of imprisonment, contending that

his sentence was both procedurally and substantively unreasonable. The

Government argues that the challenge to the term of imprisonment is moot

because Castillo has finished serving his custodial sentence and has been

released. Notwithstanding Castillo’s ongoing term of supervised release, we

agree. See United States v. Key, 602 F.3d 492, 494 (2d Cir. 2010). We therefore

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dismiss as moot Castillo’s appeal insofar as it challenges his 30-month term of

imprisonment.

      We have considered Castillo’s remaining arguments and conclude that

they are without merit. For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the District

Court is AFFIRMED in part and the appeal is DISMISSED in part as moot.

                                      FOR THE COURT:
                                      Catherine O’Hagan Wolfe, Clerk of Court

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