Court Opinion

ID: 9472581
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:04:34.585585+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:01.423618
License: Public Domain

TJOFLAT, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part:
I concur in all but the majority’s conclusion that the evidence was insufficient to convict Tiedeberg of conspiracy to transport the paintings in interstate commerce, knowing them to have been stolen. I believe that, applying the standard of United States v. Bell, 678 F.2d 547, 549 (5th Cir. Unit B 1982) (en banc), aff'd on other grounds, 462 U.S. 356, 103 S.Ct. 2398, 76 L.Ed.2d 638 (1983), a reasonable trier of fact could have found that the evidence established Tiedeberg’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.
The majority finds the evidence sufficient to show that the conspiracy existed and that Tiedeberg knew of it; the majority only finds insufficient the evidence that Tiedeberg intentionally joined the conspiracy. My disagreement, then, only extends to this narrow issue.
As the majority has noted, we are required to read the evidence in the light most favorable to the government. A defendant cannot escape criminal liability on the ground that he did not join in the conspiracy until well after its inception, or that he played only a minor role in the scheme. United States v. Alvarez, 625 F.2d 1196, 1198 (5th Cir.1980) (en banc), cert. denied, 451 U.S. 938, 101 S.Ct. 2017, 68 L.Ed.2d 324 (1981).
Tiedeberg searched the FBI agent who was to examine the paintings, and searched the agent’s hotel room. When the agent asked Tiedeberg whether the agent would be seeing the paintings, Tiedeberg nodded yes. During the group conversation about details of the conspiracy that took place after the agent had examined the paintings, Tiedeberg sat in a five- to six-foot semicircle with the other coconspirators. He did not stand off by himself, ignoring the conversation. As everyone was leaving the room, Shapiro asked Tiedeberg to stay and guard the paintings. Tiedeberg nodded yes.
*1301The jury could infer from those actions that Tiedeberg had intentionally joined the conspiracy. Searching the room and guarding the paintings may have been only a minor part of the conspiracy, but they certainly were acts in furtherance of the conspiracy. These acts, considered with Tiedeberg’s assent to the agent’s question about seeing the paintings and his presence in the conversational group, yielded a reasonable inference that Tiedeberg was a party. The jury was not bound to believe any of Tiedeberg’s testimony that he was simply a partially deaf bodyguard naively obeying his employer’s orders. Because a reasonable trier of fact could have found that the evidence established Tiedeberg’s joining of the conspiracy beyond a reasonable doubt, I would affirm his conspiracy conviction.