United States v. Jumaev

20 F.4th 518
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit
DecidedDecember 8, 2021
Docket18-1296
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 20 F.4th 518 (United States v. Jumaev) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Jumaev, 20 F.4th 518 (10th Cir. 2021).

Opinion

Appellate Case: 18-1296 Document: 010110616058 Date Filed: 12/08/2021 Page: 1 FILED United States Court of Appeals PUBLISH Tenth Circuit

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS December 8, 2021

Christopher M. Wolpert FOR THE TENTH CIRCUIT Clerk of Court _________________________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff - Appellee,

v. No. 18-1296

BAKHTIYOR JUMAEV,

Defendant - Appellant. _________________________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the District of Colorado (D.C. No. 1:12-CR-00033-JLK-2) _________________________________

Caleb Kruckenberg, New Civil Liberties Alliance, Washington, D.C., for Defendant- Appellant.

James C. Murphy, Assistant United States Attorney, Denver, Colorado (John C. Demers, Assistant Attorney General, National Security Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; Joseph Palmer and Steven L. Lane, Attorneys, National Security Division, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; Jason R. Dunn, United States Attorney, Denver, Colorado, with him on the briefs), for Plaintiff-Appellee. _________________________________

Before MATHESON, Circuit Judge, LUCERO, Senior Circuit Judge, and EID, Circuit Judge. _________________________________

EID, Circuit Judge. _________________________________

Defendant-appellant Bakhtiyor Jumaev and his co-defendant Jamshid

Muhtorov were convicted, after separate trials, of conspiring to provide material Appellate Case: 18-1296 Document: 010110616058 Date Filed: 12/08/2021 Page: 2

support or resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization, and knowingly

providing or attempting to provide material support or resources to a designated

foreign terrorist organization, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2339B.1 Both appealed,

and, with the parties’ consent, we procedurally consolidated the cases. In an opinion

issued concurrently with this one, we reject Muhtorov’s claims, including his Sixth

Amendment speedy trial claim, and affirm his convictions. Muhtorov, slip op. at 1,

106–63. In this decision, we address Jumaev’s claims, of which there are three.

First, like Muhtorov, Jumaev asserts that his Sixth Amendment speedy trial right was

violated. Second, Jumaev maintains that the district court abused its discretion by

declining to severely sanction the government for its discovery conduct. Third,

Jumaev contends that the extraterritorial search warrants for his home, phone, and

computer were issued in violation of Rule 41 of the Federal Rules of Criminal

Procedure. Exercising jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291, we conclude that each of

Jumaev’s claims fails, and we affirm.

I

A

Jumaev is a refugee from Uzbekistan. In 2009, he met Muhtorov, a fellow

Uzbekistan refugee. The two lived far apart—Jumaev, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

and Muhtorov in Denver, Colorado. But Philadelphia, it turned out, was one of the

1 Muhtorov was also convicted on a third count not brought against Jumaev. See United States v. Muhtorov, No. 18-1366, slip op. at 1, 3, 115 (10th Cir. Dec. 8, 2021).

2 Appellate Case: 18-1296 Document: 010110616058 Date Filed: 12/08/2021 Page: 3

few cities in the United States where a trucking class was offered in Russian, and

Muhtorov, who struggled with English but spoke Russian, wished to obtain a

commercial trucker’s license. Muhtorov decided to take the class in Philadelphia,

and a mutual friend arranged for Muhtorov to stay with Jumaev while Muhtorov was

there.

Jumaev and Muhtorov became friendly during Muhtorov’s visit. The two had

similar backgrounds. Both had left Uzbekistan due to government brutality, and both

were Muslim. They also shared a mutual interest in the Islamic Jihad Union (“IJU”),

a State Department–designated foreign terrorist organization with ties to al-Qaeda.

After Muhtorov returned to Colorado, the two men stayed in contact.

Unbeknownst to Jumaev and Muhtorov, the government was intercepting their

communications. Through warrantless surveillance of a non–United States person

living abroad conducted pursuant to section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence

Surveillance Act of 1978 Amendments Act of 2008 (“Section 702”), Pub. L. No. 110-

261, 122 Stat. 2436 (codified at 50 U.S.C. § 1881a), the government had become

aware that Muhtorov was connected to the IJU. Once Muhtorov was on the

government’s radar, the government used communications intercepted via Section

702 to support applications to surveil Muhtorov under the Foreign Intelligence

Surveillance Act of 1978 (“FISA” or “traditional FISA”), Pub. L. No. 95-511, 92

Stat. 1783. The government also obtained information via traditional FISA

surveillance that was eventually used against Jumaev.

3 Appellate Case: 18-1296 Document: 010110616058 Date Filed: 12/08/2021 Page: 4

In the course of surveilling Jumaev and Muhtorov, the government discovered

that the men wished to provide money to the IJU for the “wedding,” a code word that

referred to the Jihadist cause. Specifically, they contemplated that Jumaev would

send $300 to Muhtorov as a “wedding gift,” and that Muhtorov would then give the

money to the IJU.

Bank records show that a $300 check dated on or about March 10, 2011 was

made out to Muhtorov by a known associate of Jumaev, Ilkhom Sobirov. On

January 21, 2012, Muhtorov was arrested at Chicago O’Hare International Airport.

He had on him a one-way ticket to Turkey, nearly $3,000 in cash, two new iPhones,

and a new iPad.

B

On March 14, 2012, Jumaev was charged, via a criminal complaint filed in the

District of Colorado, with conspiring to provide material support or resources to a

designated foreign terrorist organization. That same day, a magistrate judge in the

District of Colorado issued an arrest warrant for Jumaev and extraterritorial search-

and-seizure warrants for Jumaev’s home, cellular phone, and laptop computer in

Philadelphia. Incriminating material was found on Jumaev’s devices, and Jumaev

was promptly arrested and detained pending trial. On March 20, 2012, a superseding

indictment, charging both Jumaev and Muhtorov, added a second count as to Jumaev

alleging that he knowingly provided or attempted to provide material support or

resources to a designated foreign terrorist organization. On March 22, 2012, a

second superseding indictment was returned, which deleted Jumaev’s and

4 Appellate Case: 18-1296 Document: 010110616058 Date Filed: 12/08/2021 Page: 5

Muhtorov’s aliases from the indictment caption but was otherwise identical to the

first superseding indictment. From the filing of the first superseding indictment

onward, Jumaev’s and Muhtorov’s cases proceeded largely in tandem, with the two

filing numerous joint motions and objections addressing discovery, scheduling, and

other matters.

The pretrial proceedings over the next six years were complicated and

protracted. Discovery, in particular, proved to be a bottleneck. Jumaev and

Muhtorov together broadly requested (1) all statements they had made that were in

the government’s possession, by which they meant “not just the statements made or

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Bluebook (online)
20 F.4th 518, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-jumaev-ca10-2021.