United States v. Olga Lezcano

296 F. App'x 800
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit
DecidedOctober 17, 2008
Docket07-10964
StatusUnpublished
Cited by5 cases

This text of 296 F. App'x 800 (United States v. Olga Lezcano) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Eleventh 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. Olga Lezcano, 296 F. App'x 800 (11th Cir. 2008).

Opinion

PER CURIAM:

Olga Lezcano was found guilty after a jury trial of: (1) one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371; and (2) one count of mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 2. Ire-no Luis Delgado was found guilty after a jury trial of: (1) one count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371; and (2) four counts of mail fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341 and 2. Lezcano appeals her convictions, asserting one claim of error. 1 Delgado appeals both his convictions and 41-month sentence, asserting six issues on appeal. 2 We address each of then’ issues in turn, and affirm both Lezcano’s and Delgado’s convictions and sentences.

I. OLGA LEZCANO

Lezcano asserts the district court abused its discretion when it overruled her objection to the Government calling Bridgette Cusic as a rebuttal witness. Lezcano contends the Government did not list Cusic on its witness list, and did not call Cusic during its case-in-chief. She argues the Government’s failure to present Cusic in its case-in-chief afforded the Govern *803 ment an improper second bite at the apple in rebuttal, citing Faigin v. Kelly, 184 F.3d 67, 86 (1st Cir.1999).

The district court’s decision whether to permit rebuttal testimony is reviewed for an abuse of discretion. See United States v. Frazier, 387 F.3d 1244, 1269 (11th Cir. 2004) (en banc). “The purpose of rebuttal evidence is ‘to explain, repel, counteract, or disprove the evidence of the adverse party,’ and the decision to permit rebuttal testimony is one that resides in the sound discretion of the trial judge.” Id. (quoting United States v. Gold, 743 F.2d 800, 818 (11th Cir.1984)).

In Faigin, the First Circuit upheld the district court’s refusal to allow a litigant to present rebuttal testimony. The First Circuit found the district court did not abuse its discretion because when a party knows that a contested matter is in the case, yet fails to address it in a timely fashion, he cannot be heard to complain the trial court refused to give him a second nibble at the cherry. Faigin, 184 F.3d at 85.

The Government presented testimony from Carlos Figueredo-Lopez and Agent Gricel Sass during its case-in-chief that Figueredo-Lopez was alone in his car when he was in an accident with Cusic on March 1, 2001. During the defense case, Lezcano presented two witnesses to respond to this evidence: Mercedes Figueredo and Janette Lopez-DeBonano. Unlike Faigin, this was not a case of the Government presenting evidence it should have presented during its case-in-chief. The Government presented witnesses during its case-in-chief, and when Lezcano’s witnesses told a different story, the Government was entitled “to explain, repel, counteract, or disprove the evidence” of Lezcano that she was involved in the accident. See Frazier, 387 F.3d at 1269. The district court did not abuse its discretion in allowing Cusic’s rebuttal testimony, and we affirm Lezcano’s conviction and sentence.

II. IRENO LUIS DELGADO

A. Entrapment

Delgado asserts the district court erred in denying his motion for judgment of acquittal because he was able to show he was enticed to commit the offenses through the persistent behavior of the FBI. Delgado contends that once he presented evidence of Government inducement, the Government had the burden of proving beyond a reasonable doubt that Delgado was predisposed to commit the charge offenses. He asserts the Government failed to prove predisposition, and thus no reasonable jury could have found he was predisposed to commit the charged offenses before the Government inducement began.

Entrapment is a jury question, thus entrapment as a matter of law is a sufficiency of the evidence inquiry. United States v. Brown, 43 F.3d 618, 622 (11th Cir.1995). “When an entrapment defense is rejected by the jury, our review is limited to deciding whether the evidence was sufficient for a reasonable jury to conclude that the defendant was predisposed to take part in the illicit transaction.” Id. “Review is de novo, but we must view all facts and make all inferences in favor of the government.” Id.

“In their zeal to enforce the law ... Government agents may not originate a criminal design, implant in an innocent person’s mind the disposition to commit a criminal act, and then induce commission of the crime so that the Government may prosecute.” Jacobson v. United States, 503 U.S. 540, 548, 112 S.Ct. 1535,1540, 118 L.Ed.2d 174 (1992). In Jacobson, the Supreme Court reversed the Eighth Circuit’s *804 holding that the defendant was not entrapped as a matter of law, finding that although the defendant had been predisposed to break the law, the prosecution did not prove that such predisposition was independent and not the product of the attention the Government had directed at the defendant for 26 months. By the time the defendant ordered child pornography, he had been the target of 26 months of repeated mailings and communications from Government agents and fictitious organizations. Id. at 550, 112 S.Ct. at 1541.

Contrary to Delgado’s assertion that “[t]he Government failed to show any preinvestigation evidence of predisposition,” Sass testified that she believed Delgado spoke about previous staged accidents, and throughout the course of the investigation, Delgado told Agent Sass about staged accidents he was helping to set up or had already participated in, separate and apart from any activity with Trident Venture Group (TVG). Additionally, from Sass’s earliest conversations with Delgado, Delgado hinted he would be amenable to participating in fraudulent activity. He told Sass that (1) in Costa Rica, no one asks questions about monetary transactions; (2) in 1998, he earned $2 million without committing a fraud; (3) he did not care what kind of patients she referred him as long as they had PIP insurance; and (4) Tampa was “very hot” because of recent arrests in the area for insurance fraud. Moreover, once Sass told Delgado outright that TVG only dealt with staged accident participants, he showed no reluctance to deal with TVG. Instead, he continued to want to work with TVG.

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Bluebook (online)
296 F. App'x 800, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-olga-lezcano-ca11-2008.