United States v. Santos Castro

• Court: Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit
• Decided: February 16, 2024
• Docket: 22-4685
• Status: Published

Opinion

USCA4 Appeal: 22-4685 Doc: 51 Filed: 02/16/2024 Pg: 1 of 39

PUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

No. 22-4656

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff – Appellee,

v.

MOISES ORLANDO ZELAYA-VELIZ, a/k/a Moises Zelaya-Beliz, Moizes Zelaya Bonilla, a/k/a Zelaya Hernandez,

Defendant – Appellant.

22-4659

JONATHAN RAFAEL ZELAYA-VELIZ, a/k/a Rafael Zelaya, a/k/a Jonathan Zelaya,

Defendant – Appellant. USCA4 Appeal: 22-4685 Doc: 51 Filed: 02/16/2024 Pg: 2 of 39

22-4669

GILBERTO MORALES, a/k/a Chapin, a/k/a Chucha,

22-4670

LUIS ALBERTO GONZALES, a/k/a Luis Figo, a/k/a China, a/k/a Chinita,

22-4684

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JOSE ELIEZAR MOLINA-VELIZ, a/k/a Jose Eliezar Hernandez,

22-4685

SANTOS ERNESTO GUTIERREZ CASTRO, a/k/a Gutierrez Hernestho,

Defendant - Appellant.

Appeals from the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, at Alexandria. Anthony John Trenga, Senior District Judge. (1:20-cr-00196-AJT-1; 1:20-cr- 00196-AJT-10; 1:20-cr-00196-AJT-9; 1:20-cr-00196-AJT-6; 1:20-cr-00196-AJR-4; 1:20- cr-00196-AJT-5)

Argued: December 8, 2023 Decided: February 16, 2024

Before WILKINSON, WYNN, and RICHARDSON, Circuit Judges.

Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the opinion, in which Judge Wynn and Judge Richardson joined.

ARGUED: Joseph Douglas King, KING CAMPBELL PORETZ & THOMAS, PLLC, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellants. Maureen Catherine Cain, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Christopher B. Amolsch, Reston, Virginia, for Appellant Jonathan Rafael Zelaya-Veliz.

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Donna L. Biderman, LAW OFFICE OF DONNA L. BIDERMAN, Fairfax, Virginia, for Appellant Gilberto Morales. Donald E. Harris, HARRIS LAW FIRM, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant Jose Eliezar Molina-Veliz. Dwight E. Crawley, LAW OFFICE OF DWIGHT CRAWLEY, Washington, D.C., for Appellant Ernesto Santos Gutierrez Castro. Jeffrey D. Zimmerman, JEFFREY ZIMMERMAN, PLLC, Alexandria, Virginia, for Appellant Luis Alberto Gonzales. Jessica D. Aber, United States Attorney, OFFICE OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Richmond, Virginia, for Appellee.

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WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:

After a seven-day trial, six men affiliated with the transnational criminal

organization MS-13 were convicted of sex trafficking a thirteen-year-old girl by force,

fraud, or coercion, and conspiracy to do the same. Five of the men appeal the district court’s

denial of their motions to suppress evidence obtained from Facebook warrants, contending

the warrants failed the probable cause and particularity requirements of the Fourth

Amendment. The sixth man appeals the district court’s denial of his motion for acquittal,

contending that the evidence presented at trial was insufficient to sustain his conviction.

For the following reasons, we reject these claims and affirm each of the convictions.

I.

A.

The six appellants are members and associates of the transnational criminal street

gang Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13). In 2018, they worked together to sexually exploit and

physically abuse a thirteen-year-old girl—referred to in this opinion as Minor-2—and other

underage victims in Northern Virginia and Southern Maryland.

On August 27, 2018, Minor-2 ran away from a youth shelter in Fairfax County,

Virginia in search of a better living situation. Minor-2 had been in the shelter for just over

two months before leaving. While at the shelter, she met sixteen year old Minor-3, who

told Minor-2 that she could use her connections with MS-13 to have the gang protect them

if they ran away.

The girls proceeded to meet up with MS-13 members. Minor-3 introduced Minor-2

to them, and the members asked Minor-2 her age. She told them she was thirteen years old.

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Nevertheless, they decided to enlist her in the gang, promising that they would protect her

and her family. The gang members proceeded to initiate Minor-2 into MS-13 by beating

her with a metal baseball bat. The first hit was so painful that Minor-2 begged them to stop,

but the gang members said that if they stopped they would have to kill her and her family.

She was struck a total of twenty-six times. The pain was so excruciating that Minor-2 later

reported that she thought she was going to die. After the beating finished, Minor-2 wanted

to run but couldn’t muster the strength to move her battered legs.

At least four MS-13 members participated in the beating. They struck Minor-2 with

the metal bat in front of at least five witnesses including Minor-3 and Minor-1, a fourteen-

year-old who was also a victim of MS-13’s child sex trafficking. A detective testified at

trial that Minor-2’s treatment was representative of how MS-13 initiates females into the

gang: by beating them in multiples of thirteen and sexually exploiting them.

After Minor-2 was beaten, she was taken to an apartment in Woodbridge, Virginia

where appellants Moises Zelaya-Veliz and Jose Eliezar Molina-Veliz harbored her.

Moises, who was a full-fledged member of MS-13, was aware Minor-2 had been beaten by

his gang. The two men kept Minor-2 confined in their house out of fear that she would

report them or their gang to the police.

Moises and Jose both engaged in sexual intercourse with Minor-2 in the apartment.

They also sold her for sex to friends and acquaintances. On one occasion, at least five men

engaged in sexual intercourse with Minor-2 outside the apartment complex as Moises

watched from his porch. Minor-2 repeatedly pleaded for them to let her go home, but they

refused. To dissuade her from running away, MS-13 members threatened that they would

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kill her family if she left. Later, when an MS-13 member found Minor-2 using another

gang member’s phone, she was taken back to the site of her first beating and beaten an

additional twenty-six times with the same metal bat as punishment.

Appellant Santos Ernesto Gutierrez Castro met Minor-2 at Moises and Jose’s

apartment. Santos subsequently took Minor-2 to his house and gave her marijuana. He

wanted to sell Minor-2 for sex, and so he began making calls to potential customers,

offering them the opportunity to have sex with Minor-2 for $100 an hour. The first day,

Santos sold Minor-2 for sex to more than ten men. He kept Minor-2 at his house for at least

three more days, during which time he had sex with her himself and continued to sell her

for sex with others. When he was finished, he took Minor-2 to a co-conspirator’s house in

Maryland.

Upon her arrival in Maryland, Minor-2 was still limping and bruised from the two

beatings. But the gang was undeterred. Appellant Luis Alberto Gonzales, who was a

member of MS-13, took over the trafficking. He shuffled Minor-2 between several

different Maryland residences where he sold her for sex in exchange for cash and cocaine.

Appellant Gilberto Morales met Minor-2 at one of those Maryland residences. He

gave Luis several grams of cocaine so that he could have sex with Minor-2. After the

transaction, Gilberto stayed in contact with Minor-2. They communicated with each other

over the phone and on Facebook more than 130 times during October 2018.

Gilberto was not the only one who tried to establish a more “personal” connection

with Minor-2. Luis worked to convince Minor-2 that he was her friend and boyfriend. But

all the while he continued to sell her for sex to other men and to have sex with her himself.

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Eventually, Luis took Minor-2 to an apartment complex in Mount Rainier,

Maryland, where appellant Jonathan Zelaya-Veliz and other co-conspirators resided.

Minor-2 was confined there for about two weeks by Luis and Jonathan. During Minor-2’s

trafficking, Jonathan had sex with her and was involved, along with Luis, Moises, and

Santos, in coordinating her transportation to various locations in Virginia and Maryland

where she was sold for sex. On the first night in Mount Rainier, at least five men came to

the apartment and forced Minor-2 to have sex with them. She cried the entire time, but the

men kept going. Their abuse caused such excruciating pain that she later reported she

wanted to die to end the suffering.

Over the following two weeks, Luis and a co-conspirator set up prostitution dates

for Minor-2 with nearby customers. They sold her for sex up to seven hours a day. Luis

would sedate Minor-2 with alcohol and drugs, including marijuana and cocaine, before

driving her to customers’ homes and making her have sex with them. One of these men

sent Luis a video of him sexually penetrating Minor-2.

Minor-2 longed to escape, but feared that doing so would jeopardize her and her

family’s safety. Luis kept threatening her, telling her that there were many gang members

around the apartment complex that would find her if she tried to run away. She was also

told that Luis could see anyone she talked to on the phone he gave her.

Nevertheless, Minor-2 managed to escape. On October 11, 2018, she was recovered

by law enforcement outside the Mount Rainier apartment complex.

***

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Through physical violence and under the threat of her and her family’s death,

Minor-2 was forced by the appellants and other MS-13 associates to have sex with dozens

of adult men. They confined her to their residences, trafficked her across state lines, and

used her body at will. Over the more than six weeks she spent at the mercy of her

traffickers, Minor-2 was beaten viciously, infected with sexually transmitted diseases, and

subjected to unconscionable psychological trauma.

B.

In meetings with local law enforcement officers after her escape, Minor-2 was

unable to identify the full names of her abusers. She also had difficulty identifying the

locations where she was trafficked. She was, however, able to identify numerous

perpetrators based on photos of men that law enforcement suspected of being involved in

her trafficking. Minor-2 also relayed that Minor-1 was being sexually exploited by MS-13

and provided information to help identify her. This led to law enforcement locating and

recovering Minor-1 from a known MS-13 location, where she was found with an MS-13

member.

As the scope of MS-13’s sex trafficking conspiracy became apparent, the matter

escalated into a federal investigation led by FBI Special Agent Jeremy Obie of the Bureau’s

Child Exploitation and Human Trafficking Task Force in Washington, D.C. Based on

information that local law enforcement had earlier gathered, Special Agent Obie

determined that the suspects were likely using Facebook to sex traffic Minor-1, Minor-2,

and other victims. Thus, over the course of the multi-month investigation, Special Agent

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Obie obtained four so-called Facebook warrants, which compelled Facebook to turn over

data on specified social media accounts.

The following paragraphs describe the four Facebook warrants, as their

constitutionality is central to the appellants’ appeal.

The First Warrant

The first Facebook warrant was approved on March 14, 2019 by U.S. Magistrate

Judge John F. Anderson in the Eastern District of Virginia. The warrant ordered Facebook

to give the government nine categories of information on five different Facebook accounts,

including all private communications made or received by the accounts. Four of the

accounts were operated by MS-13 member Sioni Alexander Bonilla Gonzalez, who pled

guilty before trial for his involvement in the sex trafficking conspiracy and is not a party

to this appeal. The fifth account was operated by a person who was known to have

communicated over Facebook with Minor-1 but who is also not a party to this appeal. The

warrant contained no time limitations, and thus impliedly authorized the government to

search all account data disclosed by Facebook from the time since the accounts’ respective

dates of creation until the time that the warrant was sworn out.

The warrant followed a standard two-step search and seizure process. It first

authorized the government to search the entirety of the data disclosed by Facebook. It then

authorized the seizure of specific categories of information revealed during that search;

namely, information that constituted fruits, evidence, or instrumentalities of violations of

four federal criminal statutes—18 U.S.C. § 1591 (sex trafficking of a minor by force, fraud,

or coercion); 18 U.S.C. § 1952 (travel or use of the mail or facility of interstate commerce

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in aid of prostitution or other racketeering enterprises); 18 U.S.C. § 2422(a) (coercion or

enticement of a person to travel across state lines for prostitution or illegal sexual activity);

and 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a) (interstate transportation of a minor for purposes of prostitution

or illegal sexual activity)—and attempts and conspiracies to violate these statutes.

The affidavit supporting the warrant provided an overview of the four federal crimes

under investigation. It discussed the mechanics of Facebook and the types of data created

and stored on the platform. It further explained how Special Agent Obie had learned

through training and experience that violent gangs like MS-13 engage in human sex

trafficking as a source of revenue. Additionally, the affidavit relayed that individuals

engaged in sex trafficking will often use Facebook to facilitate such criminal activity, and

that MS-13 members were generally known to use Facebook to coordinate and arrange

prostitution and other crimes.

The affidavit went on to provide case-specific information to establish probable

cause for the search and seizure of data from the five Facebook accounts. It explained that

adult men, including Sioni, had discussed commercial sex activities with Minor-2 on

Facebook. It also established that Sioni had engaged in sexual activity with Minor-1.

The Second Warrant

Special Agent Obie obtained a second warrant in the Eastern District of Virginia,

signed by U.S. Magistrate Judge Ivan D. Davis, on June 5, 2019. This warrant ordered

Facebook to give the government the same nine categories of information as in the first

warrant, but this time on eight new Facebook accounts. Five of these accounts belonged to

appellant Luis Gonzales, and the other three belonged to co-conspirators who are not

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parties to this appeal. Just like the first warrant, this one authorized the search of all account

data going back to the accounts’ respective dates of creation, and it permitted the seizure

of information that constituted fruits, evidence, or instrumentalities of the same four federal

offenses.

The affidavit supporting this warrant provided the same information as did the first

warrant regarding the statutory offenses, the mechanics of Facebook, and MS-13’s

operation of prostitution enterprises. It also provided twenty pages of investigative

findings, photos, and screenshots of communications which detailed MS-13’s exploitation

of Minor-2. Some of this evidence was derived from the previous warrant-backed seizure

of Facebook account data.

The affidavit discussed photographs of Luis Gonzales that had been posted by five

different Facebook accounts. Each of the accounts was named “Luis Figo.” Minor-2

identified these photographs to be pictures of “Luis,” whom she said was an MS-13

member integral to her physical abuse and sex trafficking. The affidavit described how

Luis had sold Minor-2 to customers, forced her to have sex, and sedated her with drugs and

alcohol before prostitution dates. It further described how the investigation had unearthed

that a credit card in Luis’s name was used to pay for the phone bill of the cell phone that

Minor-2 possessed when she was recovered by law enforcement. The affidavit also

revealed that Luis had spent significant time at the apartment complex where Minor-2 was

recovered.

The Third Warrant

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The next Facebook warrant obtained by Special Agent Obie was signed by Judge

Anderson on July 12, 2019. It ordered Facebook to disclose information associated with

ten accounts. One of the accounts belonged to appellant Moises Zelaya-Veliz. Four of the

accounts belonged to MS-13 affiliates who were unindicted co-conspirators. The

remaining five accounts belonged to Minor-1, Minor-2, and Minor-3.

While the first two warrants contained no temporal limitation on what data could be

searched, this warrant ordered Facebook to disclose information from January 1, 2018 to

the date the warrant was sworn out. The warrant also broadened the scope of the

information that Facebook was required to turn over. It mandated disclosure of eighteen

different categories of data from Facebook, including a broader set of user activity, IP

addresses, device identifier logs, and all location information associated with the accounts.

Just like the first two warrants, this warrant only permitted the government to seize

information that constituted fruits, evidence, or instrumentalities of the four previously

enumerated offenses plus one additional offense: 18 U.S.C. § 1959 (violent crimes in aid

of racketeering).

Special Agent Obie’s affidavit provided general information on the statutory

offenses at issue, the mechanics of Facebook, and MS-13’s operation of prostitution

enterprises. It also provided a glossary of terminology frequently used by MS-13.

The affidavit went on to offer thirty pages of case-specific information, including

screenshots and transcripts of conversations about the sex trafficking of Minor-2. It

explained that Minor-2 told law enforcement that she had been taken to the home of Moises

Zelaya-Veliz after her initial beating. It described how investigating officers knew Moises

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operated the Facebook account targeted by the search warrant, which used the name

“Moizes Zelaya Bonilla,” because his Facebook profile picture matched pictures in a law

enforcement database. The affidavit additionally relayed that the warrant-backed search of

Sioni Gonzalez’s Facebook account had revealed that Moises had used Facebook to send

photos of firearms, illegal drugs, and MS-13 gang signs.

The Fourth Warrant

The fourth and final Facebook warrant was signed by then U.S. Magistrate Judge

Michael S. Nachmanoff on February 20, 2020. This warrant authorized the search of

information from twenty-two Facebook accounts, including accounts belonging to four

appellants—Jose Molina-Veliz, Santos Gutierrez Castro, Jonathan Rafael Zelaya-Veliz,

and Gilberto Morales—as well as multiple accounts of unindicted co-conspirators.

Like the third warrant, the final warrant required Facebook to provide account

information from January 1, 2018 to the date the warrant was sworn out. The warrant used

the same list of eighteen types of information for Facebook to disclose as in the third

warrant. And, just like the previous warrant, it limited the government’s seizure to include

only information discovered during the search that constituted fruits, evidence, or

instrumentalities of the five enumerated offenses.

Special Agent Obie’s affidavit, as in his previous warrant applications, described

the statutory offenses at issue, the mechanics of Facebook, and MS-13’s operation of

prostitution enterprises. By the time of the affidavit’s filing, over ten months after the initial

Facebook warrant, the government had compiled a substantial investigative record into

MS-13’s sex trafficking of Minor-1, Minor-2, and Minor-3. The affidavit thus provided

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over fifty pages of case-specific information, which included descriptions, images, and

transcripts of the illicit activities of the appellants and their co-conspirators. The affidavit’s

detailed account revealed how each of the four appellants targeted by this warrant had

participated in the sex trafficking of Minor-2.

With respect to Jose Eliezar Molina-Veliz, whose Facebook account used the name

“Jose Eliezar Hernandez,” the affidavit used returns from previous Facebook warrants to

describe how he had engaged in sexually explicit communications over Facebook with

Minor-2 and Minor-3 during the period that the two girls were being exploited by MS-13.

It also recounted how he had used Facebook to coordinate Minor-2’s transportation for sex.

With respect to Santos Gutierrez Castro, who went by “Gutierrez Hernestho” on

Facebook, the affidavit explained that Minor-2 had taken a photo of Minor-3 and Santos

the day after Minor-2 had initially been beaten in the garage, and subsequently posted that

photo on her Facebook. The affidavit further relayed that Santos had used Facebook to

solicit sexually explicit photos and in-person sexual acts from Minor-2 in exchange for

money and illegal drugs. It shared evidence that Santos was using Facebook to coordinate

sending multiple prostitution customers to Minor-2 so that they could sexually exploit her.

And it discussed how a phone number known to be used by Santos was linked to the

targeted Facebook account.

With respect to Jonathan Rafael Zelaya-Veliz—who operated four Facebook

accounts under the names “Jonathan Zelaya” and “Rafael Zelaya”—the affidavit explained

that Minor-2 knew Jonathan as Moises Zelaya-Veliz’s brother. It identified Jonathan as

living at the apartment complex where Minor-2 had been held during the final two weeks

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of her exploitation. And it explained that Jonathan had used Facebook to communicate

with Moises about having sex with Minor-2.

With respect to Gilberto Morales, the affidavit discussed how Minor-2 had

identified him as one of the men who sexually abused her. It explained that Gilberto had

been in regular contact with Minor-2 during her abuse. And it shared a transcript of a

conversation in which Gilberto admitted to being business partners with Luis Gonzales in

the sex trafficking of Minor-2 and sought out an additional partner for the operation.

Summary of Facebook Warrants

The following table summarizes the four Facebook warrants executed by the

government. See Appellants’ Brief at 9–10.

Date of No. of Appellants’ accounts Data Temporal issuance accounts searched disclosed limitation searched Mar. 14, 5 None Short list 1 None 2019 Jun. 5, 8 Luis Gonzales Short list None 2019 Jul. 12, 10 Moises Zelaya-Veliz Long list 2 January 1, 2018 2019 to date of warrant execution Feb. 20, 22 Jose Eliezar Molina-Veliz, Long list January 1, 2018 2020 Santos Ernesto Gutierrez to date of warrant Castro, Gilberto Morales, and execution Jonathan Rafael Zelaya-Veliz

1 Nine categories of information, including all communications sent to and from the accounts. 2 Eighteen categories of information, including all of the accounts’ communications and location information.

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C.

On August 27, 2020, a grand jury in the Eastern District of Virginia returned a multi-

count indictment against the six appellants and five additional defendants, charging them

with child sexual exploitation-related offenses in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1591, 1594, and

2423, and assault with a dangerous weapon in aid of racketeering activity in violation of

18 U.S.C. § 1959. A superseding indictment issued on April 19, 2022.

Before trial, Moises Zelaya-Veliz, Jose Molina-Veliz, Luis Gonzales, Gilberto

Morales, and Jonathan Zelaya-Veliz moved to suppress the evidence obtained from the

Facebook warrants. They argued the warrants lacked probable cause and were

insufficiently particularized.

The district court denied the motions to suppress in a ruling from the bench. It found

that the Facebook warrants were supported by probable cause, stating that “the magistrate

judges [who issued the warrants] in each instance did have a substantial basis for

concluding, as to each of the defendants, a sufficient nexus existed between the Facebook

accounts to be searched and the crimes under investigation.” J.A. 114–15. The court next

found that the warrants were sufficiently particular in timeframe and scope. The timeframe

of the warrants was reasonable, according to the court, because the searches supported an

investigation beyond Minor-2’s abuse into an “extensive ongoing interstate criminal

enterprise of uncertain beginnings,” and because the government narrowed the timeframe

of the information sought as the investigation progressed. J.A. 115. And the court found

that the scope of the information sought was reasonable because, based on the information

submitted to the magistrates, there was a substantial basis to believe that all of the

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categories of information sought were relevant to establishing the identities of perpetrators

and revealing their criminal activities.

The six appellants proceeded to a jury trial on June 1, 2022. During the course of

the seven-day trial, the government extensively employed information that it had obtained

from the Facebook warrants. It admitted dozens of exhibits of Facebook-warrant-derived

evidence and discussed this evidence at length in its opening and closing statements.

The jury deliberated for three days before returning convictions for each appellant.

Santos Gutierrez Castro, Luis Gonzales, Jose Molina-Veliz, Jonathan Zelaya-Veliz, and

Moises Zelaya-Veliz were each convicted of sex trafficking a minor under the age of

fourteen, conspiracy to do the same, and conspiracy to transport a minor across state lines

for purposes of prostitution or other illegal sexual activity. Gilbert Morales was convicted

of sex trafficking of a minor under the age of fourteen and conspiracy to do the same.

After trial, all appellants made oral motions for judgment of acquittal under Federal

Rule of Criminal Procedure 29. The court denied those motions on October 7, 2022.

The district court sentenced the appellants on November 10, 2022. Their respective

terms of imprisonment were 300 months for Luis Gonzales, 264 months for Moises Zelaya-

Veliz, and 180 months each for Santos Gutierrez Castro, Jose Molina-Veliz, Gilberto

Morales, and Jonathan Zelaya-Veliz.

The appellants timely appealed. The five appellants who had moved to suppress

evidence derived from the Facebook warrants challenge the district court’s denial of their

motions to suppress, claiming that the warrants lacked probable cause and were

insufficiently particularized. The sixth appellant, Santos Gutierrez Castro, challenges the

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district court’s denial of his motion for acquittal, claiming that insufficient evidence was

presented at trial to sustain his convictions.

II.

We start with the appellants’ contention that the district court erred in denying their

motions to suppress evidence from the Facebook warrants. Before analyzing their specific

claims, we first determine which warrants the appellants have Fourth Amendment standing

to challenge. We next address the appellants’ claims that the warrants lacked probable

cause and were insufficiently particularized, taking each issue in turn.

As an initial matter, we note that a defendant can only challenge a warrant that

authorizes the search or seizure of items in which he had a protected Fourth Amendment

interest. It is insufficient for the defendant to show that a third party had a protected interest

in the information searched because “it is proper to permit only defendants whose Fourth

Amendment rights have been violated to benefit from the rule’s protections.” Rakas v.

Illinois, 439 US 128, 134 (1978). Thus, to prevail in a motion to suppress evidence obtained

from a search, a defendant has the burden of showing that the government implicated a

protected interest of his in conducting that search. See id. at 130 n.1 (1978). Courts often

refer to the requirement that a defendant show that a search implicated his protected interest

as “Fourth Amendment standing,” although it “should not be confused with Article III

standing” because it is “not a jurisdictional question and hence need not be addressed

before addressing other aspects of the merits of a Fourth Amendment claim.” Byrd v.

United States, 584 U.S. 395, 410–11 (2018).

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As the defense conceded at oral argument, none of the appellants has Fourth

Amendment standing to challenge the first Facebook warrant. That warrant only targeted

accounts belonging to two co-conspirators who are not parties in this appeal. Because no

protected interest of the appellants was implicated by the first warrant, we need not assess

its constitutionality.

In contrast, each of the subsequent Facebook warrants targeted accounts that

belonged to at least one appellant. The second warrant targeted Luis Gonzales’s accounts.

The third warrant targeted Moises Zelaya-Veliz’s account. And the fourth warrant targeted

accounts belonging to Jose Molina-Veliz, Santos Gutierrez Castro, Jonathan Zelaya-Veliz,

and Gilberto Morales. Given this, the government and defense both accepted that the

appellants had Fourth Amendment standing to challenge these warrants.

In adopting the litigants’ assumption that Fourth Amendment standing exists here,

we note that each of the warrants at issue required the disclosure of the appellants’ private

communications. Most federal courts to rule on the issue have agreed that Facebook and

other social media users have a reasonable expectation of privacy in content that they

exclude from public access, such as private messages. See United States v. Bledsoe, 630 F.

Supp. 3d 1, 18 (D.D.C. 2022) (finding the “weight of persuasive authority hold[s] that non-

public content held on social media accounts is protected under the Fourth Amendment”

and citing cases); United States v. Chavez, 423 F. Supp. 3d 194, 201–205 (W.D.N.C. 2019);

United States v. Irving, 347 F. Supp. 3d 615, 623 (D. Kan. 2018).

Such an approach reflects the consensus of federal courts that private electronic

communications are generally protected by the Fourth Amendment, even when transmitted

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over third-party platforms. See, e.g., United States v. Wilson, 13 F.4th 961, 980 (9th Cir.

2021) (holding examination of defendant’s email attachments without a warrant violated

his Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable searches); United States v.

Hasbajrami, 945 F.3d 641, 666 (2d Cir. 2019) (assuming for the purposes of the appeal

that “a United States person ordinarily has a reasonable expectation in the privacy of his e-

mails”); United States v. Warshak, 631 F.3d 266, 284–88 (6th Cir. 2010) (holding the

Fourth Amendment protects private email communications); United States v. Richardson,

607 F.3d 357, 363–64 (4th Cir. 2010) (suggesting that before a government agent searches

emails, “probable cause and a warrant [a]re required”); see also Katz v. United States, 389

U.S. 347, 352–53 (1967) (finding persons have a protected Fourth Amendment interest in

the content of their phone conversations, despite the ability of an operator to listen in); Ex

parte Jackson, 96 U.S. 727, 733 (1877) (holding that the contents of postal letters are

entitled to Fourth Amendment protection, despite the fact that letters are entrusted to

intermediaries).

It cannot be the rule that the government can access someone’s personal

conversations and communications without meeting the warrant requirement or one of the

Supreme Court’s delineated exceptions to it. The judiciary would not allow such a trespass

upon privacy at its core.

We thus turn to the appellants’ claims that the second, third, and fourth warrants

were constitutionally deficient. Their first contention is that the district court erred in

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denying their motions to suppress because the Facebook warrants were issued without

probable cause. We disagree.

1.

The Fourth Amendment requires that warrants be supported by probable cause. U.S.

Const. amend. IV. There is probable cause when, “given all the circumstances set forth in

the affidavit . . . , there is a fair probability that contraband or evidence of a crime will be

found in a particular place.” Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238 (1983). Probable cause is

a “fluid concept—turning on the assessment of probabilities in particular factual contexts—

not readily, or even usefully, reduced to a neat set of legal rules.” Id. at 232. Courts thus

must not invalidate a warrant based on “a hypertechnical, rather than a commonsense,”

interpretation of the warrant affidavit, id. at 236, but must instead take into account “‘the

factual and practical considerations of everyday life on which reasonable and prudent men,

not legal technicians, act.’” Ornelas v. United States, 517 U.S. 690, 695 (1996) (quoting

Gates, 462 U.S. at 231).

Reviewing courts must determine whether “the magistrate had a substantial basis

for concluding that a search would uncover evidence of wrongdoing.” Gates, 462 U.S. at

236 (internal quotations omitted); see also Massachusetts v. Upton, 466 U.S. 727, 732–33

(1984). In doing so, “[w]e afford initial probable cause determinations ‘great deference’

when, as here, a ‘neutral and detached magistrate’ finds probable cause to support a

warrant.” United States v. Orozco, 41 F.4th 403, 407 (4th Cir. 2022) (quoting Gates, 462

U.S. at 236, 240).

2.

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The magistrates who approved the three Facebook warrants at issue each had a

substantial basis for concluding that the searches would uncover evidence of wrongdoing.

They each reasonably determined, based on the information averred in the supporting

affidavits, that there was a fair probability that evidence of MS-13’s sex trafficking crimes

would be found on the appellants’ Facebook accounts.

The affidavits all explained how Special Agent Obie’s training and experience made

him aware that MS-13 uses social media platforms such as Facebook to conduct and

communicate about criminal activities, including commercial sex trafficking. The

magistrates were well within their discretion to rely on an officer’s “assertion of training-

and experience-based knowledge” to help substantiate the nexus between the sex

trafficking crimes listed by the warrants and the Facebook accounts to be searched. United

States v. Williams, 548 F.3d 311, 319–20 (4th Cir. 2008). This reliance is particularly

appropriate where, as here, the averred facts based on training and experience were

substantiated by examples in case law of MS-13 using social media to advance its criminal

activities. See, e.g., United States v. Ruiz, 623 F. App’x 535, 536 (11th Cir. 2015) (per

curiam); United States v. Juvenile Male, 269 F. Supp. 3d 29, 38 (E.D.N.Y. 2017); United

States v. Contreras, 2017 WL 6419136, at *1 (D. Md. Oct. 19, 2017).

The appellants contend that training and experience alone are insufficient to

establish a nexus between the location of the proposed search and the alleged criminal

activity, citing United States v. Schultz, 14 F.3d 1093, 1097–98 (6th Cir. 1994). But far

from relying merely on averments about the typical uses of social media by gang members,

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each affidavit provided copious details linking the appellants’ use of Facebook to the sex

trafficking enterprise under investigation.

Take first the affidavit supporting the second warrant. This affidavit identified Luis

Gonzales as the user behind the five targeted Facebook accounts bearing the name “Luis

Figo.” It stated that Minor-2 had, during an interview with law enforcement, identified a

photo posted by each of the Facebook accounts as depicting someone she called “Luis,”

whom she explained was an integral participant in her physical and sexual abuse. And it

discussed how Luis’s credit card had been used to pay for the phone bill of the cell phone

recovered on Minor-2’s person. Moreover, the affidavit showed Luis’s associates in MS-

13 using Facebook to discuss the first bat beating of Minor-2. This combination of evidence

established that (1) Luis was involved in the sex trafficking of Minor-2; (2) he was

operating multiple Facebook accounts under an assumed last name; and (3) his MS-13

associates used Facebook to facilitate Minor-2’s trafficking and physical abuse. The

affidavit thus provided ample support for the magistrate’s determination that there was a

sufficient nexus between the five accounts to be searched and the evidence of sex

trafficking to be seized.

Next, consider the third warrant. Here too a substantial basis existed for the

magistrate’s finding, in authorizing the warrant, that probable cause existed to search

Moises Zelaya-Veliz’s Facebook account. The affidavit provided a detailed description,

based on interviews with Minor-2, of how Moises was central to the sex trafficking

conspiracy. And, according to the affidavit, the warrant-backed search of Sioni Gonzalez’s

Facebook account had revealed that Moises used his Facebook account to advance MS-

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13’s other criminal endeavors. These endeavors involved the use of firearms, and were

depicted through the transmission of photographs of firearms, illegal drugs, and gang signs.

Finally, take the fourth warrant. The magistrate had a substantial basis for

concluding that probable cause existed to search the Facebook accounts of the four

appellants the warrant targeted. Submitted to the court on February 20, 2020—over ten

months into the investigation—the affidavit supporting this warrant provided voluminous

information on the sex trafficking conspiracy and directly tied the use of Facebook by each

of the four appellants to their criminal activities. In doing so, the affidavit made extensive

use of the Facebook records produced pursuant to the previous warrants.

For Santos Gutierrez Castro, the affidavit provided Facebook transcripts of his

conversations coordinating prostitution customers for Minor-2 and soliciting sexually

explicit photos and in-person sexual acts from Minor-2 in exchange for money and drugs.

For Jose Molina-Veliz, the affidavit transcribed Facebook conversations consisting of

sexual advances towards Minor-2 and Minor-3 during the period that the two girls were

being exploited by MS-13. For Jonathan Zelaya-Veliz, it shared evidence of his discussing

with his brother Moises the sex trafficking and exploitation of Minor-2. And for Gilberto

Morales, the affidavit disclosed that he partnered with Luis Gonzales in trafficking Minor-

2, that he sexually abused Minor-2, and that he sought regular contact with Minor-2 during

her confinement and exploitation.

Contributing further to the affidavits’ credibility and the establishment of probable

cause was the information that Minor-2 bravely relayed to law enforcement during her

post-recovery interviews. Her decision to share the details of her abuse with the authorities

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was an act of genuine courage. Providing information to law enforcement on gang-related

offenses can subject a victim to retribution and revenge, and multiple MS-13 members had

threatened Minor-2 with death for her and her family. The strength with which this thirteen-

year-old victim shared the grim facts about her abuse is therefore firm evidence of her

credibility. Indeed, the circumstances under which Minor-2 talked to law enforcement

make the information she shared tantamount to statements against interest, which the

Federal Rules of Evidence regard as indicative of reliability. See Fed. R. Evid. 804(b)(3)

(stating that certain statements are so contrary to a declarant’s own interest that a reasonable

person would only make such statements if they believed them to be true).

The warrant affidavits in this case were well-sourced. They incorporated

information from a reliable witness, the experience of an agent well-versed in the workings

of MS-13, and—with each successive warrant—an increasingly incriminating chain of

messages that tethered successive Facebook accounts to the larger conspiracy. In light of

the thoroughness of the affidavits, the magistrates quite properly found probable cause.

Next, the appellants contend the Facebook warrants were insufficiently

particularized in two ways. First, they claim the scope of the warrants should have included

fewer categories of data from the Facebook accounts. Second, they claim that the

timeframe of the warrants should have been limited to include only information during the

trafficking of Minor-2 instead of information from before and after that period.

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The Fourth Amendment requires that warrants “particularly describ[e] the place to

be searched, and the person or things to be seized.” U.S. Const. amend. IV. This

requirement stems from our Founders’ disdain for “the reviled ‘general warrants’ and

‘writs of assistance’ of the colonial era, which allowed British officers to rummage through

homes in an unrestrained search for evidence of criminal activity.” Riley v. California, 573

U.S. 373, 403 (2014); see also Marron v. United States, 275 U.S. 192, 195–96 (1927). By

having to state with particularity the scope of the authorized search, a warrant prohibits the

government from having “unbridled discretion to rummage at will among a person’s

private effects.” Arizona v. Gant, 556 U.S. 332, 345 (2009); see also Andresen v. Maryland,

427 U.S. 463, 480 (1976); United States v. Blakeney, 949 F.3d 851, 861 (4th Cir. 2020).

At the same time, the particularity requirement is not a “constitutional straight

jacket,” United States v. Williams, 592 F.3d 511, 519 (4th Cir. 2010), and it should be not

read to create “a too-cramped understanding of the scope of a proper warrant.” United

States v. Jones, 952 F.3d 153, 158 (4th Cir. 2020). Because the particularity requirement

is “a pragmatic one,” “[t]he degree of specificity required when describing the goods to be

seized may necessarily vary according to the circumstances and type of items involved.”

United States v. Cobb, 970 F.3d 319, 327 (4th Cir. 2020) (quoting United States v. Jacob,

657 F.2d 49, 52 (4th Cir. 1981)).

With this background in mind, we turn to the appellants’ argument that the warrants

were insufficiently particularized with respect to the scope of the information that they

required Facebook to disclose. The warrants compelled Facebook to turn over a wide swath

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of personal information attached to the accounts, including all private communications,

most user activity, and, in the case of the latter two warrants, all location information. But

each warrant “‘identif[ied] the items to be seized by reference to [the] suspected criminal

offense[s],’” namely, 18 U.S.C. §§ 1591, 1952, 2422(a), and, with respect to the latter two

warrants, also 18 U.S.C. § 2423(a). Cobb, 970 F.3d at 329 (quoting Blakeney, 949 F.3d at

863). So while the warrants authorized the government to search all of the information

disclosed by Facebook, they only permitted the subsequent seizure of the fruits, evidence,

or instrumentalities of violations of enumerated federal statutes. We have previously found

that a warrant’s particularity is bolstered where, as here, the scope of the seizure it

authorized was limited to evidence of enumerated offenses. See id. at 328–29; Blakeney,

949 F.3d at 863; United States v. Jones, 31 F.3d 1304, 1313 (4th Cir. 1994). The warrants

in this case thus appropriately “confined the executing officers’ discretion,” Cobb, 970

F.3d at 328, by restricting them from rummaging through the appellants’ social media data

in search of unrelated criminal activities.

This distinction between what may be searched and what can be seized counsels the

government to execute social media warrants through a two-step process. This process—

whereby the government first obtains a large amount of account data then seizes only the

fruits, evidence, or instrumentalities of enumerated crimes—is crucial to the validity of

social media warrants. As in a search of a house, the officers searching the Facebook

account data at issue necessarily encountered a host of irrelevant materials. But, just like

in a house search, the officers were authorized to seize only the fruits, evidence, or

instrumentalities of the crimes for which they had established probable cause.

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The validity of this two-step process is acknowledged by Federal Rule of Criminal

Procedure 41(e)(2)(B) and its commentary, which permit officers, in searching

electronically stored information pursuant to a warrant, to “seize or copy the entire storage

medium and review it later to determine what electronically stored information falls within

the scope of the warrant.” Fed. R. Crim. P. 41(e)(2)(B) Committee Notes on Rules—2009

Amendment. While “the Fourth Amendment generally leaves it ‘to the discretion of the

executing officers to determine the details of how best to proceed with the performance of

a search authorized by warrant,’” Cybernet, LLC v. David, 954 F.3d 162, 168 (4th Cir.

2020) (quoting Dalia v. United States, 441 U.S. 238, 257 (1979)), the two-step process, as

laid out in Rule 41, helps to mitigate particularity concerns in the social media warrant

context. See United States v. Mercery, 591 F. Supp. 3d 1369, 1382 (M.D. Ga. 2022) (noting

the “general practice for agents to comply with Rule 41 by creating a two-step process—

the ‘search’ wherein the warrant will compel the third party to produce a broad array of

electronic information, and the ‘seizure’ wherein the warrant will authorize the seizure of

[] specified information.”).

Contrary to the appellants’ claims, this two-step process is not toothless. Rule 41

and the terms of the warrants at issue ensured that the government executed the warrant in

a reasonable manner. The district court retained the authority to determine that prolonged

retention of non-responsive data by the government violated the Fourth Amendment. See

J.A. 120 (finding that “the Government was authorized and is authorized to proceed with

this two-step procedure, and that at this point it cannot be said that the time period to

complete that process has expired.”). This authority derives from the fact that, “[i]n the

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[warrant] execution context, as elsewhere, Fourth Amendment reasonableness kicks in.”

Cybernet, 954 F.3d at 168. Courts have applied this reasonableness standard to suppress

evidence when the government delayed unreasonably in sifting through social media

warrant returns for relevant evidence. See, e.g., United States v. Cawthorn, 2023 WL

5163359, at *5–7 (D. Md. July 13, 2023) (finding Fourth Amendment violated when

government waited two years after executing warrant to review social media account data

and did not justify delay). These safeguards help ensure that, despite the large scope of

information that the warrants here returned, the searches and seizures they authorized were

not insufficiently particularized.

The wide-ranging nature of the sex trafficking conspiracy under investigation

further mitigates any concern that the scope of the warrant was impermissibly broad. The

FBI was investigating the multi-month sex trafficking of at least three underage girls by

force and coercion. By the time the first warrant at issue was sought, that investigation had

produced evidence that a host of gang-affiliated suspects had helped sex traffic the minors,

and many more had engaged in illegal sexual activity with them. And these were not just

“ordinary” gang members. The suspects were members of or otherwise affiliated with MS-

13, a transnational criminal organization that “defined its primary mission as killing rivals”

and that committed numerous murders across the United States. See United States v. Perez-

Vasquez, 6 F.4th 180, 187 (1st Cir. 2021). A reasonable inference from the evidence in the

warrant affidavits was that the sex trafficking conspiracy was ongoing, as at least some of

the suspects appeared willing to sex traffic minors under the threat of death as a matter of

course so that they could fund their lifestyles and MS-13’s operations.

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Moreover, the affidavit showed how the conspirators were using Facebook

extensively to communicate with co-conspirators, victims, and customers in furtherance of

the conspiracy. Under such circumstances, it did not violate the Fourth Amendment’s

particularity requirement for law enforcement to obtain detailed Facebook user activity

data on the sex trafficking suspects. See, e.g., United States v. Allen, 2018 WL 1726349, at

*2, *6 (D. Kan. Apr. 10, 2018) (holding Facebook warrant that produced 28,000 pages of

records was sufficiently particularized in the context of an investigation into a complex

criminal conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction); United States v. Daprato, 2022

WL 1303110, at *7 (D. Me. May 2, 2022) (rejecting particularity challenge to a warrant

that compelled disclosure of broad array of Facebook account data to help “reveal [a

defendant’s] additional connections with the codefendants or victims”). The sheer

magnitude of the sex trafficking conspiracy here justified a concomitant breadth in the

scope of the warrants, particularly as the seizures they authorized were limited to evidence

of the specified offenses for which probable cause existed.

3.

We next consider the appellants’ claim that the timeframe of the warrants was fatally

overbroad. The appellants contend that the second warrant was insufficiently particularized

because it had no temporal limitation, and that the third and fourth warrants were

insufficiently particularized because their temporal limitations far exceeded the two-month

period of time during which Minor-2 was sex trafficked. Other courts have found that a

temporal limitation can help particularize warrants that authorize the search and seizure of

Facebook account data. See, e.g., Chavez, 423 F. Supp. 3d at 207; see also United States v.

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McCall, 84 F.4th 1317, 1328 (11th Cir. 2023) (“By narrowing a search to the data created

or uploaded during a relevant time connected to the crime being investigated, officers can

particularize their searches to avoid general rummaging.”).

We start with the third and fourth warrants, both of which were timebound. They

limited the period of disclosure from January 2018 to their respective dates of service. This

timeframe was appropriately particularized as (1) the affidavits suggested that Minor-2 had

been sexually abused by affiliates of MS-13 starting during or before June 2018; (2) Minor-

2’s abuse was part of a broader sex trafficking conspiracy involving multiple minors,

including Minor-3, who was already in close contact with MS-13 members before she met

Minor-2 and who may have already been sex trafficked by them; (3) each affidavit

explained how gang members involved in a sex trafficking conspiracy often use social

media to discuss the conspiracy before, during, and after its execution; (4) multiple

appellants continued to use Facebook to message Minor-2 after she was recovered by law

enforcement in October 2018; and (5) it was appropriate for the magistrates to infer from

the affidavits that the targeted MS-13 members and affiliates were engaged in what the

district court called an “extensive ongoing interstate criminal enterprise of uncertain

beginnings.” J.A. 115. The extensive nature of the conspiracy being investigated in this

case meant that “less temporal specificity [wa]s required here than in other contexts where

evidence can more readily be confined to a particular time period.” United States v.

Manafort, 323 F. Supp. 3d 768, 782 (E.D. Va. 2018). As the Tenth Circuit has rightly

noted, “[w]arrants relating to more complex and far-reaching criminal schemes may be

deemed legally sufficient even though they are less particular than warrants pertaining to

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more straightforward criminal matters.” United States v. Cooper, 654 F.3d 1104, 1127

(10th Cir. 2011).

The second warrant that targeted Luis Gonzales’s Facebook accounts, on the other

hand, lacked a temporal limitation. This total lack of a time period in a social media warrant

raises a problem. As our society moves further into the digital age, Facebook and other

social media accounts are beginning to contain decades of personal information and

communications, often going back to an account holder’s early teenage years. These social

media accounts, much like cell phones, frequently contain “a broad array of private

information never found” during a traditional search of a home. Riley, 573 U.S. at 397; see

also United States v. Galpin, 720 F.3d 436, 447 (2d Cir. 2013) (“Where a warrant

authorizes the search of a residence, the physical dimensions of the evidence sought will

naturally impose limitations on where an officer may pry[.] . . . Such limitations are largely

absent in the digital realm[.]”). That is why one court has stated that Facebook warrants

pose “an especially potent threat to privacy” because they can “provide[] a single window

through which almost every detail of a person’s life is visible.” United States v. Shipp, 392

F. Supp. 3d 300, 307–08 (E.D.N.Y. 2019).

Moreover, the imposition of a temporal limitation on the information that Facebook

must disclose does not pose the administrability concerns that an analogous limitation

would pose in a traditional search of a home. That is because it is possible for Facebook to

filter data by time frame before disclosing it to the government, while an officer searching

a home often has no idea when each item was last used. See McCall, 84 F.4th at 1328.

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Thus, “a time-based limitation [is] both practical and protective of privacy interests” in the

context of social media warrants. Id.

We need not go so far as to mandate a temporal restriction in every compelled

disclosure of social media account data for the simple reason that we cannot anticipate all

future circumstances. Nor do we invalidate the warrant-backed search and seizure of Luis

Gonzales’s Facebook account information. Rather, in applying the Fourth Amendment to

novel questions posed by digital technology, we find it advisable to proceed with caution.

“The judiciary risks error by elaborating too fully on the Fourth Amendment implications

of emerging technology before its role in society has become clear.” City of Ontario, Cal.

v. Quon, 560 U.S. 746, 759 (2010). We therefore hold that Luis’s motion to suppress was

properly denied because the good faith exception to the exclusionary rule applies. See

United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 922–24 (1984).

Given the unsettled nature of whether a temporal limitation is required on a warrant

authorizing the search and seizure of Facebook account data, we cannot say that “a

reasonably well trained officer would have known that the search was illegal despite the

magistrate's authorization.” Id. at 922 n.23. Rather, law enforcement here acted pursuant

to a warrant that was not “so facially deficient . . . that the executing officers [could not]

reasonably presume it to be valid.” Id. at 922–23. It is axiomatic that “‘[c]ourts should not

punish law enforcement officers who are on the frontiers of new technology simply because

they are at the beginning of a learning curve and have not yet been apprised of the

preferences of courts on novel questions.’” Cawthorn, 2023 WL 5163359, at *4 (quoting

Chavez, 423 F. Supp. 3d at 208). As Special Agent Obie relied on his good faith belief in

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the warrant’s validity, we hold that the district court did not err in denying the appellants’

motions to suppress. We note, however, that future warrants enhance their claims to

particularity by “request[ing] data only from the period of time during which [the

defendant] was suspected of taking part in the [criminal] conspiracy.” United States v.

Blake, 868 F.3d 960, 974 (11th Cir. 2017).

Our ruling is a narrow one, and we do not greenlight all warrants for and searches

of social media data. 3 Because “the ultimate touchstone of the Fourth Amendment is

reasonableness,” Fernandez v. California, 571 U.S. 292, 298 (2014), the validity of any

warrant depends on an analysis of the circumstances at issue. This is no less true in the

social media context than in a search in the Founders’ day.

III.

Finally, Santos Gutierrez Castro claims the district court should have granted his

motion for acquittal because insufficient evidence was presented at trial to sustain his

convictions. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 29. We review the denial of such a motion de novo.

United States v. Gallimore, 247 F.3d 134, 136 (4th Cir. 2001). If, viewing the evidence in

the light most favorable to the prosecution, the guilty verdict at trial was supported by

substantial evidence, we are required to sustain it. United States v. Burgos, 94 F.3d 849,

862 (4th Cir. 1996) (en banc).

3 We do not, for example, address the question of whether officers sifting through Facebook account data for the fruits and instrumentalities of sex trafficking could lawfully build a different case under a plain view discovery of a distinct offense.

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We reject Santos’s sufficiency challenge and affirm his convictions. Substantial

evidence supported the jury’s conclusion that Santos was guilty of (1) conspiracy to engage

in sex trafficking of a minor under fourteen or of a minor by force, fraud, or coercion in

violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1591(a)(1) and 1594(c); (2) sex trafficking of a minor under

fourteen or of a minor by force, fraud, or coercion in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1591(a)(1)

and 1591(b)(1); and (3) conspiracy to transport a minor in interstate commerce with intent

for the minor to engage in prostitution or illegal sexual activity in violation of 18 U.S.C.

§ 2423(e). The jury heard evidence that Santos harbored Minor-2 in his house for multiple

days, had sex with her there despite knowing she was underage, and allowed multiple other

men to do the same in exchange for money. The jury also received Facebook records

showing that Santos coordinated with co-conspirators to sex traffic Minor-2, including by

circulating risqué photos of her and discussing where to transport her so that customers

could sexually exploit her.

Santos claims on appeal that “[n]ot one witness testified” that he received anything

of value in return for sexual acts by Minor-2. Appellants’ Brief at 40. Yet Minor-2 herself

testified that, while she was in Santos’s home, she heard him telling people over the phone

that if they were going to have sex with her, they had to pay $100 per hour. The same day

that she overheard this call, Minor-2 was forced to have sex with more than ten men in

Santos’s home. Santos disputes the validity of this testimony, noting that in Minor-2’s

initial interviews with law enforcement, she said she did not recall whether Santos received

money in exchange for her having sex. But, viewing the evidence in the light most

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favorable to the prosecution, it was well within the jury’s discretion to credit Minor-2’s

trial testimony.

Beyond Minor-2’s testimony, copious Facebook records and interview transcripts

support the jury’s verdict. Santos himself openly admitted in a Mirandized interview with

FBI agents that he had engaged in sex with Minor-2, whom he knew was underage, while

she was at his house. This admission is substantiated by multiple Facebook conversations

between Santos and Minor-2 in which he discussed meeting up with her to have sex. In

Facebook conversations between Santos and Jose Molina-Veliz, they talked about the

possibility that one of them had impregnated Minor-2. The two also discussed, around the

time of Minor-2’s second bat beating, meeting up so they could beat Minor-2 on the chest.

What’s more, Facebook conversations with additional co-conspirators show Santos

coordinating the transportation of Minor-2 to different prostitution customers, including

one conversation in which he refers to Minor-2 as a female prisoner.

To summarize, the extensive Facebook records presented at trial, combined with

Minor-2’s testimony and Santos’s admissions to the FBI, provided substantial evidence on

which the jury was entitled to find him guilty of conspiracy to transport Minor-2 in

interstate commerce with the intent that she engage in illegal sexual activity; sex trafficking

of Minor-2 as a person under fourteen or by force, fraud, or coercion; and conspiracy to do

the same. His was not a close case, and the district court properly denied Santos’s motion

for acquittal.

IV.

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As the tragic facts of this case reveal, social media provides an all-too-easy avenue

for the coordination of sex trafficking conspiracies. Even more troubling, sex traffickers

are able to use social media to lure underage victims into their grasp. The reasonableness

standard that is so central to the Fourth Amendment necessitates that we permit the

government to thwart these emerging criminal tactics with novel investigatory tools of its

own. Warrants for social media data are one such tool, as they empower law enforcement

officers to reveal the activities of criminal conspirators, disrupt their illicit plots, and bring

them to justice. But while social media warrants can support invaluable police work, as

they did in this case, they also provide significant potential for abuse. We cannot read the

Fourth Amendment to allow the indiscriminate search of many years of intimate

communications. And because of the inherent interconnectedness of social media,

permitting unbridled rummaging through any one user’s account can reveal an

extraordinary amount of personal information about individuals uninvolved in any criminal

activity.

It is not only courts that are struggling to strike a balance between privacy and

security in the rapidly changing digital domain, but society as a whole. When criminal

offenders use social media to organize their enterprises and evade detection, it would seem

unreasonable to disable law enforcement from using those same media to apprehend and

prosecute them. To hold otherwise would arbitrarily tip the scales away from law and

justice for the benefit of increasingly sophisticated criminal schemes. But at the same time,

there comes a point when the Fourth Amendment must emphatically yell STOP, lest we

render obsolete the hallowed notion of a secure enclave for personal affairs.

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For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court is in all respects

affirmed.