Juan Dedios PEREZ, Appellant,
v.
The STATE of Florida, Appellee.
District Court of Appeal of Florida, Third District.
*107 Kogen & Kogen and Lauren Kogen, Coral Gables, for appellant.
Robert A. Butterworth, Atty. Gen., and Charles M. Fahlbusch, Asst. Atty. Gen., for appellee.
Before BARKDULL, NESBITT and BASKIN, JJ.
PER CURIAM.
Defendant, Juan Dedios Perez, appeals his conviction for trafficking in cocaine. We affirm.
Perez obtained jewelry on consignment and sold it through contacts at various Miami Beach hotels. As part of one of his transactions, he accepted a pound of cocaine as collateral for jewelry from one of his contacts. At the time, the contact was accompanied by a confidential informant. The cocaine was to be sold and the proceeds were to go to the defendant. The informant set up a deal with police to purchase the cocaine from the defendant's contact. The contact notified the defendant who arrived with the cocaine and proceeded to consummate the deal with a police detective. After the defendant received his money, he proposed another drug transaction with the detective. Immediately thereafter, Perez was arrested. At trial, the jury found him guilty as charged.
Perez contends that the trial court erred in failing to dismiss the charges on the basis of entrapment. We disagree for the following reasons.
First, a fee arrangement between police and an informant is a ground for reversal only if the informant's testimony is essential for conviction and if there is proof that the fee was contingent based on the percentage of funds obtained from the drug transaction. Dodd v. State,
Second, entrapment results only from illegal police activity which induces a criminal act, not from the acts of private *108 citizens. State v. Perez,
Next, where the testimony of the defendant is the sole basis for an entrapment defense, entrapment is not established as a matter of law; it is a jury question. United States v. Bower,
Finally, an essential element of the entrapment defense is the absence of a predisposition to commit the crime. State v. Wheeler,
Finding that appellant's remaining points on appeal lack merit, we affirm the judgment of the trial court.
