UNITED STATES оf America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Joel ESQUENAZI, Carlos Rodriguez, Defendants-Appellants.
No. 11-15331.
United States Court of Appeals, Eleventh Circuit.
May 16, 2014.
752 F.3d 912
Kirby A. Heller, Nicola J. Mrazek, U.S. Department of Justice, Washington, DC, James M. Koukios, Wifredo A. Ferrer, Daren Grove, Kathleen Mary Salyer, Anne Ruth Schultz, U.S. Attorney‘s Office, Miami, FL, Aurora Fagan, U.S. Attorney‘s Office, West Palm Beach, FL, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Michael J. Rosen, Michael J. Rosen, PA, Arturo Virgilio Hernandez, Arturo V. Hernandez, P.A., Miami, FL, Rhonda Anne Anderson, Rhonda A. Anderson, PA, Richard J. Diaz, Law Offices of Richard J. Diaz, PA, Coral Gables, FL, Lauren Lisette Valiente, Foley & Lardner, LLP, Tampa, FL, Michael Alex Sink, Markus Funk, Perkins Coie, LLP, Denver, CO, James F. Cirincione, David W. Simon, Foley & Lardner, LLP, Milwaukee, WI, Jaime B. Guerrero, Pamela L. Johnston, Foley & Lardner, LLP, Los Angeles, CA, Kenneth Bruce Winer, Foley & Lardner, LLP, Washington, DC, for Defendants-Appellants.
Before MARTIN, JORDAN and SUHRHEINRICH,* Circuit Judges.
MARTIN, Circuit Judge:
Joel Esquenazi and Carlos Rodriguez appeal their convictions and sentences imposed after a jury convicted them of conspiracy, violating the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, and money-laundering. After careful review, and with the benefit of oral argument, we affirm.
I.
In December 2009, a grand jury indicted Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez on 21 counts. Two of these were conspiracy charges that spanned November 2001 through March 2005: conspiracy to violate the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and commit wire fraud, all in violation of
A. Trial1
Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez co-owned Terra Telecommunications Corp. (Terra), a Florida company that purchased phone time from foreign vendors and resold the minutes to customers in the United States. Mr. Esquenazi, Terra‘s majority owner, served as President and Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Rodriguez, the company‘s minority owner, served as Executive Vice President of Operations. James Dickey served as Terra‘s general counsel and Antonio Perez as the company‘s comptroller.
One of Terra‘s main vendors was Telecommunications D‘Haiti, S.A.M. (Teleco). Because the relationship of Teleco to the Haitian government was, and remains, at issue in this case, the government presented evidence of Teleco‘s ties to Haiti. Former Teleco Director of International Relations Robert Antoine testified that Teleco was owned by Haiti. An insurance broker, John Marsha, testified that, when Messrs. Rodriguez and Esquenazi were involved in previous contract negotiations with Teleco, they sought political-risk insurance, a type of coverage that applies only when a foreign government is party to an agreement. In emails with Mr. Marsha copied to Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez, Mr. Dickey called Teleco an “instrumentality” of the Haitian government.
An expert witness, Luis Gary Lissade, testified regarding Teleco‘s history. At Teleco‘s formation in 1968, the Haitian government gave the company a monopoly on telecommunication services. Teleco had significant tax advantages and, at its inception, the government appointed two members of Teleco‘s board of directors. Haiti‘s
Mr. Lissade also testified that Teleco‘s business entity suffix, S.A.M., indicates “associate anonymous mixed,” which means the “Government put money in the corporation.” Teleco‘s suffix was attached not by statute, but “de facto” because “the government consider[ed] Teleco as its ... entity.” In 1996, Haiti passed a “modernization” law, seeking to privatize many public institutions. As a result, Haiti privatized Teleco sometime between 2009 and 2010. Ultimately, Mr. Lissade opined that, during the years relevant to this case, “Teleco was part of the public administration.” He explained: “There was no specific law that ... decided that at the beginning that Teleco is a public entity but government, officials, everyone consid-er[ed] Teleco as a public administration.” And, he said, “if there was a doubt whatsoever, the [anti-corruption] law [that] came in 2008 vanish[ed] completely this doubt ... by citing Teleco as a public administration” and by requiring its agents—whom Mr. Lissade said were public agents—to declare all assets to avoid secret bribes.
In 2001 Terra contracted to buy minutes from Teleco directly. At that time, Teleco‘s Director General was Patrick Joseph (appointed by then-President Jean-Bertrand Aristide), and the Director of International Relations was Robert Antoine. Mr. Antoine had two friends and business associates who played a role in this case: Jean Fourcand, a grocery-store owner, and Juan Diaz.
By October 2001, Terra owed Teleco over $400,000. So Mr. Perez testified, Mr. Esquenazi asked him to contact Mr. Antoine and negotiate an amortization deal or, alternatively, to offer a side payment. Mr. Perez met with Mr. Antoine, who rejected the idea of amortization but agreed to a side payment to ease Terra‘s debt. The deal, according to Mr. Perez, was that Mr. Antoine would shave minutes from Terra‘s bills to Teleco in exchange for receiving from Terra fifty percent of what the company saved. Mr. Antoine suggested that Terra disguise the payments by making them to sham companies, which Terra ultimately did. Mr. Perez returned to Mr. Esquenazi and told him the news and later shared details of the deal in a meeting with Messrs. Esquenazi, Rodriguez, and Dickey. The four discussed “the fact that Robert Antoine had accepted an arrangement to accept ... payments to him in exchange for reducing [Terra‘s] bills.” Mr. Perez testified: “[Mr. Esquenazi] was happy, and both James Dickey and Carlos Rodriguez also congratulated me on a job well done.”2
The following month, in November 2001, Terra began funneling personal payments to Mr. Antoine using the following subterfuge. Mr. Dickey, on Terra‘s behalf, drafted a “consulting agreement” between
In April 2003, President Aristide removed Mr. Antoine and named Alphonse Inevil as his replacement. Mr. Inevil soon replaced Mr. Joseph as Director General, and Jean Rene Duperval replaced Inevil. Later that year, with Terra still behind on its bills, Mr. Esquenazi helped Mr. Duperval form a shell company, Telecom Consulting Services Corporation (TCSC), through which Esquenazi ultimately would make side payments to Mr. Duperval. TCSC‘s president was Margurite Grandison, Mr. Duperval‘s sister; its incorporator and registered agent was Mr. Dickey; and the company‘s principal business address was a post office box that named Mr. Duperval as the person empowered to receive mail through it. Ms. Grandison executed a “commission agreement” with Terra, which Mr. Esquenazi signed. And on November 20, Mr. Rodriguez authorized the first transfer, $15,000, to TCSC. Over the next five months, although Terra received no invoices to reflect money owed TCSC, Terra made six additional transfers to TCSC totaling $60,000. Each of these seven transfers is the subject of the substantive FCPA counts. Ms. Grandison then disbursed money from TCSC‘s account to Mr. Duperval and his associates. She made a number of transfers, twelve of which constitute the substantive money-laundering counts.
During the Internal Revenue Service‘s investigation of the case, Mr. Esquenazi admitted he had bribed Mr. Duperval and other Teleco officials. He and Mr. Rodriguez nonetheless pleaded not guilty, proceeded to trial, and were found guilty on all counts.3
B. Post-trial
Five days after the jury convicted Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez, the government receivеd from an attorney involved in Patrick Joseph‘s defense a declaration by the Haitian Prime Minister, Jean Max Bellerive. The declaration, marked with a date that fell in the middle of the jury trial, stated: “Teleco has never been and until now is not a State enterprise.” In a second declaration, made later and provided by the government to defense counsel, Prime Minister Bellerive confirmed that “the facts mentioned in the [first] statement are truthful,” but clarified: “The only legal point that should stand out in this statement is that there
The presentence investigation report prepared in advance of Mr. Esquenazi‘s sentencing calculated a base offense level of 12, under
This is the appeal brought by Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez.
II.
The FCPA prohibits “any domestic concern” from “mak[ing] use of the mails or any means ... of interstate commerce corruptly in furtherance of” a bribe to “any foreign official,” or to “any person, while knowing that all or a portion of such money or thing of value will be offered, given, or promised, directly or indirectly, to any foreign official,” for the purpose of “influencing any act or decision of such foreign official ... in order to assist such domestic concern in obtaining or retaining business for or with, or directing business to, any person.”
The FCPA does not define the term “instrumentality,” and this Court has not either. For that matter, we know of no other court of appeals who has. The definition matters in this case, in light of the challenges to the district court‘s jury instructions on “instrumentality“; to the sufficiency of the evidence that Teleco qualified аs an instrumentality of the Haitian government; and to Mr. Esquenazi‘s contention that the statute is unconstitutionally vague. Before we address these challenges, however, we must define “instrumentality” for purposes of the FCPA.
We begin, as we always do when construing statutory text, with the plain meaning of the word at issue. See Harris v. Garner, 216 F.3d 970, 972 (11th Cir. 2000). According to Black‘s Law Dictionary, an instrumentality is “[a] means or agency through which a function of another entity is accomplished, such as a branch of a governing body.” Id. at 870 (9th ed.2009). Webster‘s Third New Interna-
To interpret “instrumentality” as used in the Amеricans with Disabilities Act, we relied upon what the Supreme Court has called the “commonsense cannon of noscitur a sociis,” United States v. Williams, 553 U.S. 285, 294, 128 S.Ct. 1830, 1839, 170 L.Ed.2d 650 (2008)—that is, “a word is known by the company it keeps.” Edison, 604 F.3d at 1309 (quoting Green, 465 F.3d at 79 (quoting, in turn, Jarecki v. G.D. Searle & Co., 367 U.S. 303, 307, 81 S.Ct. 1579, 1582, 6 L.Ed.2d 859 (1961))).6 In the FCPA, the company “instrumentality” keeps is “agency” and “department,” entities through which the government performs its functions and that are controlled by the government. We therefore glean from that context that an entity must be under the control or dominion of the government to qualify as an “instrumentality” within the FCPA‘s meaning. And we can also surmise from the other words in the series along with “instrumentality” that an instrumentality must be doing the business of the government. What the defendants and the government disagree about, however, is what functions count as the government‘s business.
To answer that question, we examine the broader statutory context in which the word is used. See Edison, 604 F.3d at 1310 (“We have affirmed many times that we do not look at one word or term in isolation but rather look to the entire statute and its context.“). In this respect, we find one other provision of the FCPA and Congress‘s relatively recent amendment of the statute particularly illustrative. First, the so-called “grease payment” provision establishes an “exception” to FCPA liability for “any facilitating
Next, we turn to Congress‘s 1998 amendment of the FCPA, enacted to ensure the United States was in compliance with its treaty obligations. That year, the United States ratified the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development‘s Convention on Combating Bribery of Foreign Public Officials in International Business Transactions (OECD Convention), Dec. 17, 1997, S. Treaty Doc. No. 105-43, 37 I.L.M. 1 (ratified Dec. 8, 1998, entered into force Feb. 15, 1999). See International Anti-Bribery and Fair Competition Act of 1998, Pub.L. No. 105-366, 112 Stat. 3302 (implementing changes to the FCPA pursuant to the United States’ obligations under the OECD Convention). In joining the OECD Convention, the United States agreed to “take such measures as may be necessary to establish that it is a criminal offence under [United States] law for any person intentionally to offer, promise or give ... directly or through intermediaries, to a foreign public official ... in order that the official act or refrain from acting in relation to the performance of official duties, in order to obtain or retain business or other improper advantage in the conduct of international business.” OECD Convention art. 1.1 (emphasis added). “Foreign public official” is defined to include “any person exercising a public function for a foreign country, including for a public enterprise.” Id. art. 1.4(a). The commentaries to the OECD Convention explain that: “A ‘public enterprise’ is any enterprise, regardless of its legal form, over which a government, or governments, may, directly or indirectly, exercise
To implement the Convention‘s mandates, Congress amended the FCPA in 1998. See Pub.L. No. 105-366, 112 Stat. 3302. The only change to the definition of “foreign official” in the FCPA that Congress thought necessary was the addition of “public international organization.”
We are not alone in finding instruction from the obligations the United States undertook in the OECD Convention and Congress‘s resulting amendment of the FCPA made in order to comply with those obligations. The Fifth Circuit, in United States v. Kay, concluded that, when Congress amended the FCPA to comply with the duties the United States assumed under the OECD Convention and left intact the FCPA‘s language outlawing bribery for the purpose of “obtaining or retaining business,” the preexisting language should be construed to сover the Convention‘s mandate that signatories prohibit bribery “‘to obtain or retain business or other improper advantage in the conduct of international business.‘” 359 F.3d at 754 (quoting OECD Convention art. 1.1) (emphasis added). “Indeed, given the United States‘s ratification and implementation of the Convention without any reservation, understandings or alterations specifically pertaining to its scope,” the Fifth Circuit concluded the defendants’ narrow construction of the FCPA “would likely create a conflict with our international treaty obligations, with which we presume Congress meant to fully comply.” Id. at 755 n. 68.
Based upon this reading, we must also reject the invitation from Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez to limit the term оnly to entities that perform traditional, core government functions. Nothing in the statute imposes this limitation. And were we to limit “instrumentality” in the FCPA in that way, we would put the United States out of compliance with its international obligations. See OECD Convention art. 1.4, cmt. 12 (designating as a “public function” “any activity in the public interest, delegated by a foreign country” (emphasis added)).
The Supreme Court has cautioned that “the concept of a ‘usual’ or a ‘proper’ governmental function changes over time and varies from nation to nation.” First Nat‘l City Bank v. Banco Para El Comercio Exterior de Cuba, 462 U.S. 611, 634 n. 27, 103 S.Ct. 2591, 2603 n. 27, 77 L.Ed.2d 46 (1983). That principle guides our construction of the term “instrumentality.” Specifically, to decide in a given case whether a foreign entity to which a domestic concern makes a payment is an instrumentality of that foreign government, we ought to look to whether that foreign government considers the entity to be performing a governmental function. And the most objective way to make that decision is to examine the foreign sovereign‘s actions, namely, whether it treats the function the foreign entity performs as its own. Presumably, governments that mutually agree to quell bribes flowing between nations intend to prevent distortion of the business they conduct on behalf of their people. We ought to respect a foreign sovereign‘s definition of what that business is.8 Thus, for the United States government to hold up its end of the bargain under the OECD Convention, we ought to follow the lead of the foreign government itself in terms of which functions it treats as its own.
Although we believe Teleсo would qualify as a Haitian instrumentality under almost any definition we could craft, we are mindful of the needs of both corporations and the government for ex ante direction about what an instrumentality is. With this guidance, we define instrumentality as follows. An “instrumentality” un-
To decide if the government “controls” an entity, courts and juries should look to the foreign government‘s formal designation of that entity; whether the government has a majority interest in the entity; the government‘s ability to hire and fire the entity‘s principals; the extent to which the entity‘s profits, if any, go directly into the governmental fisc, and, by the same token, the extent to which the government funds the entity if it fails to break even; and the length of time these indicia have existed. We do not cut these factors from whole cloth. Rather, they are informed by the commentary to the OECD Convention the United States ratified. See OECD Convention, art. 1.4, cmt. 14 (stating that an entity is “deemed” to be under governmental control “inter alia, whеn the government or governments hold the majority of the enterprise‘s subscribed capital, control the majority of votes attaching to shares issued by the enterprise or can appoint a majority of the members of the enterprise‘s administrative or managerial body or supervisory board“). They are also consistent with the approach the Supreme Court has taken to decide if an entity is an agent or instrumentality of the government in analogous contexts. See Lebron v. Nat‘l R.R. Passenger Corp., 513 U.S. 374, 394, 397-99, 115 S.Ct. 961, 972-74, 130 L.Ed.2d 902 (1995) (concluding Amtrak was an “agency or instrumentality of the United States” because, among other things, it was created by federal statute and a majority of its directors were to be appointed by the President); Cherry Cotton Mills, Inc. v. United States, 327 U.S. 536, 539, 66 S.Ct. 729, 730, 90 L.Ed. 835 (1946) (“[Because Reconstruction Finance Corporation‘s (RFC)] Directors are appointed by the President and affirmed by the Senate; its activities are all aimed at accomplishing a public purpose; all of its money comes from the Government; its profits, if any, go to the Government; [and] its losses the Government must bear[, t]hat the Congress chose to call it a corporation does not alter its characteristics so as to make it something other than what it actually is, an agency selected by Government to accomplish purely governmental purposes.“); Reconstruction Fin. Corp. v. J.G. Menihan Corp., 312 U.S. 81, 83, 61 S.Ct. 485, 486, 85 L.Ed. 595 (1941) (concluding RFC was a “corporate agency of the government” because the United States was the “sole stockholder” and the entity was “managed by a board of di-
We then turn to the second element relevant to deciding if an entity is an instrumentality of a foreign government under the FCPA—deciding if the entity performs a function the government treats as its own. Courts and juries should examine whether the entity has a monopoly over the function it exists to carry out; whether the government subsidizes the costs associated with the entity providing services; whether the entity provides services to the public at large in the foreign country; and whether the public and the government of that foreign country generally perceive the entity to be performing a governmental function. Just as with the factors indicating control, we draw these in part from the OECD Convention. See OECD Convention art. 1.4, cmt. 15 (“[A] public enterprise shall be deemed to perform a public function,” if it does not “operate[] on a normal commercial basis in the relevant market, i.e., on a basis which is substantially equivalent to that of a private enterprise, without preferential subsidies or other privileges.“); see also id. art. 1.4, cmt. 12 (“‘Public function’ includes any activity in the public interest, delegated by a foreign country....“). And we draw them from Supreme Court cases discussing what entities properly can be considered carrying out governmental functions. See Brentwood Acad. v. Tenn. Secondary Sch. Athletic Ass‘n, 531 U.S. 288, 295-97, 121 S.Ct. 924, 930-31, 148 L.Ed.2d 807 (2001) (describing situations in which the Court has held “seemingly private behavior may be fairly treated as that of the State itself,” recognizing that decision as “a matter of normative judgment [whose] criteria lack rigid simplicity,” and including among the relevant factors whether “the State provides significant encouragement, either overt or covert” and if the entity “serve[s a] public purpose [such as] providing community recreation” (internal quotation marks omitted)). Compare Reconstruction Fin. Corp., 312 U.S. at 83, 61 S.Ct. at 486 (recognizing that the RFC‘s function to make loans and investments to aid state and local governments, banks, railroads, mortgage companies, and other businesses were “transactions ... akin to those of private enterprises“), with Cherry Cotton Mills, Inc., 327 U.S. at 539, 66 S.Ct. at 730 (stating that the RFC was “an agency selected by the Government to accomplish purely governmental purposes” (emphasis added)).
III.
A. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act Convictions
We now turn to Esquenazi‘s and Rodriguez‘s specific challenges to their convictions under the FCPA.
1. The district court‘s “instrumentality” instruction
With the definition of “instrumentality” in mind, we now examine what Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez assert was the district court‘s chief error with respect to whether Teleco was an instrumentality of the Haitian government—the jury instructions. Notably, the list of factors we identified, although a bit more detailed, is not so different from what the district court laid out in its instructions to the jury here. We review de novo the district court‘s instructions to determine whether they misstated the law or prejudicially misled the jury. United States v. Felts, 579 F.3d 1341, 1342 (11th Cir.2009). The district court instructed the jury:
An instrumentality of a foreign government is a means or agency through which a function of the foreign government is accomplished. State-owned or state-controlled companies that provide services to the public may meet this definition.
To decide whether Telecommunications D‘Haiti or Teleco is an instrumentality of the government of Haiti, you may consider factors including, but not limited to:
One, whether it provides services to the citizens and inhabitants of Haiti.
Two, whether its key officers and directors are government officials or are appointed by government officials.
Three, the extent of Haiti‘s ownership of Teleco, including whether the Haitian government owns a majority of Teleco‘s shares or provides financial support such as subsidies, special tax treatment, loans or revenue from government mandated fees.
Four, Teleco‘s obligations and privileges under Haitian law, including whether Teleco exercises exclusive or controlling power to administer its designated functions.
And five, whether Teleco is widely perceived and understood to be performing official or governmental functions.
Both Mr. Esquenazi and Mr. Rodriguez contend these instructions caused the jury to convict them based only on the fact that Teleco was a government-owned entity that performed a service, without any determination that the service it performed was a governmental function. We cannot agree. Read in context, the district court‘s instructions make plain that provision of a service by a government-owned or controlled entity is not by itself sufficient. The district court explained only that an entity that provides a public service “may” meet the definition of “instru-
2. Sufficiency of the evidence Teleco was a Haitian instrumentality
In addition to challenging the “instrumentality” jury instruction, Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez also argue the evidence was insufficient to demonstrate that Teleco was an instrumentality of the Haitian government. We review the sufficiency of the evidence de novo, “viewing the evidence and taking all reasonable inferences in favor of the jury‘s verdict.” United States v. Fries, 725 F.3d 1286, 1291 (11th Cir.2013). In light of our construction of the term, we have little difficulty concluding sufficient evidence supported the jury‘s necessary finding that Teleco was a Haitian instrumentality.
From Teleco‘s creation, Haiti granted the company a monopoly over telecommunications service and gave it various tax advantages. Beginning in early 1970s, and through the years Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez were involved, Haiti‘s national bank owned 97 percent of Teleco. The company‘s Director General was chosen by the Haitian President with the consent of the Haitian Prime Minister and the ministers of public works and economic finance. And the Haitian President appointed all of Teleco‘s board members. The government‘s expert testified that Teleco be-
3. Mr. Esquenazi‘s vagueness challenge
Mr. Esquenazi alone challenges the FCPA as unconstitutionally vague as applied to him. Mr. Esquenazi‘s only contention, however, is that the statute would be vague if we interpreted “instrumentality” to include state-owned enterprises that do not perform a governmental function. But we have not. Our definition of “instrumentality” requires that the entity perform a function the government treats as its own. Although we recognize there may be entities near the definitional line for “instrumentality” that may raise a vagueness concern, non-speech vagueness challenges are only cognizable as applied. See United States v. Mazurie, 419 U.S. 544, 550, 95 S.Ct. 710, 714, 42 L.Ed.2d 706 (1975) (“[V]agueness challenges to statutes which do not involve First Amendment freedoms must be examined in the light of the facts of the case at hand.“). Because the entity to which Mr. Esquenazi funneled bribes was overwhelmingly majority-owned by the state, had no fisc independent of the state, had a state-sanctioned monopoly for its activities, and was controlled by a board filled exclusively with government-appointed individuals, the FCPA is not vague as applied to his conduct. See Parker v. Levy, 417 U.S. 733, 756, 94 S.Ct. 2547, 2562, 41 L.Ed.2d 439 (1974) (“One to whose conduct a statute clearly applies may not successfully challenge it for vagueness.“).
4. Whether Mr. Esquenazi and Mr. Rodriguez possessed the requisite knowledge
Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez also aim challenges at the knowledge element of the FCPA. Both challenge the district court‘s jury instructions on the element. And Mr. Rodriguez challenges the district court‘s decision to give the jury a deliberate-ignorance instruction as well as the sufficiency of the evidence that he knew Teleco was a Haitian instrumentality.11 We address these in turn.
In its instructions, the district court told the jury that knowledge was an essential element of each FCPA charge, and that, to convict on the FCPA charges, the jury had to find each bribe payment was “made to any person while knowing that all or a portion of such money or thing of value will be offered, given, or promised, directly or indirectly, to any foreign official.” The district court explained that “knowing” meant actual knowledge or a firm belief of the existence of a particular circumstance or result. Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez contend this instruction was erroneous because it misled the jury to believe it could convict if either knew their intermediary (namely, Grandison at TCSC) would make a payment to a person who just “happened” to be a foreign official without their prior knowledge. In other words, they argue, the instruction failed to make clear that they must have known the recipient of the bribe payment would be a foreign official.12 Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez failed to timely raise this argument before the district court, so we review only for plain error. See United States v. Wright, 392 F.3d 1269, 1277 (11th Cir.2004) (“[T]o preserve an objection to jury instructions for appellate review, a party must object before the jury retired, stating distinctly the specific grounds for the objection.” (citation omitted)). To surmount this standard of review, the challenger must show “instruction was an incorrect statement of the law and [that] it was probably responsible for an incorrect verdict, leading to substantial injustice.” Id. at 1279 (citation omitted).
We conclude there was no error here, plain or otherwise. The court‘s instructions, read in their entirety, make clear the jury had to find Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez knew or believed the bribes would ultimately reach the hands of a foreign official. The court listed as one of the essential elements of the FCPA charges “that the payment or gift was to a foreign official or to any person while the defendant knew that all or a portion of the payment or gift would be offered, given or promised, directly or indirectly to a foreign official.” This statement, as well as the court‘s definition of “knowing,” directly tracked the FCPA‘s language. See
b. The deliberate-ignorance instruction
At the charge conference, the court considered whether to give the jury a deliberate-ignоrance instruction, which would permit the jury to return a guilty verdict if it found “[d]eliberate avoidance of positive knowledge.” Mr. Rodriguez objected to the instruction, arguing the evidence at trial showed he did not know about Terra‘s illegal activity, not that he simply ignored the unlawful transactions. The district court acknowledged that evidence of deliberate ignorance was “sparse,” but gave the instruction, based on the government‘s argument that because testimony at trial showed Mr. Rodri-
Nonetheless, in light of the overwhelming evidence Mr. Rodriguez had actual knowledge he was authorizing unlawful payments, and the district court‘s thorough instructions on the knowledge element, the error was harmless. See id. at 937-38 (reviewing erroneous deliberate-ignorance instruction for harmless error); see also United States v. Neder, 197 F.3d 1122, 1129 (11th Cir.1999) (recognizing that, to show an instructional error was harmless, the government must show the evidencе on the element the instruction targeted was so overwhelming “that no rational jury, properly instructed” on that element, could have acquitted the defendant). Mr. Perez testified that, after Mr. Antoine accepted an offer for side-payments in exchange for a reduction in Terra‘s bills, he told Mr. Rodriguez of the deal. Upon hearing the news, Mr. Rodriguez “congratulated [Mr. Perez] on a job well done.” Mr. Rodriguez authorized a number of side payments to Mr. Antoine through J.D. Locator, and he continued this practice by authorizing payments to TCSC. In fact, Mr. Rodriguez‘s name is on every transfer to TCSC that corresponds to a substantive FCPA charge. Because overwhelming evidence supports the jury‘s finding that Mr. Rodriguez had actual knowledge of the unlawful nature of his payments, we will not reverse on the basis of an erroneous deliberate-ignorance instruction. See id.
c. Sufficiency of the evidence that Mr. Rodriguez had the requisite knowledge
Mr. Rodriguez challenges the sufficiency of the evidence that he had knowledge the recipient of the payments he made was a foreign official. We review de novo his sufficiency challenge. Fries, 725 F.3d at 1291. “The relevant question in reviewing a sufficiency of the evidence claim is whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” United States v. Demarest, 570 F.3d 1232, 1239 (11th Cir.2009) (citation omitted and emphasis added).
Mr. Rodriguez asserts there was no evidence that he had actual knowledge of the ways Teleco was connected to the Haitian government making it аn “instrumentality,” or of the fact that Teleco employees were foreign officials. Although he presents these as distinct elements, they are the same. Provided Mr. Rodriguez knew (or believed) Teleco was a Haitian instrumentality, he knew any Teleco employee was a foreign official. See
As we pointed out above, Mr. Rodriguez‘s conception of “instrumentality“—and thus, what the government had to prove he knew—is too narrow. Actually, the government bore the burden of proving Teleco was controlled by the Haitian government and performed a function the government treated as its own. Our review of the record shows sufficient evidence of Mr. Rodriguez‘s knowledge of Teleco‘s status as an instrumentality (and thus Messrs. Antoine and Duperval‘s statuses as foreign officials) supports the jury‘s finding of guilt. For example, insurance broker John Marsha testified extensively at trial about the political-risk insurance policy Terra tried to obtain on a Tеleco contract that ultimately fell through. According to Mr. Marsha, the type of policy Terra sought is only available when contracting with a foreign government. Mr. Marsha testified that he received a phone call from Messrs. Esquenazi, Rodriguez, and Dickey, who said they wanted to insure contracts with “foreign governments.” After Mr. Marsha sent an application for political-risk insurance, Mr. Dickey emailed Marsha (copying Messrs. Rodriguez and Esquenazi) with an attached insurance application listing Teleco as a “government-owned entity.” Later, when the insurer had doubts about what recourse it might have against the Haitian government if the proposed Teleco/Terra contract was breached, Mr. Dickey (again copying Messrs. Rodriguez and Esquenazi) emailed Mr. Marsha and said: “With respect to Haiti, we may be able to get a letter from the TELECO President to the effect that TELECO is an instrumentality of the Haitian government. Would this help expedite matters?” And, when the insurer became concerned the policy‘s force majeure clause might permit “the Haitian government” to cancel the contract with Terra, Messrs. Dickey, Rodriguez, and Esquenazi discussed this possibility at length with Mr. Marsha. Also based on his status as a Terra executive directly involved in deals with Teleco, the jury reasonably could infer Mr. Rodriguez knew the company had a state-sanctioned monopoly over telecommunications in Haiti. That evidence was sufficient to support a jury finding that Mr. Rodriguez knew Teleco was an instrumentality of the Haitian government. And bеcause it is undisputed that he knew Messrs. Antoine and Duperval were Teleco employees, that evidence supports a finding he knew they qualified as foreign officials under the FCPA. See
5. Whether the declarations by Prime Minister Bellerive warranted a Brady hearing
Five days after the jury returned its verdict, counsel for Patrick Joseph, who was indicted along with Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez but tried separately, gave the government a declaration from Haitian Prime Minister Jean Max Bellerive. In that declaration, Prime Minister Bellerive indicated Teleco was not a state enterprise of Haiti. On August 10, 2011, the day after receiving it, the government shared the Prime Minister‘s declaration with counsel for Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez. The two sought a new trial, or at least an evidentiary hearing, based upon this newly discovered evidence, but the district court denied their motion. On appeal, Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez contend the district court erred in denying them a hearing on whether the fact that they did not have the declaration before trial violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 87, 83 S.Ct. 1194, 1196-97, 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963).
(1) the government possessed evidence, including impeachment evidence, favorable to the defense; (2) [the defense] did not possess the evidence nor could have obtained it with reasonable diligence; (3) the prosecution suppressed the favorable evidence; and (4) had the evidence been disclosed to the defense, a reasonable probability exists that the trial outcome would have been different, i.e., the evidence was material.
United States v. Arnold, 117 F.3d 1308, 1315 (11th Cir.1997).
Even if we accept the assertions in the Prime Minister‘s declaration (which he later clarified to explain that Teleco was “fully funded and controlled by BRH, which is a public entity of the Haitian State“) as material, the district court did not abuse its discretion in denying Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez a hearing on their Brady claims because the evidence does not qualify as Brady material. ”Brady applies only to information possessed by the prosecutor or anyone over whom he has authority.” United States v. Naranjo, 634 F.3d 1198, 1212 (11th Cir.2011) (internal quotation marks omitted). And where the government does not have evidence in its possession, the prosecution cannot have suppressed it, either willfully or inadvertently. Id. In response to the motion for a new trial, a member of the prosecution team swore, under oath, that the government only learned of the declaration after Messrs. Rodriguez and Esquenazi were convicted. Neither defendant points to any contrary evidence.
Despite the complete absence of evidence to show the prosecution possessed the original declaration of the Prime Minister, Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez assert they were still entitled to an evidentiary hearing on a possible Brady violation. They argue the government has not proved it did not know of the declaration‘s substance; that the government had unique access to the Haitian Prime Minister; and that the knowledge of Haitian officials should be imputed to the prosecution. None of these arguments convinces us the district court was required to hold an evidentiary hearing. First, the burden to show a Brady violation lies with the defendant, not the government, so the prosecution was not required to prove lack of knowledge of the declaration‘s contents on top of not having the declaration. See United States v. Vallejo, 297 F.3d 1154, 1164 (11th Cir.2002). Second, there is no evidence that the government was so uniquely situated with respect to the information in the declaration that it was required to go out and learn what it did not know. See Naranjo, 634 F.3d at 1212 (“A prosecutor has no duty to undertake a fishing expedition in other jurisdictions in an effort to find potentially impeaching evidence every time a criminal defendant makes a Brady request for information regarding a government witness.” (citation omitted)). Indeed, the evidence was discovered by a codefendant, albeit one tried separately. Third, no court, to our knowledge, has held that information known to an independent foreign government may be imputed to prosecutors in the United States simply when the foreign govern-
B. The Count 1 conspiracy conviction
For all of the reasons set forth above, Messrs. Esquenazi‘s and Rodriguez‘s challenges to their substantive FCPA convictions fail. And, because they do not attempt to rebut other elements of Count 1‘s conspiracy charge—the agreement to achieve an unlawful objective (the FCPA violations) itself, knowing and voluntary participation in the agreement, or commission of overt acts in furtherance of the agreement14—their conviction for conspiracy to violate the FCPA stands. For this reason, and because the jury expressly found Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez guilty on the FCPA object of the conspiracy, we need not address their challenges to the alternative wire-fraud object of the same conspiracy.
C. The money-laundering convictions
The jury convicted Mr. Rodriguez of, “knowing that the property involved in a financial transaction represents the proceeds of some form of unlawful activity,” “conduct[ing] ... such a financial transaction which in fact involves the proceeds of specified unlawful activity” while knowing the transaction was designed to conceal the nature, location, source, ownership, or control of those proceeds.
We conclude there was no merger of the money-laundering charges with underlying offenses that generated the proceeds to be laundered, either in the indictment or as a result of the evidence adduced at trial. Mr. Rodriguez bases his contention on the Supreme Court‘s decision in United States v. Santos, 553 U.S. 507, 128 S.Ct. 2020, 170 L.Ed.2d 912 (2008). Because no majority of the Court agreed upon a rationale in Santos, we have recognized that the narrowest concurring opinion, that written by Justice Stevens, controls. United States v. Jennings, 599 F.3d 1241, 1252 (11th Cir.2010); see also Marks v. United States, 430 U.S. 188, 193, 97 S.Ct. 990, 993, 51 L.Ed.2d 260 (1977) (“When a fragmented Court decides a case and no single rationale explaining the result enjoys the assent of five Justices, the holding of the Court may be viewed as that position taken by those Members who concurred in the judgments on the narrowest grounds.... ” (internal quotation marks omitted)). With that in mind, Santos merely states that the gross receipts of an illegal gambling operation were not “proceeds” for purposes of a so-called “promotional” money-laundering offense under
We first observe that there is a distinction between a promotional money-laundering conviction under
Still, Mr. Rodriguez points to a supposed timing problem, which is that the funds pushed through the intermediary corporations, ultimately to Messrs. Duperval and Antoine or their associates, could not be “proceeds” because the underlying FCPA bribery was not complete. But this argument mistakes the basis for the underlying FCPA convictions. When Terra promised Messrs. Antoine and Duperval bribery payments in exchange for reducing the amounts Terra owed Teleco, the FCPA violation was already complete—an “offer” or a “promise to pay” a foreign official for a business benefit is just as unlawful as an actual “payment” under that statute.
Fоr these reasons, we conclude the district court did not err in refusing to dismiss the money-laundering counts of the indictment or in allowing the jury to decide these counts. Both the allegations and evidence supported the jury‘s finding that Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez engaged in criminal acts distinct from, and which therefore did not merge with, the substantive FCPA counts.19
D. Sentencing Challenges
Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez challenge various aspects of their sentences. We discuss each of these in turn.
1. Enhancement for “the value of the benefit received” by Terra
2. Mr. Esquenazi‘s 4-level leadership-role enhancement
Because it found him “an organizer or leader of a criminal activity that involved five or more participants or was otherwise extensive,” the district court enhanced Mr. Esquenazi‘s guideline range by four levels.
As a preliminary matter, the roles of Mr. Esquenazi‘s co-conspirators do not change our analysis even if those individuals also played major roles in the offense conduct. See
the exercise of decision making authority, the nature of participation in the commission of the offense, the recruitment of accomplices, the claimed right to a larger share of the fruits of the crime, the degree of participation in planning or organizing the offense, the nature and scope of the illegal activity, and the degree of control and authority exercised over others.
Id. comment. (n.4). The district court considered many of these factors and concluded that Mr. Esquenazi was “in charge” of the bribery, served as “the boss of Mr. Rodriguez in addition to the others,” and “was in fact the leader of the organization, and not just the president in name” because “he actually participated in many of the decisions” involving the bribery scheme. We cannot say, in light of extensive testimony at trial about Mr. Esquenazi‘s involvement in each step of the scheme, that the court‘s fact-findings are clearly erroneous. Thus, we find no error in the imposition of the enhancement.
3. Mr. Esquenazi‘s obstruction enhancement
The Sentencing Guidelines provide for a 2-level enhancement if the defendant “willfully obstructed or impeded, or attempted to obstruct or impede, the administration of justice” with respect to the investigation or prosecution of the case.
4. Mr. Rodriguez‘s forfeiture order
Mr. Rodriguez contends his forfeiture order and the amended judgment that reflects the forfeiture amount must be vacated because the district court failed to order forfeiture at sentencing.22 He cites the general rule that, where the orally imposed sentence conflicts with the written judgment, the court‘s orally pronounced sentence controls. But Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 32.2 expressly requires only that the court announce the forfeiture amount “or ... otherwise ensure that the defendant knows of the forfeiture at sentencing.”
IV.
After careful consideration, and for all of these reasons, we conclude the convictions and sentences of both Messrs. Esquenazi and Rodriguez are due to be
AFFIRMED.
