United States v. Juan Carlos Torres Santiago, 729 F.2d 38, 1st Cir. (1984)

729 F.
2d 38
UNITED STATES of America, Appellee,

v.
Juan Carlos TORRES SANTIAGO, Defendant, Appellant.
No. 83-1591.
United States Court of Appeals,

First Circuit.
Argued Feb. 8, 1984.
Decided March 8, 1984.
Pedro A. Otero Fernandez, Rio Piedras, P.R., for defendant, appellant.

Jorge E. Vega-Pacheco, Asst. U.S. Atty., Hato Rey, P.R., with whom
Daniel F. Lopez-Romo, U.S. Atty., Hato Rey, P.R., was on brief, for
appellee.
Before CAMPBELL, Chief Judge, WISDOM, * Senior Circuit Judge, and
BREYER, Circuit Judge.
LEVIN H. CAMPBELL, Chief Judge.
Appellant was convicted under a two-count indictment charging him with

knowingly receiving, concealing, and retaining stolen property of the United
States in violation of 18 U.S.C. Sec. 641.1 The property consisted of two United
States Treasury checks, each for $149.30, drawn to Carmen Ramos in payment
of her Social Security benefits. Appellant was sentenced to two three-year
prison terms to be served concurrently. He now challenges both the sufficiency
of the evidence and the severity of the sentence.
I. SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE
Appellant argues that the district court erred in denying his motion for
judgment of acquittal. The motion was first made during the course of his twoday bench trial. It was renewed eight days after the court made its finding of
guilt. The court rejected appellant's motion to renew his motion for judgment of
acquittal both on the merits and for tardiness, citing Rules 29 and 45 of the
Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure.2
3
Because the government's evidence was plainly sufficient to support the

judgment of conviction we need not reach the question whether appellant
waived his sufficiency claim by filing his motion to renew one day outside Rule
29(c)' seven-day filing limit.3
Appellant argues that there was no evidence "that he either took the check[s] ...
or that he knew someone had stolen them...." On this he is clearly mistaken; the
government's case was powerful on both points. There was evidence that on
May 1, 1981 Carmen Ramos received two Social Security checks drawn on the
United States Treasury. On May 4 she endorsed the checks and gave them to
her husband, who testified that he deposited them into their joint account at the
Santa Rosa branch of Banco Popular. The deposit slip, stamped by the teller,
was submitted into evidence. A bank auditor testified that in the ordinary
course of business this deposit would have been sent on the day of deposit to
the bank's proof department where the deposit slip and the deposited items
would be cross-checked before posting to the customer's account. Appellant
was at that time an employee of the proof department. On May 5, 1981,
according to Ferdinand Rolon Martinez (Rolon), another bank employee,
appellant was in possession of these two checks. Rolon testified that on that day
appellant gave him the checks with instructions to cash them at the Barceloneta
branch of Banco Popular. On May 6 he took them to that branch as instructed,
gave them to a teller, Jose Raphael Gandara Nieves (Gandara), and received
cash in return. The cash, Rolon testified, was then split between appellant,
Gandara, and himself. Gandara's testimony substantially corroborated Rolon's.
He added, moreover, that appellant had first approached him in March 1981, to
enlist him in a scheme whereby appellant and others would steal Social
Security checks from bank deposits and give them to other bank employees to
cash. Gandara testified that he had cashed eleven such checks, including the
two deposited into Ramos's account. The court was entitled to believe Rolon
and Gandara and to disbelieve appellant's version.
Appellant argues that even if all of this were believed, it does not show that he
took anything that belonged to the United States or that the United States was
in any way prejudiced. The statute, however, does not require a showing that
the United States was prejudiced. It merely requires the government to show
that a "thing of value of the United States" has been knowingly received,
concealed or retained by the accused with improper intent, and, to support a
felony conviction, that that property have a "value" in excess of $100. 18
U.S.C. Sec. 641. In United States v. Forcellati, 610 F.2d 25, 30-32 (1st
Cir.1979), we held that the United States retained a sufficient property interest
in a United States Treasury check to sustain a conviction on an information
under section 641. While the check there was undelivered, our rationale clearly
indicated that the instrument would be a "thing of value to the United States"
even after delivery--indeed, indefinitely. Accord United States v. O'Kelly, 701
F.2d 758 (8th Cir.1983).
6
It follows that the present checks were things of value of the United States
within section 641. Since Forcellati involved a misdemeanor, no issue was
presented of evaluating the check for purposes of the third paragraph of section
641, which provides that one guilty of the proscribed conduct commits a felony
unless "the value of such property does not exceed the sum of $100." Section
641 goes on to define the term "value" to mean "face, par, or market, or cost
price, either wholesale or retail, whichever is greater." The checks here each
had a face value of $149.30. This was the value which enticed appellant and his
confederates to purloin the checks; this was their functional value for purposes
of the fraudulent scheme. That the United States might not have been liable for
the loss caused by the theft and resulting fraud is immaterial. See Clark v.
United States, 268 F. 329, 331 (6th Cir.1920), cited in Forcellati, 610 F.2d at
31. We are satisfied that for purposes of making the crimes a felony rather than
a misdemeanor, the value of the checks exceeded $100. United States v. Lee,
454 F.2d 190, 192 (9th Cir.1972).
II. SENTENCE DISPARITY
Appellant argues that the district court showed vindictiveness in sentencing him
to three year's imprisonment on each count to be served concurrently, while his
cohorts were either not tried (Rolon and Gandara) or given a suspended
sentence (Sotomayer). He suggests that the court's alleged vindictiveness was
motivated by his decision to take his case to trial, and that it therefore violated
his right to due process of law.
We rejected a similar argument in United States v. Quejada-Zurique, 708 F.2d

857, 861 (1st Cir.1983). We said, "The short answer to this contention is that
the sentences, all of which were within statutory limits, were imposed by two
different judges, each with discretion to choose the sentence he deemed
appropriate." As in Quejada-Zurique, appellant and Sotomayer came before
different judges and appellant's sentence was well within statutory limits. We
also stated in Quejada-Zurique,
9 defendant who opts to go to trial rather than negotiating a plea runs the risk of a
The
harsher sentence than he would have received by pleading guilty. "While
confronting a defendant with the risk of more severe punishment clearly may have a
'discouraging effect on the defendant's assertion of his trial rights, the imposition of
these difficult choices is an inevitable'--and permissible--'attribute of any legitimate
system which tolerates and encourages the negotiation of pleas.' " Bordenkircher v.
Hayes, 434 U.S. 357, 364, 98 S.Ct. 663, 668, 54 L.Ed.2d 604 (1978) (quoting
Chaffin v. Stynchcombe, 412 U.S. 17, 31, 93 S.Ct. 1977, 1985, 36 L.Ed.2d 714
(1973).
10
708 F.2d at 861-62.
11
Affirmed.
Of the Fifth Circuit, sitting by designation
Section 641 provides, in essence, that, "[w]hoever receives, conceals or retains"

any "thing of value of the United States ... with the intent to convert it to his ...
use or gain, knowing it to have been embezzled, stolen, purloined or converted"
shall be guilty of a felony; "but if the value of such property does not exceed the
sum of $100," he shall be guilty of a misdemeanor
Fed.R.Crim.P. 29(c) provides that "a motion for judgment of acquittal may be
made or renewed within 7 days after the jury is discharged...." Fed.R.Crim.P.
45(b) states that "the court may not extend the time for taking any action under
Rules 29, 33, 34 and 35 except to the extent and under the conditions stated in
them."
Avoiding the waiver issue seems even more appropriate because it was not
briefed at all by appellant and the cases which the government wishes us to
follow, purporting to view similar defaults as a bar to appellate review, went on
to consider the sufficiency of the evidence under "plain error" or "manifest
injustice" standards. See United States v. Rone, 598 F.2d 564, 572-73 (9th
Cir.1979) ("The evidence is sufficient; no plain error is present."), cert. denied,
445 U.S. 946, 100 S.Ct. 1345, 63 L.Ed.2d 780 (1980); United States v. Phipps,
543 F.2d 576, 577 (5th Cir.1976) ("The evidence in the instant case supports
the jury verdict and does not result in manifest injustice," assuming arguendo
that such an exception to the waiver doctrine exists), cert. denied, 429 U.S.
1110, 97 S.Ct. 1146, 51 L.Ed.2d 564 (1977)

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729 F.

UNITED STATES of America, Appellee,

United States Court of Appeals,

Pedro A. Otero Fernandez, Rio Piedras, P.R., for defendant, appellant.

Appellant was convicted under a two-count indictment charging him with

Because the government's evidence was plainly sufficient to support the

We rejected a similar argument in United States v. Quejada-Zurique, 708 F.2d

708 F.2d at 861-62.

Of the Fifth Circuit, sitting by designation

Section 641 provides, in essence, that, "[w]hoever receives, conceals or retains"

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