United States First Circuit

Conviction and sentence of the former Speaker of the Puerto Rico House of Representatives for extortion, money laundering, and witness tampering are affirmed over defendant's arguments that: 1) the trial court should have granted his pretrial motions for a change of venue, a continuance, expanded voir dire and additional peremptory challenges; 2) the failure to disclose a conviction earlier was prosecutorial misconduct that denied him the chance to fully impeach the government's main witness; 3) the district court should have struck certain testimony on the grounds that the witness lacked personal knowledge; 4) the evidence was insufficient to support the convictions; 5) the court erred in calculating the Sentencing Guidelines range; 6) the court erred by sentencing him under a mandatory guidelines scheme; and 7) the government's request for forfeiture was invalid.

Appellate Information

• Decided 03/02/2007
• Published 03/02/2007

Judges

• STAHL, Senior Circuit Judge., Before HOWARD, Circuit Judge, STAHL and BALDOCK, Senior Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States First Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Laura Maldonado Rodriguez for appellant.


• For Appellees:
  
• Thomas M. Gannon, Attorney, Appellate Section, Civil Division, U.S. Department of Justice, with whom Rosa E. Rodriguez-Velez, United States Attorney, and Nelson Perez-Sosa, Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief, for appellee.