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United States of America v. Jose Del Carmen Cardales-Luna

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Before Torruella, Selya, and Lipez, Circuit Judges.

Our opinion in United States v. Angulo-Hernandez, 565 F.3d 2 (1st Cir. 2009), describes the facts underlying this Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act (MDLEA) appeal. Appellant Jose del Carmen Cardales-Luna was one of eight crew members serving on the Bolivian flag vessel Osiris II when it was boarded by the United States Coast Guard in international waters on February 4, 2007. In the course of a six-day search of the Osiris II, Coast Guard officers discovered 400 kilograms of cocaine, twenty-five kilograms of heroin, and a machine gun hidden in a compartment near the rear of the vessel. Cardales-Luna and his seven fellow crew members were subsequently charged in a three-count superseding indictment with (1) conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute the drugs found on the Osiris II, see 46 U.S.C. § 70506(b); (2) aiding and abetting the possession of those drugs with intent to distribute, see 46 U.S.C. § 70503(a)(1), 18 U.S.C. §_2(a); and (3) aiding and abetting the possession of a machine gun in furtherance of a drug trafficking crime, see 18 U.S.C. §§ 2(a),_924(c)(1)(B)(ii).

The other seven crew members were tried jointly. The jury found four of them guilty on all counts and three not guilty on all counts. We affirmed the four convictions in Angulo-Hernandez, a set of appeals that focused on whether the government had presented sufficient evidence to prove that the defendants knew the drugs were hidden on the vessel. See 565 F.3d at 7-9. For reasons that are not clear from the record, Cardales-Luna was tried separately from his co-defendants. After a one-day trial, the second jury found Cardales-Luna guilty on all three counts. At sentencing, the court dismissed the gun charge, as it had at the sentencing of the defendants found guilty in the Angulo-Hernandez trial. This appeal followed.

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