United States v. Cornett

195 F.3d 776 (5th Cir. 1999)

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Nature of the Case

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Facts

This was a complicated case involving drug dealing, money laundering, tax evasion, police corruption, and exploitation. Ten co-conspirators were indicted. Cornett (D) and Galloway (D1) were tried together and convicted of performing various roles in the drug conspiracy. D owned and operated businesses in Houston. D1 was one of D’s girlfriends. The government believed that D was running drugs and began a three-year undercover investigation. The government used its vast resources including electronic monitoring and wiretaps to gather evidence. D used his wife and several girlfriends to assist in his drug enterprise. Kim arranged drug transactions and counted receipts. D1 was recruited to oversee, count and store the drug money. Witnesses testified as to circumstantial evidence ambiguously suggesting differing degrees of D1’s involvement. Some suggested that D1 was responsible for the counting of the money. Witnesses saw D1 present at the counting of $400,000. D also made audiotaped statements regarding D1’s connection with $500,000. Another witness testified that D1 had money-counting machines and had counted sums in excess of $21,000 for him. The government also introduced evidence that D1 got expensive presents from D. D1 denied her involvement. D1 denied having any machines but did have bank experience and knew how to operate them. D1 also knew bookkeeping and was familiar with D’s legitimate businesses, and that tended to show that D1 knew D’s legal income and that that income was not sufficient to support their lifestyles. The government argued that one of its tapes directly implicated D1 in the conspiracy. Part of a tape with Kim consisted of Kim’s laments over D’s exclusion of her from some of the drug deals and over D’s relationship with D1. The government contends that the tape implicates D1 because D entrusted D1 to store $500,000 of D’s drug money. D1 objected to the admissibility of the tape, but the tape was admitted under 801(d)(2)(e) under statements of co-conspirators. D was convicted and sentenced to 60 months. This appeal resulted.