Case 3:20-cr-00248-SCC Document 513 Filed 12/11/23 Page 1 of 6
IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff, v. [1] MARIA MILAGROS CHARBONIERLAUREANO, and
Case No. 20-CR-248 (SCC)
[3] ORLANDO MONTES-RIVERA, Defendants. UNITED STATES’ NOTICE OF INTENT TO OFFER SUMMARY EXHIBITS The United States of America, by and through its attorneys, hereby provides notice to the Court and the parties of its intent to rely on Federal Rule of Evidence 1006 to introduce summary exhibits during trial. The government’s proposed summary exhibits are attached to this notice. See Attach. A. Proposed Exhibit 1200 depicts Acevedo’s biweekly salary over time. See id. at 1. Proposed Exhibits 1201 through 1205 summarize Acevedo’s deposit and ATM activities, showing that she routinely deposited a portion of her paycheck into a bank account but retained most of each paycheck in cash. See id. at 2–6. And Proposed Exhibits 1206 through 1210 outline a series of transactions on the cash-transfer app ATH Movil in which Acevedo sent money to Orlando Montes-Rivera and Orlando Montes Charbonier. See id. at 7–11. The proposed summary exhibits will streamline the government’s presentation of evidence and simplify the evidence for the jury’s benefit. Rule 1006 allows a party to “use a summary, chart, or calculation to prove the content of voluminous writings, recordings, or photographs that cannot be conveniently examined in court.”
Case 3:20-cr-00248-SCC Document 513 Filed 12/11/23 Page 2 of 6
Summary exhibits are meant “‘to clarify complex testimony and evidence’ for a jury.” United States v. Appolon, 695 F.3d 44, 61 (1st Cir. 2012) (citation omitted). Without them, jurors may have “difficulty . . . culling meaning from a large volume of material.” 31 Charles A. Wright & Victor J. Gold, Federal Practice and Procedure § 8042 (2d ed. 2023). Moreover, summary exhibits save the Court’s and the jurors’ time because, after all, “a large quantity of evidence takes a large amount of time to present in court.” Id. As one court in this district put it, Rule 1006 permits summary exhibits to “avoid needless confusion and busywork.” Colon-Fontanez v. Mun. of San Juan, 671 F. Supp. 2d 300, 312 n.15 (D.P.R. 2009), aff’d, 660 F.3d 17 (1st Cir. 2011). To warrant admission under Rule 1006, a summary exhibit must accurately summarize “voluminous” and otherwise admissible records for convenient examination in court. See Appolon, 695 F.3d at 61; United States v. Milkiewicz, 470 F.3d 390, 396–98 & n.15 (1st Cir. 2006). In determining whether “source materials are sufficiently indigestible to permit summarization under Rule 1006,” courts look to “the volume and complexity of the materials.” Appolon, 695 F.3d at 61. “The ultimate question . . . is whether summarization will remove logistic or cognitive barriers to the jury’s discharge of its duties.” Id. And resolution of that question is generally a matter of the district court’s discretion. See Fraser v. Major League Soccer, LLC, 284 F.3d 47, 67 (1st Cir. 2002) (“It is hard to imagine an issue on which a trial judge enjoys more discretion than as to whether summary exhibits will be helpful.”). Furthermore, Rule 1006 helps ensure a summary exhibit’s accuracy by requiring its proponent to produce “the originals or duplicates” underlying it to the other parties. Fed. R. Evid. 1006. “This [requirement] gives the parties a chance to detect inaccurate summaries and also may serve as a deterrent to fraud.” Wright & Gold, supra, § 8042. The Rule also permits—but does not require—a court to order the underlying
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documents’ production in court. Fed. R. Evid. 1006. “A Rule 1006 summary may be offered into evidence and made available to the jury.” Appolon, 695 F.3d at 61. The government’s proposed summary exhibits satisfy Rule 1006’s requirements. All the information in the proposed summary exhibits come from otherwise admissible records obtained from multiple financial institutions. These financial records are voluminous and complex. Some of the records are—by themselves—hundreds of pages long or consist of hundreds of lines in an Excel spreadsheet. And the relevant transaction in a record is often just one line item among dozens or hundreds. Parsing through each record to highlight individual line items, then tying those line items to other line items in other records would be a confusing and time-consuming exercise. By contrast, the proposed summary exhibits make the import of the underlying records readily apparent by consolidating relevant information from multiple financial records while omitting extraneous details. The First Circuit has repeatedly upheld the admission of summary exhibits based on financial records like the ones the government offers here. In United States v. Appolon, for instance, the court affirmed the admission of “four charts summarizing . . . reams of financial data,” 695 F.3d at 60, because they “obviated the need for the government to introduce, and the jury to sift through, mortgage and sale records for each of the twenty-one properties involved in [the] scheme, and also facilitated tracing the scheme’s proceeds”, id. at 61. Similarly, the court in United States v. Sawyer upheld a district court’s admission of five summary charts, including “a forty-nine page computer printout summarizing 612 expenditures . . . that were recorded in [the defendant’s] appointment calendars, expense records and other admitted documents.” 85 F.3d 713, 740 (1st Cir. 1996). On yet another occasion, the court in United States v. Nivica affirmed the admission of schedules that an FBI agent prepared to summarize, among other things, “debits
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and credits in [a bank’s] accounts.” 887 F.2d 1110, 1125 (1st Cir. 1989). The government’s proposed summary exhibits here are no different from the ones the First Circuit has approved in the past. They too summarize financial transactions, the details of which would otherwise be scattered across numerous, lengthy financial records. Admitting them would likewise expedite and simplify the presentation of evidence. In addition, the government already produced all the underlying records to the defendants during discovery. Agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation will testify that the proposed summary exhibits accurately reflect those records. And now that the government has given the defendants copies of the proposed summary exhibits—even though Rule 1006 does not require it to do so, id. at 30—the defendants have time before trial to verify the proposed exhibits’ accuracy. Cf. Milkiewicz, 470 F.3d at 396 (“[W]e can imagine instances in which an attorney does not realize until well into a trial that a summary chart would be beneficial, and admissible as evidence under Rule 1006, because the documents already admitted were too voluminous to be conveniently examined by the jury.”). Moreover, the government will introduce many of the underlying financial records as evidence at trial, so the jury can also look to the source documents to confirm the summary exhibits’ representations. See id. at 396 (“[T]he evidence underlying Rule 1006 summaries need not be introduced into evidence, but nothing in the rule forecloses a party from doing so.” (citations omitted)). If a defendant believes the summaries are accurate but somehow misleading, he or she can attack them on cross-examination or offer its own evidence in opposition. See Sawyer, 85 F.3d at 740; Nivica, 887 F.2d at 1126.
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CONCLUSION For the reasons stated above, the government plans to introduce the attached summary exhibits at trial.
Dated: December 11, 2023 Respectfully Submitted, W. STEPHEN MULDROW United States Attorney
COREY R. AMUNDSON Chief, Public Integrity Section U.S. Department of Justice
/s/ María L. Montañez-Concepción María L. Montañez-Concepción Assistant United States Attorney U.S.D.C. No. 228301 350 Chardon Avenue Torre Chardon, Suite 1201 Hato Rey, Puerto Rico 00918 Tel: 787-766-5656 Email: maria.l.montanez@usdoj.gov
/s/ Jonathan E. Jacobson Jonathan E. Jacobson Trial Attorney, Public Integrity Section U.S.D.C. No. G02706 1301 New York Ave. NW, 10th Fl. Washington, DC 20005 Tel: 202-514-1412 Email: jonathan.jacobson@usdoj.gov s/ Kathryn E. Fifield Kathryn E. Fifield Trial Attorney, Public Integrity Section U.S.D.C. No. G03911 1301 New York Ave. NW, 10th Fl. Washington, DC 20005 Tel: 202-514-1412 Email: Kathryn.fifield@usdoj.gov
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CERTIFICATE OF SERVICE I HEREBY CERTIFY that on the 11 th day of December 2023, I electronically filed the foregoing with the Clerk of the Court using the CM/ECF system, which will send notification of such filing to all parties in this case. s/ Jonathan E. Jacobson Jonathan E. Jacobson Trial Attorney
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Case 3:20-cr-00248-SCC Document 513-1 Filed 12/11/23 Page 1 of 11
Frances Acevedo
Average Bi-Weekly Salary $2,564
$755
$810
$848
2013
2014
2015
$2,768
$2,838
$2,873
2019
2020 (JANJULY)
$926
2016
2017
2018
GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT
1200
Case 3:20-cr-00248-SCC Document 513-1 Filed 12/11/23 Page 2 of 11
Frances Acevedo
2017 Deposit Activity PAYCHECK DATE
PAYCHECK AMOUNT
SCOTIABANK DEPOSIT AMOUNT
CASH IN HAND
Feb. 10
$ 2,118.97
$ 900.00
$1,218.97
Feb. 24
$ 2,118.97
$ 900.00
$1,218.97
Mar. 13
$ 2,654.53
$ 830.00
$1,824.53
Mar. 28
$ 2,267.35
$ 612.00
$1,655.35
Apr. 7
$ 2,267.35
$ 360.00
$1,907.35
Apr. 26
$ 2,267.35
$ 700.00
$1,567.35
May 12
$ 2,267.35
$ -
May 26
$ 3,266.12
$ 800.00
$2,267.35 $2,466.12
June 13
$ 2,712.47
$ 700.00
June 27
$ 2,712.47
$ 1,000.00
July 10
$ 2,712.47
$ 720.00
July 21
$ 2,712.47
$ 1,140.00
$1,992.47 $1,572.47
Aug. 9
$ 2,712.47
$ 1,000.00
$1,712.47
$2,012.47 $1,712.47
GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT
1201
Case 3:20-cr-00248-SCC Document 513-1 Filed 12/11/23 Page 3 of 11
Frances Acevedo
2017 ATM Activity PAYCHECK DATE
CASH IN HAND
ATM WITHDRAWALS
Feb. 10
$1,218.97
$80 (2/13/2017)
Feb. 24
$1,218.97
$120 (2/27/2017)
Mar. 13
$1,824.53
$450 (3/16/2017)
Mar. 28
$1,655.35
Apr. 7
$1,907.35
$43.75 (4/10/2017)
Apr. 26
$1,567.35
$61.75 (5/2/2017)
May 12
$2,267.35
May 26
$2,466.12
June 13
$2,012.47
June 27
$1,712.47
$20 (6/30/2017)
July 10
$1,992.47
$42.25 (7/10/2017)
July 21
$1,572.47
$80 (7/28/2017)
$60 (6/2/2017)
GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT
1202
Case 3:20-cr-00248-SCC Document 513-1 Filed 12/11/23 Page 4 of 11
Frances Acevedo
2018 Deposit Activity
PAYCHECK DATE
PAYCHECK AMOUNT
FIRSTBANK DEPOSIT AMOUNT
CASH IN HAND
Mar. 26
$2,712
$1,212
$1,500
Apr. 10
$2,669
$1,169
$1,500
Apr. 25
$2,669
$1,169
$1,500
May 11
$2,669
$1,169
$1,500
May 25
$2,669
$1,069
$1,600
Jun. 13
$2,669
$1,169
$1,500
Jun. 28
$2,999
$1,499
$1,500
GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT
1203
Frances Acevedo
Case 3:20-cr-00248-SCC Document 513-1 Filed 12/11/23 Page 5 of 11
2018 Deposit Activity PAYCHECK DATE
PAYCHECK AMOUNT
Jul. 27
$2,817
FIRSTBANK DEPOSIT AMOUNT $1,317
Aug. 10
$2,817
$1,317
$1,500
Aug. 27
$2,817
$2,817
--
Sept. 11
$2,817
$2,817
--
Sept. 27
$2,817
$1,317
$1,500
Oct. 12
$2,817
$1,317
$1,500
Oct. 26
$2,817
$1,317
$1,500
Nov. 9
$2,817
$1,317
$1,500
Nov. 28
$2,817
$1,317
$1,500
Dec. 17
$2,817
$100
$2,717
Dec. 28
$2,817
$1,317
$1,500
CASH IN HAND $1,500
GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT
1204
Case 3:20-cr-00248-SCC Document 513-1 Filed 12/11/23 Page 6 of 11
Frances Acevedo
2019 Deposit Activity PAYROLL CHECK DATE
PAYROLL CHECK AMOUNT
BANK DEPOSIT AMOUNT
CASH IN HAND
Jan. 11 Jan. 25 Feb. 12 Feb. 27 Mar. 14 Mar. 29 April 12 Apr. 26 May 10 May 24 Jun. 10
$2,817 $2,817 $2,817 $2,817 $2,817 $2,817 $2,817 $2,817 $2,817 $2,817 $2,817
$1,317 $1,317 $1,317 $1,117 $1,317 $1,317 $1,317 $1,317 $1,317 $1,317 $1,317
$1,500 $1,500 $1,500 $1,700 $1,500 $1,500 $1,500 $1,500 $1,500 $1,500 $1,500
GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT
1205
Case 3:20-cr-00248-SCC Document 513-1 Filed 12/11/23 Page 7 of 11
ATH Movil Sender Frances Acevedo Frances Acevedo Frances Acevedo Frances Acevedo
Payment Recipient Orlando Montes-Rivera Orlando Montes-Rivera Orlando Montes-Rivera Orlando Montes-Rivera
Time 07/29/2019 11:53:33 07/31/2019 10:09:29 08/01/2019 14:56:40 08/12/2019 16:48:05
Amount $500 $500 $300 $500
GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT
1206
Case 3:20-cr-00248-SCC Document 513-1 Filed 12/11/23 Page 8 of 11
ATH Movil Sender
Payment Recipient
Time
Amount
Completed Message
Frances Acevedo
Orlando Montes-Rivera
10/27/2019 09:24:05
$500
No
De Tata (Tata’s)
Frances Acevedo
Orlando Montes-Rivera
10/27/2019 09:24:28
$500
No
De Tata (Tata’s)
Frances Acevedo
Orlando Montes-Rivera
10/27/2019 09:24:39
$500
No
De Tata (Tata’s)
Frances Acevedo
Orlando Montes-Rivera
10/27/2019 09:25:32
$500
No
De Tata (Tata’s)
Frances Acevedo
Orlando Montes-Rivera
10/27/2019 09:25:40
$500
No
De Tata (Tata’s)
Frances Acevedo
Orlando Montes-Rivera
10/27/2019 09:48:47
$500
No
De Tata (Tata’s)
Frances Acevedo
Orlando Montes-Rivera
10/27/2019 13:34:31
$500
No
Orlando Montes-Rivera
Frances Acevedo
10/27/2019 13:38:50
$1
Yes
De Tata (Tata’s) Esto es una prueba (This is a test)
Frances Acevedo
Orlando Montes-Rivera
10/27/2019 13:39:14
$500
No
De Tata (Tata’s)
Frances Acevedo
Orlando Montes-Rivera
10/27/2019 13:39:24
$500
No
De Tata (Tata’s)
Frances Acevedo
Orlando Montes-Rivera
10/27/2019 15:12:52
$500
No
De Tata (Tata’s)
Frances Acevedo
Orlando Montes-Rivera
10/27/2019 17:13:53
$500
No
De Tata (Tata’s)
GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT
1207
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ATH Movil Sender Frances Acevedo
Payment Recipient Orlando Montes-Charbonier
Time 11/10/2019 11:33:01 AM
Amount $500
Completed Yes
ATH Movil Sender Orlando Montes-Charbonier Orlando Montes-Charbonier
Payment Recipient Orlando Montes-Rivera Orlando Montes-Rivera
Time 11/11/2019 13:28:50 PM 11/14/2019 09:04:23 AM
Amount $500 $500
Completed No Yes
GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT
1208
Case 3:20-cr-00248-SCC Document 513-1 Filed 12/11/23 Page 10 of 11
ATH Movil Sender Frances Acevedo Frances Acevedo Frances Acevedo
Payment Recipient Orlando Montes-Rivera Orlando Montes-Rivera Orlando Montes-Rivera
Time 12/23/2019 11:22:16 12/24/2019 13:06:17 12/25/2019 20:22:46
Amount $500 $500 $500
Message Para Tata (For Tata) De Tata (Tata’s) De Tata (Tata’s)
GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT
1209
Case 3:20-cr-00248-SCC Document 513-1 Filed 12/11/23 Page 11 of 11
ATH Movil Sender Frances Acevedo
Payment Recipient Orlando Montes-Charbonier
Time 1/11/2020 12:06:22
Amount $500
GOVERNMENT EXHIBIT
1210