United States v. Carlos Serrano

MEMORANDUM

Though the district court erred in overruling defense counsel’s objection when the prosecutor asked Carlos Serrano during cross-examination whether Postal Service Inspector Kugel was “lying,” United States v. Harrison, 585 F.3d 1155, 1158 (9th Cir.2009), the government has satisfied its burden of establishing harmlessness, United States v. Hernandez, 109 F.3d 1450, 1453 (9th Cir.1997) (per curiam), by demonstrating that it is not “more probable than not that the alleged misconduct affected the jury’s verdict,” United States v. Nobari, 574 F.3d 1065, 1082 (9th Cir.2009) (quoting United States v. Simtob, 901 F.2d 799, 806 (9th Cir.1990)) (internal quotation marks omitted). First, the government provided ample evidence that Serrano knew that he was participating in a fraudulent transaction, United States v. Weatherspoon, 410 F.3d 1142, 1151 (9th Cir.2005); see also Nobari, 574 F.3d at 1082 , including Serrano’s sworn statement, emails instructing him to make misrepresentations to the bank, documents in which Serrano certified the veracity of false information, and testimonial evidence that he employed aliases and opened a bank account for the sole purpose of depositing…