United States v. John Ibarra

MEMORANDUM

John Geoffrey Ibarra appeals his convictions of twenty-one counts of knowingly making false statements on a form required to be kept by federally-licensed firearms dealers in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 924 (a)(1)(A), and his conviction of one count of engaging in the business of dealing in firearms without a license in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 922 (a)(1)(A). For the following reasons, we affirm.

First, the district court did not abuse its discretion when it denied Ibarra’s pretrial motion to disclose the identity of the ATF confidential informant whose tip started the investigation of Ibarra or for in camera review of the informant file. Ibarra provided only speculation and suspicion that the informant might have engaged in entrapment, and thus did not meet his burden to show that disclosure of the informant’s identity would be “relevant” or “helpful” to any defense. U.S. v. Spires, 3 F.3d 1234, 1238 (9th Cir.1993); U.S. v. Amador-Galvan, 9 F.3d 1414, 1417 (9th Cir.1993).

Second, the district court did not err when it determined that the government did not violate Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83 , 83 S.Ct. 1194 , 10 L.Ed.2d 215 (1963), by not revealing to the defense…