United States of America, and v. Hector Quevedo, And

Quevedo sold some marijuana to a government agent. Defendant contended in the trial court and here contends that he was the innocent victim , of a dirty government plot to get him to sell marijuana. He asserts entrapment as a matter of law.

We affirm the judgment of conviction in this judge-tried case in which a jury was waived.

We do not find Quevedo the innocent victim of the government agent and informers that he would have one believe. Maybe Quevedo was not a wholesaler, but he had the “disposition to commit” of a retailer. Testifying in his own behalf at the trial, he recalled one sale to a non-agent. There was testimony of others as to a number of prior sales to others.

The imposition on Quevedo of the government agent and the informers was that they pretended to be his friends. This may not be a nice thing to do when one wants only to get another in jail. But it falls short of entrapment as a matter of law.

It might also be pointed out that the trial court may have come to some affirmative conclusions about “predisposition to commit” from Quevedo’s demean- or on the stand.

We decline to hold that a false pretense of fine friendship as a matter of law is…