Valdez-Santos

Appellant Cesar Valdez-Santos was convicted in the Eastern District of California of [1] conspiracy to possess and distribute a listed chemical with knowledge or reasonable cause to believe it would be used to manufacture methamphetamine, 21 U.S.C. §§ 846 and 841(c)(2), and [2] possession and distribution of a listed chemical with knowledge and reasonable cause to believe that it would be used to manufacture methamphetamine, 21 U.S.C. § 841 (c)(2). After conviction, the district court granted Valdez-Santos’s motion for acquittal on the conspiracy conviction. It also granted his motion for a change of venue and new trial on the possession charge, and transferred the case to the Central District of California. The government appeals the grant of the motion to change venue. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we reverse.

I.

Valdez-Santos’s arrest arose out of a DEA investigation of a methamphetamine trafficking organization which culminated in the bust of a large methamphetamine lab in Rio Linda, California. The organization was headed by Jesus Arreguin. In February of 2002, Arreguin sent his brother-in-law, Jose Magana, to Los Angeles to sell some methamphetamine and…