United States v. Ismael Velasquez

MEMORANDUM

A jury found Ismael Alfredo Velasquez guilty of conspiracy to possess one kilogram or more of heroin with intent to distribute, possession of heroin with intent to distribute, conspiracy to import heroin, and importation of heroin. He was sentenced to concurrent terms of 120 months imprisonment and 60 months supervised release. On appeal, Velasquez claims that (1) the government improperly vouched for one of its witnesses, Alpana Prasad, result ing in plain error; (2) the district court abused its discretion by denying his request to present a duress defense and his request for a duress jury instruction; (3) the district court abused its discretion during trial by allowing the government to elicit testimony that Velasquez was on parole; (4) the district court committed plain error by admitting text messages into evidence as co-conspirator statements; (5) the cumulative error doctrine requires reversal; and (6) the evidence presented was insufficient to support the jury’s verdicts.

We have jurisdiction pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 1291 , and we affirm. The facts are familiar to the parties and are restated here only as necessary to resolve the legal issues of the…