United States v. Manuk Karapetyan

MEMORANDUM

Manuk Karapetyan appeals his jury trial convictions on twenty-two counts of health care fraud, two counts of transactional money laundering, and four counts of concealment money laundering. Karapetyan challenges the district court’s decision to give the jury a Jewell deliberate ignorance instruction on each of the charges. That instruction allowed the jury to convict based on either Karapetyan’s actual knowledge or his awareness of a high probability of criminality and deliberate avoidance of the truth. Karapetyan also challenges his convictions for insufficiency of the evidence. We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and we affirm.

We review the distinct court’s decision to give a Jewell deliberate ignorance instruction for abuse of discretion. United States v. Heredia, 483 F.3d 913, 921 (9th Cir.2007) (en banc). We review the sufficiency of the trial evidence de novo. United States v. Shipsey, 363 F.3d 962 , 971 n. 8 (9th Cir.2004). “There is sufficient evidence to support a conviction if, ‘viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable…