United States v. Lorenzo Naranjo

Appellant Lorenzo Naranjo appeals his sentence under 21 U.S.C. § 841 (b)(l)(A)(ii), which imposed a mandatory 10 year term of imprisonment for conspiracy to possess with intent to' distribute five or more kilograms of cocaine. Naranjo pled guilty to violating 21 U.S.C. § 846 (conspiracy to possess with intent to distribute cocaine) and 31 U.S.C. § 5324 (cash transaction structured to evade reporting requirements). We have jurisdiction under 28 U.S.C. § 1291 and Rule 4(b) of the Federal Rules of Appellate Procedure.

We vacate the sentence and remand for further proceedings.

I. BACKGROUND

From January to June 1992, Naranjo was under investigation by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) because Richard Strini, a confidential informant for the DEA, and a friend of Naranjo’s, told the DEA that Naranjo had been trafficking in narcotics for about the past eight to ten years. At the DEA’s urging, Strini contacted Naranjo almost forty times by telephone from January through nearly the end of May in an attempt to get Naranjo to sell cocaine to Strini. Nar-anjo rejected all of Strini’s requests to sell cocaine to him.

After Naranjo rejected Strini’s many overtures to sell cocaine,…