[00:00:04] Speaker 03:
6057 Council you may proceed Good morning your honors and may it please the court my name is Alyssa Donovan Farrell and represent the appellant Mr.. Laura Thank you this case is about how we assess an apportion blame among co-conspirators at sentencing and

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It considers the evidence that's required to properly assess the relative culpability of a defendant seeking a mitigating role adjustment and whether the guideline for imported methamphetamine applies where the defendant had no knowledge that the meth had been imported.

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In 2015, Congress made an important amendment to the mitigating role guideline because courts were inconsistently applying and more sparingly applying that guideline than the commission had intended.

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The crux of that guideline is the defendant's relative culpability.

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We get that from the Yurt case, which both the government and the defendant cited in their briefs.

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It's a case from 2019.

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Comparative analysis must be conducted after that 2015 amendment.

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And so I would caution the court to look very carefully at any cases that are cited before the 2015 amendment.

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To whom do we make this comparison of relative culpability?

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That is the crucial point in the amendment.

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The comparison is to be made internally and not externally.

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And that became an issue in this case when the government reached beyond the conspiracy at hand, the conspiracy to which this defendant had agreed and talked about the Irish mob.

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The government actually talked about the Irish mob and then the court in making its determination of whether the guideline applied.

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did not in any way caveat or qualify its finding.

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So in terms of the Irish mob argument, that's an argument that came up really briefly that the government seemed to say in colloquy with the district court, oh you know we had a case and this came up and you may remember by analogy.

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It didn't seem like an affirmative argument in the way that the defense is describing it, nor do I see anything in the record that suggests the district court seized on that and incorporated it into its own analysis or reasoning.

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It covers about a page of the transcript, and the government attorney says that in the context of the Irish mob case, he then talks about capos, he talks about hierarchy.

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And then he does talk, it's to pretty good length,

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about what happened in this case.

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And we have several levels that are all, every single one of these levels, above Mr. Lara.

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And so he talks about the Hernandez DTO, which occurred over at least a four-year period.

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We've got Mr. Lara for 2436 months.

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He talks about all of these distributors being in the Oklahoma area.

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This is one of many distributors that he's considering, the Hernandez DTO.

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He talked about Mariana Cruz being a distributor in bulk quantities, significant bulk quantities.

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And again, we have Mr. Lara having no interaction with Mr. Cruz until this 24, 36-hour period.

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These comparisons, these factors that the court must consider per the 2015 amendment were fully briefed by the defendant in four to five pages over his sentencing memorandum and the motion.

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omits many of these significant factors and does pretty much focus on the IMG and the hierarchy that the defendant had already briefed, showing that there is absolutely no one lower than Mr. Lara in this analysis.

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And I would compare this to another case this court has had, the Delgado Lopez case.

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In that case, because the district court used the wrong legal standard, it ended up getting remanded.

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But I think that the dissent in that case, which was authored by Judge Ide, provides us some exceptional information that shows the conclusory comments made by both the government and adopted by the court saying that the drug quantity is indicative of trust.

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That's not true in this case.

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It has been true in many

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other cases.

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And those cases were cited in the dissent of the Delgado Lopez case.

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But in every one of those cases, that person was in charge, at least of the trafficking, of the courting.

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He was choosing the route.

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He was choosing the vehicle.

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He had direct communication with other individuals.

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There were multiple trips.

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There was cross-country transportation.

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And none of that happened.

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in this case.

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So we cannot infer trust simply from a mount without any of those other connectors.

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And there's no case in which that has happened before this court.

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I would note a few other things that Judge Eyde did notice.

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Conclusory determinations, especially when they're based on speculation, are not sufficient as evidence

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of what supports that finding of trust.

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The majority said pretty clearly that we can't make a conclusion either in the defendant's favor or the government's favor.

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And Judge Eyde said that he was responsible to this degree, and that indicated trust.

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Well, responsibility is one of the factors that we briefed.

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It's one of the factors in the 2015 amendments

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and responsibility is not shown anywhere in this case.

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As a matter of fact, you could take Mr. Lara out of this transaction and it still would have happened.

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That alone shows how unimportant he was to the overall scheme of what was going on.

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The court merely said that he was involved enough

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that I believe that he had enough of a role.

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This is not a comparative analysis.

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Counsel, so I'm having trouble disaggregating what I thought were two arguments that you were making in your brief.

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One was on clear error, which had to do with the consideration of the factors under the guideline.

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And the other, I thought you were on plain error on an argument that the court used an incorrect legal standard.

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in not assessing the, quote unquote, mathematical middle.

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Are you making both of those arguments, or are you focusing only on what I understood as your first argument on clear air?

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Well, certainly we believe that the wrong law was applied.

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When we reached outside of that conspiracy, we know that we're not supposed to go outside the conspiracy we were supposed to look in.

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And so that would be de novo review, actually.

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If the wrong law is applied, we must remand.

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And that's de novo review.

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Could I just ask you on that?

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point, take it that the argument that it was error is that improper comparisons were made, correct?

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Improper comparison to go outside of the conspiracy, and no comparison other than that.

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OK.

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And your argument is that that's what the district court did at the Senate.

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It is.

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And I realize that the government kind of attacked us on that, saying, well, the court, and I understand the judge's argument there,

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Did the court really consider the IMG?

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Well, because he didn't caveat what he said.

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That wasn't really where I was going.

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I apologize.

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My question is, at sentencing, did the defense make an objection then to the court making those comparisons?

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To the IMG?

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This was fully briefed that the comparison should be made internally as opposed to externally.

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Was there any objection?

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There was.

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To the comparisons that were made by the district court at sentencing?

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There was no opportunity for that objection to be made until the court said, do you understand our findings as to the sentencing guidelines?

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And at that time,

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The defense counsel stood up and said, we preserve our objections previously made.

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And the court said, they are so preserved.

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But was there any objection to the rationale and the comparisons that the district court made at the Senate?

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Specifically to the IMG, no, Your Honor.

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There was not.

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And is that why we're on plain error?

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I don't believe we are on plain error.

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I believe that we are on a de novo review of the law that was applied.

[00:08:33] Speaker 01:
Well, I take it we aren't on plain error because you haven't argued plain error, right?

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That's correct.

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OK.

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If there was waiver, then there's waiver, because you haven't argued plain error.

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I would point the court to the case of there are a couple of cases here.

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First of all, the Murphy case, which this court heard recently in 2024, the defendant does not waive appellate review of discrete theories that built upon a broad argument that was made.

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It's all about notice.

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And that Murphy case was decided just about a week and a half ago by this court.

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That dealt with Rule 29.

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But the same thing applies here.

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We made an argument, very thorough argument, about how you define the scope of the conspiracy and that you are not permitted to go outside of that scope.

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I'm sorry, I'm still not sure I have an answer to my question.

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I thought you had two arguments and one was on clear error about the application.

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through the consideration of the factors that the guideline directs.

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And the other was the legal standard that concerns how the district court is to conduct a comparability analysis by assigning a mathematical middle.

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Are you not making that latter argument anymore?

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The latter argument is that whether it has to be mathematical or qualitative

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that there must be a relative comparison made.

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I thought your whole argument turned on that there had to be a mathematical middle, that this was the district court's failing in deriving that data point.

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Perhaps I inartfully said that in the briefing.

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There must be an articulation of who the participants are so that we can understand whether Mr. Lara is substantially

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less culpable than the average participant.

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And what did the defense do to put the district court in the position to make the determination that you are now asking us to review?

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We outlined all of the factors.

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And so the factors in the 2015 amendment tell us how we get to a determination of whether he was or was not substantially less culpable, because it helps us define where he falls within the whole scope of that conspiracy.

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So step one, we have to get the conspiracy right.

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Because if we don't, then we are going to skew the analysis of who is average in that conspiracy.

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Who are the participants tells us whether our individual is average.

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And as far as the actual facts itself, we laid out everything from the fact that he was a mere participant or a mere passenger, along with Mr. Juarez-Saracho.

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That individual is almost completely ignored by the government.

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That individual is the one who is determining the route they take, the car they use, where they go, communicating with all of these individuals.

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Mr. Lara has absolutely none of that.

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And there is not a single participant in this conspiracy.

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as discussed either by the government, the court, or the defense, who put Mr. Lara below.

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There's nobody below him.

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He is the lowest person.

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I'll acknowledge there are some times when there is nobody who gets a mitigating role, but that's not the case here because in all of those cases,

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The culpability is to equal partners in the criminal activity.

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There's nobody equal to Mr. Lara, and there's nobody lower than Mr. Lara.

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And absent any of that information, when the court does look at clear error as to the facts, there's simply nothing to support the finding that it's not.

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I think that if we were to move to the question of whether the importation of methamphetamine requires knowledge, I would point the court very specifically to

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where the Fifth Circuit failed here.

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Council, before you do that, why do we need to reach that issue if the district court made an alternative finding here?

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Did the district court make an alternative finding upon which we can resolve this issue?

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And that's a great question because I think we have to look at the words that the district court used.

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The district court said fair probability that he knew or should have known.

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It's government's burden to prove preponderance of the evidence.

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Fair probability, as defined by statistics, is nothing more than 50-50.

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And as we stated, at best, we could guess that he might be in fault.

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Well, that might be a valid objection, but did you make it?

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Did the defense make that objection when the court articulated that alternative ground?

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The question is, did we object to when the court said fair probability?

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We didn't.

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But we didn't have to, because the court in that case

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said, we're following the Fifth Circuit, and we believe knowledge is required.

[00:13:11] Speaker 01:
Well, wait a minute.

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Did you object or not?

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We did not object to the court.

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And did you object in your brief on appeal?

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We didn't bring up the question of fair probability.

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Honestly, I didn't notice it.

[00:13:22] Speaker 01:
No, the alternative ground.

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The court said this is an alternative ground.

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You didn't object in district court.

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The defense didn't object in district court.

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You're not raising it on appeal.

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Haven't you waived any objection to that?

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So I don't believe we have because we brought it up in the reply.

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We did not brief it in the opening brief.

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That is correct.

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It was brought up by the government, and in the reply we did cover whether or not the court adequately could support any of those findings.

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And is that because in the defense's view the district court didn't really make an alternative finding?

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Yes, Your Honor, it is.

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And so we didn't see it as an issue, honestly, until we saw it as responded to by the government.

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I would, with the court's permission, reserve the remainder for any rebuttal.

[00:14:08] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:14:15] Speaker 02:
Morning, Your Honors, and may it please the Court.

[00:14:17] Speaker 02:
My name is Stephen Hoke, arguing on behalf of the United States.

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This Court should find that the District Court committed no error when sentencing the appellant, Daniel Morales-Laura, in this matter.

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I want to first discuss the line of questions regarding waiver as to Mr. Lara's challenges to the district court's legal application of Section 3B1.2.

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Mr. Lara, when the pre-senates investigation report was issued in this matter, objected to the content of the PSR.

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He objected to the recommended denial of the absence of a mitigating rule adjustment.

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He expounded on that reasoning in a sentencing memorandum that he filed with the court.

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But now he's objecting to the district court's explanation for its sentence rather than the content of the PSR and simply

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Preserving that objection at the sentencing hearing did not alert the court to an error to its explanation, to its legal explanation at the sentencing hearing.

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And I think two cases are instructive in this regard.

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One is United States v. Urick.

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That's a 10th Circuit case from 2019 in which this court noted that objecting to the PSR would not have alerted the district court to an error

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in its explanation, so that the review was confined to plain error.

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But it was only confined to plain error because the defendant did, in fact, argue for plain error in its reply brief.

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Here, there was no such argument ever made in the opening brief or in the reply brief.

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But aren't there two errors?

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We're talking about the 3B1.2 issue.

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There's two errors that are alleged.

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One, the government does not contest as preservation on, right?

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As to the clear error?

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Yes.

[00:16:01] Speaker 02:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:16:02] Speaker 00:
OK, so your argument is as to what is the legal argument precisely that you say is the defense is on plain error for here?

[00:16:10] Speaker 02:
Your Honor, the United States interprets Mr. Lara's argument to be that essentially the district court erred in two ways.

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One, by incorrectly defining the scope of the participants against whom he was compared, which was discussed with respect to the Irish mob.

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And then two, by failing to identify an average or mathematical participant on the record and articulate those five factors and how those five factors

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applied to him.

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So that's the United States' understanding of Mr. Lara's argument.

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So for each of those issues, the United States' position is that Mr. Lara's argument in that regard has been waived.

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And I would direct the court also to another case that's instructive here.

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That's United States v. Combe, a 10th Circuit case from 2021.

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Again, this court was addressing Section 3B1.2,

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and observed and dictated that there's an argument to be made that the issue was forfeited when the appellant did not argue, did not preserve the error by simply objecting to the PSR.

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But again, this was dictated because the government never raised the issue.

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So the error is preserved as the argument that's not before us.

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The argument is waived is what you're saying, right?

[00:17:23] Speaker 02:
Correct, Your Honor.

[00:17:25] Speaker 02:
And with that, I'll shift to the clear error argument that Mr. Lara addressed.

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And that's that here, a mitigating role adjustment is based on the totality of the circumstances.

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And it's one of the few guidelines

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in which the defendant bears the burden of showing that they are entitled to a mitigating rule adjustment.

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I think it's crucial to point out that Mr. Lara presented no evidence in support of his claim.

[00:18:02] Speaker 02:
generally alleged that the average participant was involved for much longer periods of time and involved with very large quantities of methamphetamine.

[00:18:13] Speaker 02:
But I would submit that 200 plus pounds of methamphetamine is a very large quantity of methamphetamine.

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And the district court rejected this position on the record at sentencing.

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The district court noted that despite the short period of time in which Mr. Lahr was involved,

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His conduct was quite significant.

[00:18:34] Speaker 02:
The district court used the phrase, Mr. Lara jumped straight into the deep end.

[00:18:39] Speaker 02:
At the end of the day, he was transporting, as I mentioned, over 200 pounds of methamphetamine and over a quarter of a million dollars on behalf of an international drug trafficking organization.

[00:18:50] Speaker 00:
Didn't the government sort of misdirect the court's inquiry by focusing on the IMG?

[00:18:58] Speaker 02:
No, Your Honor.

[00:18:59] Speaker 02:
The government's position

[00:19:01] Speaker 02:
The government's reference to the IMG was in the context specifically, and the government noted this at sentencing, it was confined to the context of the importation enhancement, not with respect to the mitigating role adjustment.

[00:19:15] Speaker 02:
And the government was essentially arguing that given the quantity of methamphetamine that we're dealing with here, it flies in the face of reason to suggest that

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that Mr. Lara would not know the chain of command, it would not know that these drugs are imported from Mexico.

[00:19:33] Speaker 02:
And also, I would also point out that, as we noted in our brief, even if the district court did compare, and there's no indication that it did, but did compare Mr. Lara to some of these Irish mob members,

[00:19:45] Speaker 02:
That comparison is arguably appropriate because they are effectively uncharged co-conspirators.

[00:19:51] Speaker 02:
In fact, the United States's investigation into the Irish mob is what led to its subsequent investigation.

[00:19:57] Speaker 00:
You never made that argument before, right?

[00:19:59] Speaker 00:
The one that you just made right now?

[00:20:01] Speaker 02:
We noted it in our response brief, but we did not make it at sentencing, no.

[00:20:05] Speaker 00:
I see.

[00:20:11] Speaker 02:
And although the district court did not

[00:20:15] Speaker 02:
expressly acknowledge or discuss the factors on the record, the district court did acknowledge that it had received and read a sentencing memorandum that was filed on Mr. Lara's behalf, which, as opposing counsel noted, went into several pages of analysis as to why these factors favored this mitigating rule adjustment, and it ultimately determined that no such adjustment was appropriate here.

[00:20:37] Speaker 00:
Have we ever held that 3B1.2 requires specific fact-finding from the district court on the record fact-finding?

[00:20:44] Speaker 02:
No, Your Honor.

[00:20:45] Speaker 02:
In fact, in United States versus in Combe, this court noted that a district court is not required to make detailed findings or explain why an adjustment is or is not appropriate under the guidelines.

[00:20:56] Speaker 02:
There's no requirement under this court's precedent that a district court tick off each of the factors on the record.

[00:21:03] Speaker 02:
And absent any indication on the record, district judges are presumed to know the law and apply it in making their decisions.

[00:21:09] Speaker 00:
Is there any reason in the government's view why the 2015 amendments should change

[00:21:13] Speaker 00:
are thinking on that?

[00:21:15] Speaker 02:
No, Your Honor.

[00:21:20] Speaker 02:
Okay.

[00:21:20] Speaker 02:
And unless there are any further questions on issue one, I'd like to turn now to issue two.

[00:21:25] Speaker 02:
And there's a lot of questioning regarding the district court's alternative finding in this case.

[00:21:31] Speaker 02:
Mr. Lara did not challenge the district court's alternative finding.

[00:21:34] Speaker 00:
Was it actually an alternative finding?

[00:21:36] Speaker 00:
Did the district court

[00:21:38] Speaker 02:
Yes, Your Honor, it was.

[00:21:40] Speaker 00:
What explains that it was an alternative finding, which in my view would require that the Court found as an alternative that the government satisfied its burden by preponderance?

[00:21:50] Speaker 02:
Your Honor, to paraphrase the District Court, the District Court, after stating that it has consistently held that the knowledge requirement does not apply to import of methamphetamine, stated, and I would take that ruling a bit further and suggest that even if the knowledge requirement were to apply,

[00:22:07] Speaker 02:
in some form or fashion, whether that's actual knowledge or reasonable foreseeability.

[00:22:12] Speaker 02:
I do think that the circumstances here demonstrate that Mr. Lara, I think he said there's a fair probability that Mr. Lara knew or certainly should have reasonably known that the methamphetamine that he handled here was imported.

[00:22:26] Speaker 02:
And as I mentioned, Mr. Lara does not challenge that alternative finding, and the court may affirm on that basis.

[00:22:34] Speaker 01:
Well, but fair probability is not

[00:22:36] Speaker 01:
preponderance, so why shouldn't that give us pause?

[00:22:42] Speaker 02:
Your Honor, although he did not say I find by a preponderance of the evidence that Mr. Lara knew or reasonably should have known, I think you have to look at the broader context of what he was saying, which was that certainly even absent this knowledge requirement,

[00:23:00] Speaker 02:
there is an indication here that Mr. Lara knew or, and I think he uses the phrase, certainly reasonably should have known that the methamphetamine was imported here.

[00:23:12] Speaker 02:
So I don't think this court should attribute too much weight to the fact that he simply used the term fair probability.

[00:23:20] Speaker 02:
And I would again highlight the fact that Mr. Lara did not challenge this alternative finding.

[00:23:27] Speaker 02:
And I would also note that this finding is thoroughly supported under the record.

[00:23:31] Speaker 02:
Mr. Lara was working for the cartel, which was controlling the area of Mexico which he lived by his own self-admission.

[00:23:40] Speaker 02:
He handled over $250,000 in cash that was packaged.

[00:23:45] Speaker 02:
in a manner consistent with being shipped across the border to avoid detection.

[00:23:50] Speaker 02:
The amount of methamphetamine he handled, over 200 pounds, certainly represents an industrialization of methamphetamine production.

[00:23:59] Speaker 02:
And then finally, he was carrying out tasks at the behest of a Mexico-based source of supply, whether that was Oscar Hernandez, the leader of the DTO, or someone immediately below him.

[00:24:11] Speaker 02:
If this court were to reach the issue of statutory interpretation, this court should find that Section 2D1.1B5's knowledge qualifier does not apply to import of methamphetamine, and it should do so based on the plain text, history, and purpose of the guideline.

[00:24:26] Speaker 02:
To date, only two circuits have considered this exact issue.

[00:24:30] Speaker 02:
That's the Fifth Circuit in United States v. Surfoss from 2012, and the Eight Circuit in United States v. Workmeister in 2023.

[00:24:38] Speaker 02:
And I would also direct this Court's attention to the fact that the Tenth Circuit has stated in DICTA that the plain language appears to impose a scientific requirement only with respect to listed chemicals, and that's from Beltran Aguilar in 2011.

[00:24:55] Speaker 02:
To get back to the Fifth Circuit and the Eighth Circuit, the only two courts to have expressly considered this issue, both courts concluded based on the plain language that the knowledge qualifier modifies listed chemicals and not the importation

[00:25:10] Speaker 02:
of amphetamine or methamphetamine.

[00:25:12] Speaker 02:
And that's because were in the operative phrase here is a plural verb and cannot apply to the sentence's disjunctive subject, which would include amphetamine or methamphetamine.

[00:25:24] Speaker 02:
Because the subject has two singular words, it would require a singular verb.

[00:25:30] Speaker 02:
It would require was.

[00:25:32] Speaker 02:
Mr. Lara's proffered reading would also render two words, both importation and unlawfully, superfluous.

[00:25:39] Speaker 02:
importation would be used twice and therefore be redundant and then unlawfully is also unnecessary if referring to methamphetamine because there's no situation in which methamphetamine can can lawfully be imported.

[00:25:56] Speaker 01:
Would the lack of a knowledge requirement pose the potential of

[00:26:04] Speaker 01:
producing arbitrary sentences.

[00:26:07] Speaker 01:
And what I mean by that is the defendant would serve more time if the drugs happened to be imported, whether the defendant knew about it or not.

[00:26:16] Speaker 02:
It's just bad luck, maybe.

[00:26:21] Speaker 02:
as the Fifth Circuit stated in United States v. Surfoss, exposing a drug trafficker to all consequences, whether intended or unintended, is a rational deterrent to criminal activity.

[00:26:34] Speaker 01:
And so I think certainly it's... Sort of an assumption of the risk idea.

[00:26:39] Speaker 02:
Exactly, Your Honor, yes.

[00:26:41] Speaker 02:
And I would like to point out that

[00:26:43] Speaker 02:
A few of the cases cited by Mr. Lara in the brief are in opposite here.

[00:26:51] Speaker 02:
That's United States versus Job.

[00:26:54] Speaker 02:
The Ninth Circuit did not expressly interpret the guideline.

[00:26:58] Speaker 02:
It noted rather that the government had not

[00:27:00] Speaker 02:
advanced the strict liability argument in district court and rather sought to apply the increase based on jointly undertaken activity.

[00:27:08] Speaker 02:
And the district court made no findings as to jointly undertaken activity.

[00:27:12] Speaker 02:
So there was no statutory analysis done.

[00:27:15] Speaker 02:
And then Mr. Lara also cites United States versus Hernandez-Astudio from the 11th Circuit.

[00:27:22] Speaker 02:
But the issue there was simply

[00:27:24] Speaker 02:
whether the methamphetamine itself was actually imported.

[00:27:28] Speaker 02:
The issue was not one of knowledge, and that's also an unpublished case.

[00:27:32] Speaker 00:
So you disagree that there's a split, or an evolving split?

[00:27:36] Speaker 02:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:27:37] Speaker 02:
Only two circuits have expressly addressed it in published opinions, and that's the Fifth Circuit.

[00:27:41] Speaker 02:
in the Eighth Circuit.

[00:27:43] Speaker 01:
And we would ask that.

[00:27:43] Speaker 01:
If we end up thinking that there are two reasonable readings, one with the knowledge requirement, one not, so that we have ambiguity, would the rule of lenity kick in?

[00:27:58] Speaker 02:
If this court were to conclude, even after reviewing based on the plan language, the superfluidity I discussed,

[00:28:10] Speaker 02:
And I would also note the history of this guideline.

[00:28:14] Speaker 01:
No, I know these are your arguments that it's not ambiguous.

[00:28:18] Speaker 01:
But let's say we just can't get there.

[00:28:23] Speaker 01:
What about lenity?

[00:28:25] Speaker 02:
If at the very end of the day, this court determines that it's truly ambiguous, then the rule of lenity would apply, yes.

[00:28:34] Speaker 02:
And if there are no other questions, the United States asks that this court affirm Mr. Daniel Morales-Loris' sentence.

[00:28:41] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:28:42] Speaker 02:
Thank you.

[00:28:44] Speaker 03:
Thank you, Your Honor.

[00:28:45] Speaker 03:
I have a few very quick points.

[00:28:46] Speaker 03:
Income, which the government cited, says absent something in the record, otherwise, indicating otherwise.

[00:28:52] Speaker 03:
And that is exactly what happened here.

[00:28:54] Speaker 03:
Because there is a reference made by the government to the IMG, then it is assumed, absent some caveat or qualification, that the court took that into consideration.

[00:29:03] Speaker 03:
In bow and further support, cited by both government and the defendant, the court is not required to give detailed findings.

[00:29:10] Speaker 03:
But when it is apparent from the court's optional discussion that its factual finding may be based on an incorrect legal standard, as here the IMG and no relative comparison, then this court must remand for application under the correct legal guideline.

[00:29:28] Speaker 03:
Secondly,

[00:29:29] Speaker 03:
The court said, or the government said, that the IMG was only in the context of importation.

[00:29:34] Speaker 03:
And that's not true.

[00:29:35] Speaker 03:
Your Honor, I see my time is up, if I may finish my thought.

[00:29:37] Speaker 01:
Do you want to finish the thought?

[00:29:38] Speaker 03:
The thought there is that, very specifically in the record, it says, I'm starting with importation because I think it dovetails with what I want to say about offense.

[00:29:47] Speaker 03:
And then it incorporates the IMG, which took place four years prior and does not fit relevant conduct to apply to Mr. Lahr.

[00:29:54] Speaker 03:
Thank you.

[00:29:54] Speaker 01:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:29:56] Speaker 01:
Thanks to both of you for the arguments this morning.

[00:29:58] Speaker 01:
The case will be submitted and counsel are excused.