United States of America v. Jacinta A. Thomas, a/k/a JACINTA A. CRASTOUN

Of the District of Maine, sitting by designation.*
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
____________
No. 04-2386
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
JACINTA A. THOMAS, a/k/a JACINTA A. CRASTOUN,
Defendant, Appellant.
__________________
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Jay A. García-Gregory, U.S. District Judge]
___________________
Before
Torruella and Lynch, Circuit Judges,
and Woodcock, District Judge. *
___________________
Irma R. Valldejuli for appellant.
Mariana E. Bauzá-Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney,
with whom Rosa Emilia Rodríquez-Vélez, United States Attorney, and
Nelson Pérez-Sosa, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief,
Appellate Division, were on brief, for appellee.
___________________
October 27, 2006
___________________

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The parties refer either to Mr. Small or Mr. Smalls; this1
opinion uses “Smalls.”
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WOODCOCK, District Judge. In 2003, following a five-day
jury trial in the United States District Court in Puerto Rico,
Jacinta Thomas was found guilty of smuggling and possession of
illegal drugs. Concluding that the evidence is sufficient to
sustain the verdicts and that the trial court properly refused to
allow extrinsic evidence on a collateral matter, we affirm.
I. Statement of Facts
A. Mr. Smalls and the Box of Pink Lady
On July 6, 2002, a confidential informant (CI) contacted
the San Juan, Puerto Rico office of the United States Customs
Service (Customs) concerning a shipment of narcotics being
transported from St. Martin, Netherlands, Antilles into San Juan.
The CI, a crew member from a Caribbean cargo vessel, had been a
paid informant since 1998 and had previously provided Customs with
information concerning narcotics smuggling. He reported that a box
of wine containing narcotics was going to be entrusted to him to
transport from St. Martin to Pier 10 in the port of San Juan.
Later that day in St. Martin, a man by the name of Mr. Smalls1
approached the CI. Smalls confirmed that he wanted the CI to
transport a box of wine to San Juan, told the CI that one of his
workers would deliver the wine to him, and slipped the CI two
telephone numbers to contact upon his arrival in San Juan. Later,
a worker brought the CI a sealed white carton box indicating that
it contained wine and marked “Pink Lady,” which the CI stowed

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The Agents disagreed about precisely when she arrived: one2
said between 7:00 and 7:15 a.m.; another said between 8:00 and 9:00
a.m.; and, a third said 8:20 a.m.
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securely in his cabin. After leaving St. Martin, the vessel set
sail for the port of San Juan. Awaiting his arrival at Pier 10 was
a surveillance team from Customs.
B. The Vessel Arrives at Pier 10
On July 9, 2002 at about 7:00 a.m., the cargo vessel
arrived at Pier 10 in San Juan harbor. After the CI contacted
Customs, agents boarded the vessel, debriefed the CI, and opened
the box labeled Pink Lady. Inside the box, the agents observed
pelletized objects in brick-shaped packages and other objects
shaped like shoe soles inside bags. They resealed the box and
instructed the CI to call the numbers Smalls had given him.
When the CI called the first number, a woman answered the
phone. After the CI asked for Smalls, she asked him to call back
in five minutes. When he did so, he spoke directly to Smalls, who
said he would send a woman who was well known in the pier area to
pick up the box. The CI called a third time and spoke to a woman
who confirmed that she was going to come to the port to pick up the
box. The telephone number the CI had called was listed to the
Appellant.
C. Jacinta Thomas and Pier 10
The morning of July 9, 2002, Thomas, a resident of
Santurce, Puerto Rico, got in her Ford Taurus and drove to Pier 10.
She arrived sometime between 7:00 a.m. and 9:00 a.m. and 2
immediately came under Customs surveillance. After Thomas entered

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the dock area, she parked her car and got out. After exiting her
vehicle, she answered her cell phone and then looked toward the
cargo vessel. Customs agents observed her frequently looking
toward the freight and cargo area, as if searching for someone
specific. Unlike others with business in the port, she did not
enter any offices, was not carrying any documents, and repeatedly
used her cell phone. She then reentered her vehicle and left the
dock area for ten to fifteen minutes.
Upon her return, she parked again, got out of her car,
and sat in a chair, chatting with people passing by. This time she
remained on the dock for several hours. While she was there, the
CI placed four calls to her cell phone to establish contact and to
coordinate delivery of the box. These calls took place at 10:30,
10:50, 11:10, and 11:26 a.m. and as these calls were made,
surveillance confirmed that Thomas was using her cell phone. It
took hours to coordinate the delivery of the box to Thomas, because
Thomas did not want to pick up the box at the end of the pier, but
instead wanted the box delivered to her car. Ultimately, the CI
arranged to have one of his employees take the box on a forklift to
Thomas’s car. When the forklift operator arrived at her car,
Thomas got up from her chair, pointed to the side of the car,
walked in front of the forklift operator, and opened the door to
the driver’s seat. The forklift operator placed the box in the
rear seat behind the driver.
After the box was placed in her vehicle, Thomas stayed
near her car momentarily and then walked toward the LADY ROMNEY,

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The parties stipulated to these drug amounts at trial.3
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another cargo vessel. Thomas returned to her car accompanied by
another woman, who was wearing a type of hair net commonly worn by
cooks. This woman joined Thomas approximately thirty seconds
before Thomas began to drive out of Pier 10. As Thomas was driving
out of Pier 10, Customs agents stopped her. After identifying
himself, Agent Ritchie Flores asked Thomas whether she had any
cargo or foreign property in her vehicle. Thomas replied that she
had a box in the rear seat that had come from Anguila. Flores was
aware, however, that the wine box had originated in St. Martin and
had not traveled to Anguila. Flores asked if he could search both
the box and Thomas; she consented. Inside the wine box, Flores
discovered brick-shaped packages wrapped in newspaper and covered
in grease and inside these packages were bricks of heroin and
cocaine base, containing 3.96 kilograms of heroin hydrocholoride
and 4.922 kilograms of cocaine base. There was no wine in the 3
box.
D. Customs Procedure
Under Customs regulations, all incoming foreign cargo
must be manifested and declared, including merchandise brought by
crew members. To exit the port with foreign merchandise, the
recipient must proceed to Customs with the required forms and
receive clearance. Thomas did not have any paperwork to accompany
the box of wine.
E. Narcotics Smuggling
The value of one kilogram of heroin was $90,000 wholesale

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and $270,000 retail, and the value of one kilogram of cocaine base
was $17,500 wholesale and $52,000 retail. The range of value for
the entire shipment, therefore, was between $442,535 wholesale and
$1,325,144 retail. At trial, a DEA task force member expressed the
view that, because of the value of the shipment, the owner of the
drugs would only assign the job of picking up the drugs to a highly
trusted member of the drug organization. He also testified that a
drug organization would never use a person who was unaware of what
was being transported.
F. Jacinta Thomas’s Defense
Thomas’s defense was, in short, that the cook did it.
Thomas took the stand during her trial and testified that every
Tuesday she had gone to Pier 10 to meet the LADY ROMNEY and to pick
up its cook, Claudette Henriquez. In exchange for $100.00, Thomas
would then take Henriquez in her car to various wholesale
businesses in San Juan, such as Costco and Sam’s, where Henriquez
would purchase food and other supplies for the vessel.
Thomas testified that she had arrived, as usual, at Pier
10 the morning of Tuesday, July 9, 2002, to pick up Henriquez.
When she arrived, however, Jack, the captain of the LADY ROMNEY,
asked her to take his girlfriend to the beauty parlor, which Thomas
did, returning shortly thereafter to pick up Henriquez. After
Thomas returned to Pier 10, Henriquez asked if she could borrow
Thomas’s cell phone and disappeared inside the LADY ROMNEY. Thomas
waited for Henriquez to reappear and ultimately went inside the
vessel to find Henriquez, who told her that she had to finish

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Thomas operates a beauty salon from her home.4
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cooking for the crew that day and would then be ready to leave.
Henriquez also told Thomas that she had a box of liquor to take
out. Thomas replied that this would be no problem. Thomas
returned to the dock, where she continued to wait for Henriquez.
As Thomas waited, she placed a number of calls on her cell phone,
including to her daughter and her own clients.4
Thomas agreed that while she was waiting for Henriquez,
she received a telephone call from someone, informing her that
Henriquez had asked him to call her about the box of wine and that
he needed her permission to deliver the box, since it was her car.
Thomas agreed, knowing that Henriquez had informed her about the
wine. This same person called a second time and told her to come
pick up the box; Thomas refused and instead told him to bring the
wine to her vehicle. This took some time and Thomas went back
inside the LADY ROMNEY to hurry Henriquez along. When she came
out, a person had arrived at her vehicle with a forklift and the
wine. Thomas told him where to place the box. Henriquez emerged
from the LADY ROMNEY, got into Thomas’s car, and they both left
Pier 10.
As they were leaving, they were stopped by Customs
Agents. Thomas immediately conceded that they had brought a box of
wine from the docks and when she was asked for papers for it
replied: “[T]hey just bring me the box but they didn’t give me ...
any paper or anything.” She consented to a search of the box.
At the police station, after the Agents detained both

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Henriquez and Thomas, Thomas informed them that she was unaware of
the contents of the box, but thought it had come from Anguila,
because she knew that was where Henriquez was coming from. At the
time of her arrest, Thomas had $83.00 in her pocketbook. The
police released Henriquez that same day. Henriquez subsequently
resigned her cook’s job, left the Island, and disappeared.
G. The Progress of the Case
On August 7, 2002, Thomas was indicted for (1) the
knowing and intentional importing into the United States of heroin
and cocaine base in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 952(a); and, (2) the
knowing and intentional possession of heroin and cocaine base with
the intent to distribute in violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1).
The case was tried before a Puerto Rican jury from July 28, 2003 to
August 4, 2003, and the jury returned guilty verdicts on both
counts. After Rule 29 motions were denied, Thomas filed a timely
appeal on September 9, 2004.
II. Discussion
A. Sufficiency of the Evidence
Thomas’s main challenge is directed to the sufficiency of
the evidence on an essential element of the offense: whether she
“knowingly and intentionally” either possessed or imported illegal
narcotics into the United States. 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1), 952(a).
She strenuously argues that the sole evidence tending to establish
that she had actual knowledge that illegal narcotics were contained
within the box marked Pink Lady is the testimony of a DEA agent to
the effect that drug smugglers do not generally entrust large

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amounts of drugs to innocents. She contends that even if the
testimony of the CI were credible, it is a leap too far to conclude
that Smalls, who never testified, told her that the box contained
illegal drugs or that she otherwise knew or should have known that
it did. In effect, she argues that, though the evidence could
easily sustain a guilty verdict if charged with aiding and abetting
the attempted smuggling of a few bottles of Pink Lady wine, it
cannot sustain a verdict for smuggling large quantities of heroin
and cocaine base.
While we review Rule 29 determinations de novo, we will
affirm the conviction if, “after assaying all the evidence in the
light most amiable to the government, and taking all reasonable
inferences in its favor, a rational factfinder could find, beyond
a reasonable doubt, that the prosecution successfully proved the
essential elements of the crime.” United States v. Carucci, 364
F.3d 339, 343 (1st Cir. 2004) (quoting United States v. Boulerice,
325 F.3d 75, 79 (1st Cir. 2003)). “All ‘reasonable evidentiary
inferences’ are to be drawn ‘in harmony with the verdict,’ and ‘all
issues of credibility’ are to be resolved ‘in the light most
favorable to the government.’” United States v. Washington, 434
F.3d 7, 15 (1st Cir. 2006) (quoting United States v. Casas, 356
F.3d 104, 126 (1st Cir. 2004)). Our task, therefore, is not to
make an original determination as to whether Thomas possessed the
requisite knowledge but, rather, to determine whether a rational
jury could have found that Thomas did so.
Viewed in the light most favorable to the government, the

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evidence against Thomas is substantial. First, the jury could have
readily believed the CI, who testified that Smalls had given not
his own, but Thomas’s telephone number to the CI, that Smalls
answered when the CI called Thomas’s number earlier that morning,
that Smalls said he was sending someone to pick up the box, that
Thomas was the only person who then appeared, that Thomas was the
person answering the CI’s telephone calls at Pier 10, and that she
directed the CI to have the box delivered to her car. Indeed,
Thomas’s own telephone records confirmed the calls from the CI to
her phone, including calls the CI had made before she arrived at
Pier 10.
Second, the size of this operation, exceeding $1,300,000
in street value, makes it less plausible that Thomas was wholly
ignorant of the criminal operation. The jury could have accepted
the DEA agent’s testimony that smuggling operations, like Smalls’s,
involving millions of dollars do not take unnecessary risks,
instead opting for trusted and close associates, like Thomas, who
are aware of the high stakes. Therefore, the jury could have
reasonably concluded that Smalls knew Thomas well enough to use her
cell phone number as a contact, was present with her when the CI
made the calls, and sent her to pick up this valuable illegal
shipment.
Third, Thomas was certainly aware, at the very least,
that she was sneaking something into Puerto Rico. The box was
emblazoned Pink Lady on the outside, proclaiming its purported
contents, and smugglers rarely openly advertise the true nature of

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Here, the trial judge properly instructed the jury that5
Thomas’s “willful blindness” could satisfy the knowledge element.
To infer knowledge, the jury had to find first that the defendant
“was aware of a high probability of ‘the fact in question,’ which
in this case would be that there were controlled substances inside
the box that was marked ‘Pink Lady’ ... and second, that the
defendant consciously and deliberately avoided learning of the
fact. That is to say, that defendant willfully made herself blind
to the fact.” See United States v. Gabriele, 63 F.3d 61, 66 n.6
(1st Cir. 1995).
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the smuggled goods. Further, as opposed to the high value of
narcotics, there is no evidence that the value of the box of wine
justified the considerable time and energy she expended that
morning. Under the willful blindness instruction, Thomas could “be
charged with knowledge of a fact if she deliberately closed her
eyes to something that otherwise would have been obvious to her.”5
United States v. Cheal, 389 F.3d 35, 42 n.7 (1st Cir. 2004). Given
her striking lack of curiosity as to the actual contents of the box
that had consumed her entire morning, the jury could have
rationally concluded that Thomas was at the least willfully blind
to the fact that she was smuggling narcotics.
It is true that Thomas is an unlikely drug dealer or
smuggler. A native of St. Kitts and a twenty-seven-year resident
of Puerto Rico, Thomas is a forty-four-year old single mother of
nine children, ranging in ages from ten to twenty-five. By all
appearances, she is hard-working, operating a beauty parlor from
her modest home and, on weekends, running a small entertainment
bar, Caribbean Flavor Pub, where she serves food and liquor. There
is no sign of the accumulation of any ill-gotten gains. To the
contrary, one of the telephone calls she had received while waiting

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at Pier 10 relayed the unhappy news that the electric company was
threatening to cut off service for failure to pay. Finally, on
arrest, she was carrying a relatively modest sum of money. It is
also true that there was no direct evidence that she was aware of
the contents of the box. It is, however, within the unique
province of the jury to sift through conflicting evidence, assess
the credibility of the witnesses, and find facts. As the Supreme
Court stated:
A fundamental premise of our criminal trial system is
that “the jury is the lie detector.” Determining the
weight and credibility of witness testimony, therefore,
has long been held to be the “part of every case [that]
belongs to the jury, who are presumed to be fitted for it
by their natural intelligence and their practical
knowledge of men and the ways of men.”
United States v. Scheffer, 523 U.S. 303, 313 (1998) (citation
omitted); see also Blake v. Pellegrino, 329 F.3d 43, 47 (1st Cir.
2003) (“It is the jury, not the court, which is the fact-finding
body. It weighs the contradictory evidence and inferences, judges
the credibility of witnesses ... and draws the ultimate conclusions
as to the facts.” (omission in original) (quoting Boston & Me. R.R.
v. Cabana, 148 F.2d 150, 152 (1st Cir. 1945) (internal quotation
marks omitted)).
Ultimately, it is Thomas’s own trial testimony that seals
her fate on appeal. At trial, Thomas proclaimed her total
innocence and insisted that the entire plot was concocted by the
cook. She maintained that she was there only to take the cook
shopping and that it was the cook who duped her into transporting
the box of Pink Lady. What may have been plausible at trial,

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This evidence includes Smalls’s use of her cell phone number,6
her presence with Smalls when the CI made the calls earlier that
day, her arrival as the courier promised by Smalls, the documented
calls from the CI to her cell phone, both before and after she
arrived at Pier 10, her unusual conduct on the Pier, and her odd
insistence that the box be delivered to her vehicle.
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however, becomes untenable on appeal, once the evidence is viewed
in the light most favorable to the government. The government’s
evidence establishes that Thomas was implicated to some degree with
Smalls in the scheme and her protestations of absolute innocence
cannot be reconciled with the weight of the collective evidence.6
If Thomas had admitted the bulk of the government’s evidence but
denied the final crucial element -- that she knew the box contained
narcotics -- her trial testimony would at least be consistent with
her current legal argument. But, once the case is cast in the
light most favorable to the government, the evidence exposes an
inexplicable inconsistency between what the government proved and
what Thomas stated under oath. In view of this inconsistency, the
jury could well have found Thomas’s testimony incredible and found
that she was neither hermetically sealed from the true nature of
the criminal enterprise nor that the cook was the actual culprit.
United States v. Soto-Beniquez, 356 F.3d 1, 52 (1st Cir. 2004)
(“[P]lausible credibility determinations cannot be disturbed on
appeal.”).
In sum, when viewed in the light most favorable to the
government, a “rational factfinder could find, beyond a reasonable
doubt, that the prosecution successfully proved the essential
elements of the crime.” Carucci, 364 F.3d at 343.

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B. Rule 608(b)
We need not tarry long with the second issue. Defense
counsel was aware from handling other matters that Modesto Augusto
Mesa, a convicted felon, had previously accused the CI of retaining
for himself part of a drug shipment in another case in which the CI
had participated as an informant. On cross-examination, defense
counsel sought to question the CI as to whether Mesa’s accusation
was true, and the district court allowed it. However, when
questioned about the prior bad act, the CI flatly denied it. After
the CI’s denial, defense counsel asked leave to call Mesa as a
witness in an effort to prove that the CI was lying. The district
court refused permission. Thomas contends the trial court’s
refusal violated Rule 608(b) and infringed her Sixth Amendment
right of confrontation.
Thomas misses the mark. First, the rules of evidence do
not require the admission of such extrinsic evidence. Rule 608(b)
provides in part that “[s]pecific instances of the conduct of a
witness, for the purpose of attacking or supporting the witness’
character for truthfulness ... may not be proved by extrinsic
evidence.” Fed. R. Evid. 608(b). It is “well established that a
party may not present extrinsic evidence to impeach a witness by
contradiction on a collateral matter.” United States v. Beauchamp,
986 F.2d 1,3 (1st Cir. 1993). Thus, “it is often said that when a
witness testifies to a collateral matter, the examiner must take
[the] answer.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Even if
the proposed testimony was proffered to show bias rather than to

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attack the CI’s veracity, it is nevertheless inadmissible under a
Rule 402 and Rule 403 analysis. See Fed. R. Evid. 608 Advisory
Committee Note 2003 Amendment(“By limiting the application of the
Rule to proof of a witness’ character for truthfulness, the
amendment leaves the admissibility of extrinsic evidence offered
for other grounds of impeachment (such as contradiction, prior
inconsistent statement, bias and mental capacity) to Rule 402 and
403.”).
Second, turning to the Confrontation Clause question, in
the post-Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004), era, a
“balancing of interests” is still called for and the result must
depend “upon the circumstances of the case.” White v. Coplan, 399
F.3d 18, 24 (1st Cir. 2005). Here, in refusing to allow a trial
within a trial on a collateral matter, the trial court struck the
proper balance. United States v. Coplin, No. 05-2077, 2006 U.S.
App. LEXIS 23910, *21 (1st Cir. Sept. 20, 2006) (trial courts have
“undeniable authority ... to place reasonable limits on cross-
examination in order to cut off protected discussion of marginally
relevant subjects.”).
III. Conclusion
The judgment of the district court is affirmed.

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