United States v. Vinas

106 F.4th 147

UNITED STATES, Appellant, v. Agustin VINAS, a/k/a Amigo, Defendant, Appellee.

No. 23-1446

United States Court of Appeals, First Circuit

July 1, 2024

APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND [Hon. John J. McConnell, Jr., U.S. District Judge]

Lauren S. Zurier, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Zachary A. Cunha, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellant.

Miriam Conrad for appellee.

Before Barron, Chief Judge, Selya and Howard, Circuit Judges.

BARRON, Chief Judge.

In this appeal, the government challenges Agustin Vinas's time-served prison sentence for his murder-for-hire-related conviction under 18 U.S.C. § 1958. We affirm.

I.

On April 19, 2021, the FBI received a tip from a confidential source ("CS-1") that Vinas, who was then living in Rhode Island, was attempting to hire an individual to commit a murder.¹ CS-1 informed the FBI that Vinas, whom CS-1 had known socially for several years, had told CS-1 about his desire to arrange the murder of a contractor ("Victim 1").

Vinas, who worked as a subcontractor, told CS-1 that he was owed $8,500 by Victim 1 for construction work. Vinas explained to CS-1 that his attempts to collect the debt had been unsuccessful and that Victim 1 had threatened to harm Vinas and his family if he continued to pursue the money he was owed. As a result, Vinas said he wanted to hire someone to kill Victim 1. CS-1 told Vinas that CS-1 would be in touch with the contact for someone who could carry out the murder.

After verifying some of the information CS-1 provided, an FBI agent instructed CS-1 to call Vinas and set up a meeting on the evening of April 20 to discuss the prospective murder. During this second meeting -- which took place in Providence, Rhode Island and which CS-1 surreptitiously recorded -- Vinas provided CS-1 with the cellphone number, address, and business name of Victim 1. Vinas also informed CS-1 that he wanted to have a second person -- the business partner of the contractor ("Victim 2") -- killed as well. Vinas further stated that he wanted the victims to be tortured before they were killed and that he would be willing to pay a total of $3,000 for the two murders, with an additional $500 bonus if the hitman could make the bodies "disappear." Finally, Vinas revealed that he had been surveilling the intended victims and that he had already been in contact with another potential hitman.

The FBI verified that the phone number, business name, and address that Vinas had provided all belonged to Victim 1. On April 22, CS-1 arranged another meeting with Vinas, this time in Pawtucket, Rhode Island. CS-1 brought an undercover law enforcement officer who posed as a hitman. Vinas provided the undercover officer with information that identified Victim 1 and repeated his offer to pay $3,500 for the murders. The undercover officer told Vinas that he would be in touch after making the necessary arrangements for the murders.

On April 26, Vinas met with the undercover officer and CS-1 in the parking lot of a Home Depot in Attleboro, Massachusetts. Vinas gave the undercover officer a $100 cash deposit for the killing and showed him proof that he had $3,500 available to pay upon completion of the murders. Vinas also agreed to provide another $300 deposit to the undercover officer upon their next meeting.

The undercover officer and Vinas met one final time on April 29. At this meeting, which also took place at the Attleboro Home Depot parking lot, Vinas provided the officer with an additional $200 as well as Victim 1's license plate number and the address of a home where Vinas believed Victim 1 was working on a construction job. At the end of the meeting, the undercover officer asked Vinas whether Vinas was sure that he wanted to go through with the plot and emphasized that, if they proceeded past this point, the "job" could not be stopped. Vinas replied, "I want you to make that guy disappear."

The following day, the FBI arrested Vinas. On May 14, 2021, a federal grand jury in the District of Rhode Island handed up an indictment charging Vinas with two counts, both under 18 U.S.C. § 1958, relating to his conduct in the commission of a murder-for-hire plot.

Vinas entered into a plea agreement with the government on October 13, 2022, under the terms of which he pleaded guilty to the indictment's first count, using facilities of interstate commerce in the commission of murder-for-hire, and the government agreed to dismiss the second count, related to interstate travel in the commission of murder-for-hire. The parties stipulated to a total offense level of 37 under the United States Sentencing Guidelines ("Guidelines") -- subject to adjustments for acceptance of responsibility -- and the government agreed to recommend a sentence within the Guidelines sentencing range: the statutory maximum of ten years.

Prior to sentencing, the government submitted a two-page sentencing memorandum in which it sought a sentence of ten years' imprisonment. The government argued in its memorandum that "[a]mong the most significant factors" underlying its recommended sentence were "specific deterrence of [Vinas] and general deterrence of those who might consider similar conduct."

The defense submitted a six-page sentencing memorandum, accompanied by numerous exhibits. The memorandum argued for a sentence of time served -- the nearly two years that Vinas had already spent in pretrial detention.

The sentencing memorandum described the background of the dispute between Vinas and Victim 1 and informed the District Court that Vinas made several attempts to peacefully collect the money that he was owed from Victim 1 but that Victim 1 had responded by assaulting Vinas and threatening Vinas and his family. The sentencing memorandum also noted that Vinas reported the assault and threats to the local police on two different occasions but that these reports were never acted upon. Attached to the memorandum were corroborating police reports and a transcript of a recorded telephone call in which Victim 1 threatened to kill Vinas and told Vinas that he and his family "are going to have to move out of the country." While the memorandum acknowledged that Vinas "made the terrible decision to take matters into his own hands," it argued that the evidence of these threats and Vinas's efforts to get assistance from the authorities mitigated his culpability to some extent.

Vinas's sentencing memorandum also highlighted that, while in pretrial custody, Vinas had been diagnosed with a depressive disorder with paranoid features including auditory hallucinations, and that he had been placed on antidepressant and antipsychotic medications. Alongside the sentencing memorandum, the defense submitted forty-nine letters of support written by Vinas's family, friends, clergy, and contracting clients.

The government submitted a one-page response to the sentencing memorandum. It emphasized that the undercover officer posing as a hitman had given Vinas a final opportunity to stop the plot but that Vinas had not taken it.

Vinas was sentenced on April 18, 2023. At the outset of the sentencing hearing, the District Court confirmed that neither side had any objections to the PSR that had been prepared by the U.S. Office of Probation and its calculation of a 120-month Guidelines prison sentence based on a total offense level of 34 -- reduced 3 levels from 37 based on Vinas's acceptance of responsibility -- and Vinas's criminal history category, which was I. The Court then offered each side an opportunity to be heard before pronouncing Vinas's sentence.

The government did not request any specific length of sentence during the sentencing hearing but advocated for "a substantial sentence to deter [Vinas], [and] to deter others as well who might think about doing something similar in the future." The government acknowledged that "the Court certainly has a challenge here as to what's the appropriate sentence [to] . . . provide just punishment in these circumstances" and that "clearly there's a lot of people in the Defendant's corner." Indeed, cataloging the letters in support of Vinas, the government noted that "at least 24 of them refer to the fact that he was hard working, 15 of them or so said that he was respectful, and another 16 or so said that he was honorable." The government also noted that the letters made clear that Vinas had "shown kindness to his family and to his friends and to members of his community." The government emphasized, however, that the letters just highlighted "a big gap" between the person described in the letters, "who so many are willing to say is a good person[,] . . . and the same person who did everything he could to end another person's life."

The government also acknowledged that Vinas "had some mental health issues" that were untreated at the time of the offense conduct. The government nevertheless argued that the mitigating circumstances presented by the defense did not explain the "gap" between how Vinas was presented by the defense and his "contracting to go out and have individuals killed," which the government argued was "not that type of conduct that we can address with supervised release and counsel[ ]ing and close supervision."

Vinas's defense counsel reaffirmed the request for a time-served sentence. Responding to the government's argument about the "gap" between the version of Vinas described in the letters and his criminal conduct, defense counsel emphasized the interaction between Victim 1's threats and Vinas's then-untreated mental illness. Defense counsel emphasized the evidence of Vinas's rehabilitation including his undergoing mental health treatment and his completion of several personal growth programs while he was in pre-trial detention. Defense counsel argued that, given Vinas's age of fifty-three and lack of a prior criminal history, a time-served sentence would appropriately account for not only "retribution and deterrence but also...