[PUBLISH] In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit

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No. 22-10256 ____________________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus

PETER SOTIS, Defendant-Appellant.

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Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 1:19-cr-20693-PAS-1 ____________________ USCA11 Case: 22-10256 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 12/20/2023 Page: 2 of 32

2 Opinion of the Court 22-10256

Before WILLIAM PRYOR, Chief Judge, MARCUS, Circuit Judge, and MIZELLE,∗ District Judge. MIZELLE, District Judge: For the better part of three decades until its rescission in 2006, the State Department designated Libya as a State Sponsor of Terrorism. See U.S. Dep’t of State, Country Reports on Terrorism 2006, Chapter 3: State Sponsors of Terrorism Overview (Apr. 30, 2007), https://perma.cc/4N76-PFAN. As of today, the Department ad- vises United States citizens not to travel to Libya “due to crime, terrorism, civil unrest, kidnapping, and armed conflict.” U.S. Dep’t of State, Libya Travel Advisory (emphases omitted), https://perma.cc/D4GA-5S5P (July 13, 2023). And Libya has been subject to a United Nations Security Council Arms Embargo since February 2011. See S.C. Res. 1970 (Feb. 26, 2011). Perhaps unsur- prisingly, the Department of Commerce requires a license to ex- port certain products to Libya that implicate the United States’ na- tional security interests. See 15 C.F.R. Pt. 738, Supp. No. 1. This appeal involves Peter Sotis’s convictions for subverting that licensing requirement. It presents three issues. First, Sotis chal- lenges the sufficiency of the evidence to support each count of his conviction: (1) conspiracy to violate export controls; (2) export and attempted export of a Commerce Control List item to Libya with- out a license; and (3) smuggling. Second, Sotis claims that opinion

∗ Honorable Kathryn Kimball Mizelle, United States District Judge for the Mid-

dle District of Florida, sitting by designation. USCA11 Case: 22-10256 Document: 38-1 Date Filed: 12/20/2023 Page: 3 of 32

22-10256 Opinion of the Court 3

testimony presented at trial invaded the province of the jury. And third, Sotis argues that his 57-month sentence was unreasonable. Because these arguments lack merit, we affirm. I. BACKGROUND We begin with a review of the statutory background, fol- lowed by the facts and the procedural history. A. Statutory Background Under the Export Administration Act (EAA), the Depart- ment of Commerce’s Bureau of Industry and Security promul- gated the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) governing the export of certain types of products. See 50 App. U.S.C. §§ 4601–23; 15 C.F.R. § 730.2. These regulations are “intended to serve the na- tional security, foreign policy, nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction, and other interests of the United States.” 15 C.F.R. § 730.6. The International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA) “also authorizes t