United States Court of Appeals For the Seventh Circuit ____________________ No. 23-2847 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. JERRY PEOPLES, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division. No. 1:19-cr-00418-4 — Robert W. Gettleman, Judge. ____________________

ARGUED SEPTEMBER 6, 2024 — DECIDED OCTOBER 24, 2024 ____________________

Before RIPPLE, SCUDDER, and ST. EVE, Circuit Judges. SCUDDER, Circuit Judge. Jerry Peoples and three friends hatched a plan to rob a marijuana dealer. What they did not know was that the police heard it all over a wiretap. As the plot was playing out, the police stepped in and arrested Peo- ples and his confederates. Federal charges followed, and, for his part, Peoples chose to go to trial. A jury found him guilty of violating the Hobbs Act by conspiring and attempting to rob a drug dealer. Peoples appeals, contending the district 2 No. 23-2847 court committed error in not granting his post-trial motions challenging the sufficiency of the government’s evidence. We affirm, as the case against Peoples was overwhelming. I On June 13, 2017, Jerry Peoples met Ali Salem at a gas sta- tion in Bridgeview, Illinois to obtain a sample of marijuana. But Peoples intended more than trying Salem’s marijuana. He used the meeting to set up a robbery of Salem’s supplier— someone Peoples believed had a substantial stash of mariju- ana somewhere nearby. With three friends (Kelvin Everett, Quincy Wright, and Gregory Blackwell), Peoples devised a plan to learn the whereabouts of Salem’s supplier. The idea was simple: Peoples would use the gas-station meeting to get the sample and then, with help from Everett, Wright, and Blackwell, the group would follow Salem back to his supplier. Once the whereabouts of the supplier became known, the crew would move in and steal the stash—or so they planned. The police heard the entire plot over a wiretap of Everett’s phone. Believing a violent crime was in the works, the officers got a step ahead and arrested Peoples and his crew as they sought to close in on Salem. A federal indictment followed, charging Peoples, as relevant here, with conspiring and at- tempting to interfere with commerce by robbing a drug dealer, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1951(a), 2. The most damning evidence at trial came from the wire- taps the government played for the jury. In a conversation with Kelvin Everett, Peoples described the plan this way: Peoples: I promise that when I go meet him and then I know where he coming from so No. 23-2847 3

next when I follow him, I know where he coming from with the shit. … Peoples: We do our homework. We get in your car and boom and just go in. You know go up and down Harlem and Cicero. He gonna be meeting people and I know the car so bam … we on his ass dude. … Peoples: That’s what I’m saying. We grab him. We grab him I can guarantee you we grab him and we tell him look man, we need 500 of them thangs 200,000 fool. We can have that shit. … Peoples: We ain’t never gonna have to shit again fool. We buyin’ buildings after buildings G, I swear to God. But see the only thing we need to do is move fast