UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 23-972 D.C. No. Plaintiff - Appellee, 2:20-cr-00326- JFW-4 v. SHEN ZHEN NEW WORLD I, LLC, OPINION Defendant - Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California John F. Walter, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted July 19, 2024 Pasadena, California

Filed September 11, 2024

Before: Kim McLane Wardlaw, Richard A. Paez, and Gabriel P. Sanchez, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Sanchez 2 USA V. SHEN ZHEN NEW WORLD I, LLC

SUMMARY*

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed a real estate development company’s convictions on three counts of honest services mail and wire fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 1341, 1343, 1346; one count of federal-program bribery, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(2); and four counts of interstate and foreign travel in aid of racketeering, in violation of the Travel Act, 18 U.S.C. § 1952(a)(3). The company, Shen Zhen New World I, LLC (“Shen Zhen”), was owned and operated by Chinese billionaire Wei Huang who, for nearly forty years, lavished extravagant Las Vegas hotel stays, gambling chips, and prostitutes on then- Los Angeles City Councilmember Jose Huizar. Shen Zhen sought to redevelop the L.A. Grand Hotel into Los Angeles’s tallest skyscraper. Huang’s right-hand man confided in Huizar’s aide that Huang’s strategy was to “give, give, give” so that he could later make a “big ask” for Huizar’s support on the redevelopment project. The panel held that sufficient evidence supports the convictions. The panel rejected Shen Zhen’s argument that the Government’s failure to establish either an agreement between the parties or any official action by Huizar taints all of the counts against the company. When based on bribery, conviction for honest-services fraud requires proof of the bribe-giver’s intent to enter a quid pro quo. But the bribery offense does not require an agreement to enter a quid pro quo * This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. USA V. SHEN ZHEN NEW WORLD I, LLC 3

with the public official when the defendant is the bribe-giver. A defendant offering a benefit to a public official with the intent to influence any official act in exchange suffices. Viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, the evidence at trial was more than sufficient to support conviction for honest-services fraud. The same evidence also supports Shen Zhen’s convictions for federal- program bribery and Travel Act violations, which entail the same or more permissive mens rea requirements. The panel held that the district court did not err in its jury instructions. Shen Zhen argued that the district court denied it a fair trial by refusing to give its proposed instruction on a quid pro quo. The panel wrote that the proposed instruction was not legally sound because bribery does not require an agreement to enter a quid pro quo with the public official; that Shen Zhen’s reliance on campaign-contribution precedents does not alter this conclusion; that a proposed instruction requiring the jury to find that Huizar clearly identified “specified official acts” was also legally unsound; and that a proposed instruction on the difference between unlawful bribery and “lawful ingratiation” was unnecessary. The panel affirmed Shen Zhen’s Travel Act convictions. Shen Zhen argued that California’s bribery statutes are too broad to serve as predicates under the “categorical approa