UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 22-50046

Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 2:21-cr-00296- v. JFW-1 EDGAR HERNANDEZ LEMUS, AKA Edgar Hernanez Lemus, OPINION

Defendant-Appellant.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 22-50051

Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 2:21-cr-00296- v. JFW-3 JUNIOR ALMENDAREZ MARTINEZ,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Central District of California John F. Walter, District Judge, Presiding 2 UNITED STATES V. LEMUS

Argued and Submitted December 5, 2023 Pasadena, California

Filed March 5, 2024

Before: Kim McLane Wardlaw, Kenneth K. Lee, and Patrick J. Bumatay, Circuit Judges.

Opinion by Judge Bumatay

SUMMARY*

Criminal Law

The panel affirmed convictions for conspiracy under 18 U.S.C. § 371; aiding and abetting the receipt of the proceeds of extortion under 18 U.S.C. §§ 880, 2(a); and receiving the proceeds of extortion under § 880. Defendants argued that a § 880 conviction requires knowledge that the money at issue was obtained from extortion. Reviewing for plain error, the panel rejected this contention. The panel held that § 880 only requires knowledge that the proceeds were “unlawfully obtained.” In a concurrently filed memorandum disposition, the panel addressed other issues, affirming except as to the restitution amount which it vacated and remanded for recalculation.

* This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader. UNITED STATES V. LEMUS 3

COUNSEL Ethan A. Balogh (argued) and Narai Sugino, Balogh & Co. APC, San Francisco, California; Michael A. Brown (argued), Spertus Landes & Umhofer LLP, Los Angeles, California; for Defendants-Appellants. Rajesh R. Srinivasan (argued), Joseph D. Axelrad, Jeffrey M. Chemerinsky, and Kathy Yu, Assistant United States Attorneys, Criminal Appeals Section; Bram M. Alden, Assistant United States Attorney, Criminal Appeals Section Chief; E. Martin Estrada, United States Attorney; United States Attorney’s Office, Central District of California, Los Angeles, California; for Plaintiff-Appellee.

OPINION BUMATAY, Circuit Judge:

Federal law criminalizes receiving the proceeds of extortion. See 18 U.S.C. § 880. But must a person know that the money or property at issue was in fact payment from extortion? Or is it sufficient for a person to know that the money was somehow “unlawfully obtained”? Id. In this case, Edgar Hernandez Lemus and Junior Almendarez Martinez (collectively, “Defendants”) ask us to resolve these questions. Based on its plain language, we conclude that § 880 requires only that the government prove knowledge that the proceeds were “unlawfully obtained.” And so we affirm Defendants’ convictions, rejecting their § 880 mens rea arguments. In a concurrently filed memorandum disposition, we address Defendants’ other challenges to their 4 UNITED STATES V. LEMUS

convictions and sentences. We affirm on those grounds as well except we vacate the restitution amount and remand for recalculation. I. This case centers on a conspiracy to kidnap Mexican nationals seeking to enter the United States illegally and extort ransom payments from their families. The extortion plot followed a pattern. The victims would arrive in Mexicali, Mexico—right on the border with the United States—looking to enter the Unite