[NOT FOR PUBLICATION-NOT TO BE CITED AS PRECEDENT]
United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
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No. 99-2200
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
LUIS A. CASTRO-MORALES,
Defendant, Appellant.
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APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Juan M. Pérez-Giménez, U.S. District Judge]
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Before
Boudin, Chief Judge,
Torruella and Lynch, Circuit Judges.
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Carmen R. DeJesus for appellant.
Michelle Morales, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom
Guillermo Gil, United States Attorney, and Jorge E. Vega-Pacheco,
Assistant United States Attorney, were on brief for appellee.
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October 26, 2001
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Per Curiam. Luis A. Castro-Morales appeals his
conviction for conspiring to defraud the United States
Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), for aiding and abetting
in the embezzlement or conversion of funds from the VA and for
aiding and abetting in the embezzlement or conversion of funds
which came into his control as an employee of the VA. 18
U.S.C. §§ 2, 641, 654 (1994 & Supp. II 1996). The sole claim
presented by Castro-Morales on appeal is that the district
court judge erred in not giving a multiple conspiracy
instruction, rather than a single conspiracy instruction, to
the jury.
Castro-Morales waived this argument by not proposing
such an instruction to the trial judge, joining a request to
do so, or objecting to the trial court's refusal to give such
an instruction. Our decision is mandated by our prior holding
in an appeal brought by Castro-Morales's two co-defendants.
United States v. Leon-Delfis, 203 F.3d 103, 113 (1st Cir.
2000). In that case, we held that Castro-Morales's co-
defendant, Santiago-Sanchez, had waived his right to object to
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the failure to give a multiple conspiracy instruction where a
third co-defendant, Leon-Delfis, had asked for the instruction
and objected to the failure to give the instruction, but
Santiago-Sanchez had not joined the instruction and there was
no indication that the district court had stated that an
objection from one defendant would be considered an objection
for all defendants. Castro-Morales is in the same situation
as Santiago-Sanchez. It is worth adding that the claim of
error as to the need for multiple conspiracy instruction is
not a strong one and there was certainly no plain error in the
court's failure to give the instruction.
Affirmed.
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