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[DO NOT PUBLISH]
IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT
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No. 15-15112
Non-Argument Calendar
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D.C. Docket No. 1:11-cr-20698-RNS-3
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
versus
FRANK J. BALLESTEROS,
Defendant-Appellant.
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Appeal from the United States District Court
for the Southern District of Florida
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(May 18, 2016)
Before WILSON, WILLIAM PRYOR and ROSENBAUM, Circuit Judges.
PER CURIAM:
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Frank J. Ballesteros appeals pro se the denial of a postconviction motion that
the district court treated as a motion to vacate. See 28 U.S.C. § 2255. We affirm.
Ballesteros filed a belated motion for a new trial based on prosecutorial
misconduct. The United States argued that Ballesteros’s motion should be
construed as a motion to vacate and that the motion was successive, untimely, and
procedurally defaulted. See id. The district court denied Ballesteros’s motion “for
[the] reasons set forth in [the] Government’s Response.”
Ballesteros’s motion was untimely whether it was treated as a motion for a
new trial or a motion to vacate. Ballesteros had to file a motion for a new trial
“grounded on newly discovered evidence . . . within 3 years” after his conviction
on April 10, 2012, see Fed. R. Crim. P. 33(b)(1), but he waited until August 28,
2015, more than four months after the deadline expired, to file his motion. And if
we construe his filing as a motion to vacate, Ballesteros failed to file his motion
within one year after “the date on which the judgment of conviction became final.”
28 U.S.C. § 2255(f)(1).
We deem abandoned any challenge that Ballesteros could have made to the
disposition of his motion. “While we read briefs filed by pro se litigants liberally,
issues not briefed on appeal by a pro se litigant are deemed abandoned.” Timson v.
Sampson, 518 F.3d 870, 874 (11th Cir. 2008). Ballesteros argues that his
allegations of prosecutorial misconduct are meritorious, but he fails to challenge
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the decisions to construe his motion as a motion to vacate or to deny his motion as
untimely and procedurally barred.
We AFFIRM the denial of Ballesteros’s motion.
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