193293P.pdf   05/20/2022  United States  v.  Pawinee Unpradit
   U.S. Court of Appeals Case No:  19-3293
                          and No:  20-1825
                          and No:  19-3313
                          and No:  19-3701
                          and No:  20-2905
                          and No:  20-3051
                          and No:  21-1341
   U.S. District Court for the District of Minnesota   
   [PUBLISHED] [Colloton, Author, with Shepherd and Kelly, Circuit Judges] 
   Criminal case - Criminal law and sentencing. Defendants participated in a 
   large sex-trafficking conspiracy which brought women from Thailand to 
   engage in commercial sex activities in the U.S. There was no variance 
   between the conspiracy charged in the indictment and the conspiracy proved 
   at trial, and there was sufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to find 
   that defendants Unpradit and Thinram joined a single ongoing conspiracy to 
   commit sex trafficking; challenges to jury instructions, including an 
   instruction on the elements of conspiracy and an instruction on willful 
   blindness, rejected; evidence was sufficient to support defendant 
   Ruttanamongkongul's conviction for conspiracy to commit sex trafficking; 
   evidence was sufficient to support defendant Morris's conviction for a 
   substantive count of sex trafficking; assuming for the sake of analysis 
   that Morris properly preserved his venue challenge,venue on the 
   substantive count of sex trafficking was proper in the District of 
   Minnesota; challenges to base offense level calculations for conspiracy to 
   commit sex trafficking under 18 U.S.C. Sec. 1594 rejected as this court 
   has previously held that level 34, which was used here, is the proper base 
   offense level - see U.S. v. Carter, 960 F.3d 1007 (8th Cir. 2020); 
   restitution and forfeiture findings affirmed; Brady challenge rejected; 
   claims of prosecutorial misconduct rejected; claim of ineffective 
   assistance of counsel rejected; defendant Wanless was not entitled to an 
   evidentiary hearing on the forfeiture issues.