United States v. Ngono


17-3194-cr United States v. Ngono UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE SECOND CIRCUIT SUMMARY ORDER Rulings by summary order do not have precedential effect. Citation to a summary order filed on or after January 1, 2007, is permitted and is governed by Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 32.1 and this Court’s Local Rule 32.1.1. When citing a summary order in a document filed with this Court, a party must cite either the Federal Appendix or an electronic database (with the notation “summary order”). A party citing a summary order must serve a copy of it on any party not represented by counsel. At a stated term of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, held at the Thurgood Marshall United States Courthouse, 40 Foley Square, in the City of New York, on the 3rd day of February, two thousand twenty. PRESENT: PIERRE N. LEVAL, JOSÉ A. CABRANES, RAYMOND J. LOHIER, JR., Circuit Judges. UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, 17-3194-cr v. ANDRE MARIE NGONO, AKA Luc O. Ndi, AKA Luc Owono Ndi, AKA Luc Ndi, Defendant-Appellant. FOR APPELLEE: Michael D. Longyear and Karl Metzner, Assistant United States Attorneys for Geoffrey S. Berman, United States Attorney for the Southern District of New York, New York, NY. FOR DEFENDANT-APPELLANT: André Marie Ngono, pro se, Folkston, GA. 1 Appeal from a September 27, 2017 judgment of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York (Deborah A. Batts, Judge). UPON DUE CONSIDERATION WHEREOF, IT IS HEREBY ORDERED, ADJUDGED, AND DECREED that the judgment of the District Court be and hereby is AFFIRMED. Defendant-Appellant André Marie Ngono (“Ngono”), pro se with standby counsel, was convicted of theft of government funds, aggravated identity theft, wire fraud, student financial aid fraud, and immigration fraud. The Government’s theory of the case was that shortly after Ngono, a citizen of Cameroon, arrived in the United States, he used the identity of Luc Ndi Owono to enroll in college and obtain federal student financial aid, unemployment insurance benefits, and immigration benefits under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program (“DACA”). Ngono testified that his name was “Luc Ndi,” and that he was given the name “André Ngono” by an international criminal slave trade organization which brought him to the United States and provided him with free housing and education in exchange for five years of his salary. Ngono, pro se on appeal, raises a number of issues challenging his conviction and sentence. We assume the parties’ familiarity with the underlying facts, the procedural history, and the issues on appeal. I. Ngono’s Closing Argument Ngono claims he was denied “the right to [a] closing argument” when the District Court unexpectedly reduced the duration of his summation from one hour to fifteen minutes, and that its interruptions and sidebar conferences during his closing denied him a fair trial and vitiated his defense. “‘A district court has broad discretion in limiting the scope of summation, and a court’s decision [to do so] … will not be ...

Original document
Source: All recent Immigration Decisions In All the U.S. Courts of Appeals