United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 18-2133 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. JOMAR HERNÁNDEZ-ROMÁN, Defendant, Appellant. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO [Hon. Daniel R. Domínguez, U.S. District Judge] Before Lynch, Selya, and Lipez, Circuit Judges. Jason González-Delgado on brief for appellant. W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, Mariana E. Bauzá- Almonte, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate Division, and Alexander L. Alum, Assistant United States Attorney, on brief for appellee. December 1, 2020 SELYA, Circuit Judge. After a lengthy trial, a jury convicted defendant-appellant Jomar Hernández-Román of armed bank robbery and related crimes. Following the imposition of sentence, the defendant appeals. Concluding, as we do, that he is grasping at straws, we affirm the judgment below. I. BACKGROUND We sketch the relevant facts and travel of the case, taking those facts in the light most congenial with the verdict. See, e.g., United States v. Santiago, 83 F.3d 20, 23 (1st Cir. 1996); United States v. Taylor, 54 F.3d 967, 971 (1st Cir. 1995). On November 29, 2014, three armed individuals robbed a Banco Popular branch in Bayamón, Puerto Rico, making off with more than $64,000. In an attempt to distract the authorities, they had dropped packages containing fake bombs at ATMs outside of two other banks (one at Lomas Verde and one at Bayamón City Hall). Toward the end of the next month, the authorities detained the defendant. While in custody, he stated that on the day of the robbery, he and a friend ran some errands and went shopping for some sneakers. But this was not his first shopping trip: it turned out that four days earlier, he and an alleged coconspirator, José Padilla-Galarza (Padilla), had gone to two Party City stores and a Home Depot. In the course of this excursion, Padilla purchased various artifacts, including black gloves and fake facial hair, which a jury could reasonably have - 2 - concluded were used by the robbers.1 Video surveillance recordings from the stores' cameras corroborated these purchases. As the interview progressed, the defendant confessed. He admitted that he had hosted multiple meetings at his home, during which the plot to rob the bank was hatched. He also admitted that he had surveilled the bank on behalf of the conspirators; that he knew of the scheme to deploy fake bombs to divert the attention of the authorities; and that, after the robbery, he had returned a shotgun used by the robbers to Padilla. Another witness corroborated the fact that planning meetings had taken place at the defendant's home. In due season, a federal grand jury sitting in the District of Puerto Rico returned a five-count indictment that charged the defendant, Padilla, and three others with conspiracy to commit bank robbery (count 1), see 18 U.S.C. § 371; armed bank robbery (count 2), see id. § 2113(a); conspiracy to commit Hobbs Act robbery (counts 3 and 4), see id. § 1951(a); and using, carrying or brandishing firearms ...
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