Case: 18-12198 Date Filed: 04/25/2019 Page: 1 of 17 [DO NOT PUBLISH] IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT ________________________ No. 18-12198 Non-Argument Calendar ________________________ D.C. Docket No. 1:14-cr-20221-PAS-2 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus JUAN ALEJANDRO RODRIGUEZ CUYA, Defendant-Appellant. ________________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida ________________________ (April 25, 2019) Before WILLIAM PRYOR, BRANCH and JULIE CARNES, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Case: 18-12198 Date Filed: 04/25/2019 Page: 2 of 17 Juan Alejandro Rodriguez Cuya appeals pro se the denial of his motion for a new trial following his convictions for conspiracy, 18 U.S.C. § 1349, mail and wire fraud, id. §§ 1341, 1343, and attempted extortion, id. § 1951(a), related to his and his mother’s use of their companies in Peru and Miami, Florida, to defraud Spanish-speaking residents of the United States. See Fed. R. Crim. P. 33. Rodriguez Cuya argued his newly-discovered evidence established that government witnesses Fernando Moio, Cinthya Guerrero, and Pia Silva testified falsely at trial. The district court ruled that Rodriguez Cuya’s evidence did not warrant a new trial and denied his request for an evidentiary hearing. We affirm. I. BACKGROUND We divide our background in two parts. First, we describe the scheme to defraud and the trial testimony of Moio, Guerrero, and Silva and other evidence that supported Rodriguez Cuya’s 26 convictions. Second, we describe Rodriguez Cuya’s motion for a new trial and its denial by the district court. A. Rodriguez Cuya’s Scheme to Defraud and Resulting Convictions The government presented testimony from Rodriguez Cuya’s employees and victims, bank records, email communications, recorded telephone conversations, and internal business records that established Rodriguez Cuya supervised his employees in Peru as they used scripts he had composed to extort money from victims by demanding they pay for fabricated orders by threatening them with 2 Case: 18-12198 Date Filed: 04/25/2019 Page: 3 of 17 bogus lawsuits, detentions, and seizures of property. United States v. Cuya, 724 F. App’x 720, 723–24 (11th Cir. 2018). After victims agreed to pay fictional “fees,” their calls were routed to Miami where his mother, Luzula, and her employees processed credit card payments. Id. at 723. Between October 2012 and January 2014, their conspiracy swindled over $2 million from more than 8,000 victims. Id. Moio, a telecommunications engineer, contracted with Rodriguez Cuya and Luzula to build an electronic database and telephone recording system shared by their Peru and Miami offices. Moio described discussions he had with Rodriguez Cuya and Luzula about the system, and he authenticated recordings of extortion calls and customer files catalogued on the system. Moio also recounted visiting the Peru office several times between 2010 and 2012 and observing Rodriguez Cuya in control of its operations, which was consistent with numerous emails Rodriguez Cuya sent identifying himself as the “Manager” of “Everglades.” Emails Moio exchanged with Luzula corroborated his testimony about his trips to Peru. On April 27, 2012, Luzula sent Moio an email asking “what time . . ...
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