NOT FOR PUBLICATION FILED UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS AUG 23 2018 MOLLY C. DWYER, CLERK U.S. COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, No. 16-50180 Plaintiff-Appellee, D.C. No. 3:15-cr-00499-BEN-1 v. SERGEYI BAZAR, AKA Sergio Bazar, MEMORANDUM* Defendant-Appellant. Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of California Roger T. Benitez, District Judge, Presiding Argued and Submitted November 6, 2017 Pasadena, California Before: GILMAN,** WARDLAW, and BERZON,1 Circuit Judges. * This disposition is not appropriate for publication and is not precedent except as provided by Ninth Circuit Rule 36-3. ** The Honorable Ronald Lee Gilman, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit, sitting by designation. 1 This case was submitted to a panel that included Judge Stephen R. Reinhardt. Following Judge Reinhardt’s death, Judge Berzon was drawn by lot to replace him. Ninth Circuit General Order 3.2.h. Judge Berzon has read the briefs, reviewed the record, and listened to oral argument. Sergeyi Bazar appeals his convictions for two counts of sex trafficking by fraud, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a), and one count of inducement to travel in commerce for prostitution, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2422(a), arising from his massage business in San Diego that offered “happy ending” massages.2 We review de novo the denial of Bazar’s Fed. R. Crim. Pro. 29 motion for judgment of acquittal, as well as whether the jury instructions omitted or misstated an element of a crime. See United States v. Niebla-Torres, 847 F.3d 1049, 1054 (9th Cir. 2017); United States v. Aldana, 878 F.3d 877, 880 (9th Cir. 2017); United States v. Kaplan, 836 F.3d 1199, 1214 (9th Cir. 2016). With regard to challenges to sufficiency of the evidence, “We ask whether, after viewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the prosecution, any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.” Niebla-Torres, 847 F.3d at 1054 (internal quotation marks omitted). We review for abuse of discretion the district court’s overruling of Bazar’s objection to alleged prosecutorial misconduct. See United States v. Tucker, 641 F.3d 1110, 1120 (9th Cir. 2011). We affirm. 1. The district court correctly instructed the jury and properly denied Bazar’s Rule 29 motion on his convictions for sex trafficking by fraud under 18 2 The parties stipulate that the term “happy ending massage” means “the manual stimulation of an adult male’s penis until ejaculation.” 2 U.S.C. § 1591(a). Section 1591(a) criminalizes, among other things, the recruiting of an individual knowing that fraud will be used to cause that person to engage in a “commercial sex act.” “Commercial sex act” is defined in section 1591(e)(3) as “any sex act, on account of which anything of value is given to or received by any person.” 18 U.S.C. § 1591(e)(3). Bazar argues that the term “commercial sex act” is limited to sexual intercourse for money. But the “ordinary” and “natural” meaning of “any sex act” includes ...
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