United States v. Ivette Maria Portela Martinez

── United States v. Ivette Maria Portela Martinez ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Date: May 07, 2026 Category: NEW USCA11 Case: 23-14023 Document: 152-1 Date Filed: 05/07/2026 Page: 1 of 3 NOT FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 23-14023 ____________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus IVETTE MARIA PORTELA MARTINEZ, MIGUEL ANGEL MONTALVO VILLA, Defendants-Appellants. ____________________ Appeals from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 1:22-cr-20431-KMM-3 ____________________ Before ROSENBAUM, LAGOA, and MARCUS, Circuit Judges. PER CURIAM: Following a trial, a jury found Miguel Montalvo-Villa and Ivette Portela-Martinez guilty of conspiracy to commit wire fraud USCA11 Case: 23-14023 Document: 152-1 Date Filed: 05/07/2026 Page: 2 of 3 2 Opinion of the Court 23-14023 and wire fraud. The jury also found Montalvo-Villa guilty of mak- ing a false statement to a United States department or agency. The district court sentenced Montalvo-Villa to 71 months’ imprison- ment and Portela-Martinez to 46 months’ imprisonment. Mon- talvo-Villa and Portela-Martinez appeal their convictions, and Mon- talvo-Villa appeals his sentence. Altogether, Montalvo-Villa and Portela-Martinez raise five issues concerning their trial. Portela-Martinez asserts that the dis- trict court erred in denying her Rule 29 motion for judgment of acquittal because, she says, the evidence presented at trial was le- gally insufficient to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that she knowingly and willfully participated in a conspiracy to commit wire fraud and substantive wire fraud. She also contends the dis- trict court abused its discretion when it declined to admit the find- ings of the FDA’s investigation and when it declined to allow evi- dence about Garmendia’s past clinical work. And she urges that the court abused its discretion and violated her right to confronta- tion when it admitted the Actelion letter, which included hearsay. Montalvo-Villa joins Portela-Martinez’s evidentiary challenges. Be- sides these alleged errors, Portela-Martinez argues that the district court’s jury instructions improperly diminished the government’s burden of proof, and the cumulative effect of these several alleged errors resulted in a fundamentally unfair trial, in violation of the Fifth and Sixth Amendments. USCA11 Case: 23-14023 Document: 152-1 Date Filed: 05/07/2026 Page: 3 of 3 23-14023 Opinion of the Court 3 And Montalvo-Villa asserts that the district court drew an impermissible adverse inference from Montalvo-Villa’s silence at sentencing. After careful review and with the benefit of oral argument, we find no reversible error. So we affirm Montalvo-Villa’s and Por- tela-Martinez’s convictions and Montalvo-Villa’s sentence. AFFIRMED.