United States v. Perez-Otero

── United States v. Perez-Otero ── Court: Court of Appeals for the First Circuit Date: May 15, 2026 Category: General United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 24-1223 UNITED STATES, Appellee, v. ÁNGEL PÉREZ-OTERO, Defendant, Appellant. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO [Hon. Aida M. Delgado-Colón, U.S. District Judge] Before Barron, Chief Judge, Thompson and Gelpí, Circuit Judges. José R. Olmo-Rodríguez for appellant. David M. Lieberman, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice, with whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico, Myriam Y. Fernández-González, Assistant United States Attorney, Antoinette T. Bacon, Supervisory Official, Criminal Division, and Nicholas W. Cannon, Attorney, Public Integrity Section, were on brief, for appellee. May 15, 2026  BARRON, Chief Judge. Following a six-day trial in the United States District Court for the District of Puerto Rico, a jury found Ángel Pérez-Otero ("Pérez"), the former mayor of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, guilty of conspiracy to commit federal-program bribery, federal-program bribery and/or aiding and abetting the same, and extortion under color of official right. The District Court sentenced Pérez to sixty months of imprisonment for the first of his three convictions and sixty-three months of imprisonment for each of his other convictions. The sentences were to be served concurrently. Pérez challenges his convictions on the grounds that there was insufficient evidence presented at trial, a defect in the indictment, a prejudicial variance, improper instructions given to the jury, and a failure by the District Court to protect against jury bias. He also challenges the procedural and substantive reasonableness of his sentences. We affirm. I. On December 8, 2021, a grand jury in the District of Puerto Rico indicted Pérez on three counts. The first count was for conspiracy to accept bribes and kickbacks, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 371. The second count was for federal program bribery and/or aiding and abetting the same, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B) and 18 U.S.C. § 2. The third count was for extortion under color of official right, in violation of 18 U.S.C. - 2 - § 1951.1 The indictment alleged that while Pérez was the elected mayor of Guaynabo, Puerto Rico, he used his power over that municipality's contracting process to steer and maintain public contracts in favor of Oscar Santamaría-Torres ("Santamaría"), the owner of a construction company, in exchange for payments from Santamaría. On January 9, 2023, Pérez filed a motion to dismiss the indictment for reasons that we will address in the course of our analysis of the merits of his challenges on appeal. The District Court denied the motion on February 28, 2023. Trial began on March 13, 2023, and, nine days later, the jury found Pérez guilty of each of the three counts for which he was charged. On April 5, 2023, Pérez moved for a judgment of acquittal pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29(c). The District Court denied the motion on February 7, 2024, and proceeded to sentence Pérez to sixty months of imprisonment for his conviction on count one and sixty-three months of imprisonment for his convictions on counts two and three, respectively, with the sentences to be served concurrently. The District Court also sentenced Pérez to three years of supervised release for his 1 The indictment