United States v. Alberico Crespo

── United States v. Alberico Crespo ── Court: Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit Date: June 10, 2026 Category: NEW USCA11 Case: 24-10310 Document: 80-1 Date Filed: 06/10/2026 Page: 1 of 41 FOR PUBLICATION In the United States Court of Appeals For the Eleventh Circuit ____________________ No. 24-10310 ____________________ UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Plaintiff-Appellee, versus ALBERICO AHIAS CRESPO, Defendant-Appellant. ____________________ Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida D.C. Docket No. 1:21-cr-20005-DPG-1 ____________________ Before NEWSOM, LAGOA, and KIDD, Circuit Judges. LAGOA, Circuit Judge: Alberico Ahias Crespo was convicted of conspiracy to com- mit witness tampering, three counts of witness tampering, and con- spiracy to obstruct justice and was sentenced to 97 months’ impris- onment. Crespo now appeals his convictions and sentence. He USCA11 Case: 24-10310 Document: 80-1 Date Filed: 06/10/2026 Page: 2 of 41 2 Opinion of the Court 24-10310 argues that the district court erred by denying his motion to sup- press wiretap evidence, denying his motion for mistrial after the jury heard false testimony and a prosecutor’s bad-faith question, denying him recross-examination of a witness at trial, and admit- ting into evidence past bad acts. He also argues that the cumulative effect of these errors and other inadmissible evidence warrants re- versal of his conviction. Moreover, Crespo argues that the jury lacked sufficient evidence to convict him under Counts Five, Seven, Eight and Ten of the superseding indictment and that the district court erred by rejecting his proposed jury instruction on a good-faith defense. Finally, he argues that his sentence was miscal- culated. After careful consideration and with the benefit of oral argu- ment, we affirm Crespo’s convictions and sentence. I. FACTUAL AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY Crespo, a special agent with the United States Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”), was a member of the Southern District of Florida’s Health Care Fraud Strike Force (the “Strike Force”), an interagency task force focusing on health care fraud and related narcotics trafficking in South Florida. From November 2016 to July 2020, Crespo, Jorge Diaz Gutierrez, Anais Lorenzo, Dr. Rodolfo Gonzalez-Garcia, and Yan- dre Trujillo Hernandez, among others, participated in a scheme to obtain oxycodone and distribute it for street-level profit (the “Ox- ycodone Scheme”). Here’s how the scheme worked. Diaz acted USCA11 Case: 24-10310 Document: 80-1 Date Filed: 06/10/2026 Page: 3 of 41 24-10310 Opinion of the Court 3 as a “patient recruiter” who brought patient recruits, such as Lo- renzo, to clinics to be prescribed unnecessary oxycodone. Dr. Gon- zalez was a medical doctor at West Medical Office in Hialeah, Flor- ida (“West Medical”), one of the clinics where patient recruits were directed, who would prescribe the oxycodone. Diaz would then buy oxycodone from those patient recruits and sell the pills to indi- viduals, such as Trujillo, for street-level profit. Crespo, who was Diaz’s roommate and knew of Diaz’s oxycodone trafficking, wou