United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
No. 24-1049
UNITED STATES,
Appellee,
v.
GERMAINE VÉLEZ-RAMÍREZ,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF PUERTO RICO
[Hon. Gustavo A. Gelpí, U.S. Circuit Judge]
Before
Aframe, Lipez, and Dunlap,
Circuit Judges.
Tina Schneider, for appellant.
Marie Christine Amy, Assistant United States Attorney, with
whom W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney, and Juan Carlos
Reyes-Ramos, Assistant United States Attorney, Chief, Appellate
Division, were on brief, for appellee.
August 28, 2026
AFRAME, Circuit Judge. A jury convicted a member of the
Police of Puerto Rico's Drug Unit, Germaine Vélez-Ramírez
("Vélez"), for receiving a bribe in violation of 18 U.S.C.
§ 666(a)(1)(B), after he agreed to help someone he had arrested
avoid a criminal conviction in exchange for sex. Vélez now appeals
his conviction. Principally, he contends that there was
insufficient evidence for a reasonable jury to determine that
assisting this person avoid a conviction was worth at least $5,000,
a required element for a conviction under § 666(a)(1)(B). Vélez
also argues that the prosecution improperly referenced his
decision not to testify in violation of his Fifth Amendment right
against self-incrimination. We affirm Vélez's conviction.
SUFFICIENCY OF THE EVIDENCE
Vélez timely moved for an acquittal, asserting that
there was insufficient evidence to convict him on several elements
of § 666(a)(1)(B). See Fed. R. Crim. P. 29. The district court
denied the motion. On appeal, Vélez asserts only that the
government failed to prove the "transactional element" of
§ 666(a)(1)(B), which requires that the value of the government
"business" or "transaction" provided in exchange for the bribe
equals or exceeds $5,000. United States v. Acevedo-Hernández, 898
F.3d 150, 162 (1st Cir. 2018) (quoting United States v.
Bravo-Fernández, 722 F.3d 1, 12-13 (1st Cir. 2013)).
-2-We review de novo the denial of a motion for acquittal.
United States v. Abercrombie, 162 F.4th 47, 51 (1st Cir. 2025).
In so doing, we ask whether any reasonable jury could have found
that the evidence produced at trial, along with all reasonable
inferences viewed in the light most favorable to the government,
established the elements of the crime beyond a reasonable doubt.
United States v. Ridolfi, 768 F.3d 57, 61 (1st Cir. 2013) (quoting
United States v. Rodríguez, 735 F.3d 1, 7 (1st Cir. 2013)). We do
not review these pieces of evidence and inferences "separately";
rather, we look at their "sum." Acevedo-Hernández, 898 F.3d at
161. We will uphold the verdict so long as any "plausible
rendition" of the record supports it. United States v.
Deschambault, 176 F.4th 9, 30 (1st Cir. 2026) (quoting United
States v. Díaz-Colón, 163 F.4th 1, 16 (1st Cir. 2025)). Consistent
with these principles, we recite the trial evidence in the light
most favorable to the government. Abercrombie, 162 F.4th at 51.
On Friday, March 25, 2016, Vélez arrested Eleana
Arocho-Gadivia ("Arocho"), who was twenty-one years old at the
time, for possession of a marijuana cigarette. Officers then
brought Arocho to a local police station where they processed her
arrest, including by taking down her name and cell phone number.
Arocho was told to report to court the next week and then was
released later that night. But before Arocho left the station,
she spoke with Vélez, who told her that he would call her once he
-3-left work to talk about the criminal process awaiting her. This
was reassuring to Arocho. At the time, Arocho worked part time as
an assistant nurse earning eight dollars an hour while she
completed her undergraduate studies to become a full-time nurse.
She was worried that an arrest would affect her ability to pursue
this career path. Vélez's offer to help reduced her concerns.
Within the next day, Arocho and Vélez spoke a few times,
sometimes in person and other times over the phone. During these
conversations, Vélez told Arocho what she should expect from the
criminal process. He also told her that he would help get her
case dismissed. Arocho recognized that "nothing was for free," so
she asked Vélez what he wanted in return. Vélez responded that
the two of them "were adults and that [Arocho] knew already what
he wanted." Arocho understood Vélez to be asking for sex.
On the evening of March 26, the day after her arrest,
Arocho got into Velez’s car and the two drove off together to an
open area where they were alone. There, they had sex in Vélez’s
car. Vélez then dropped Arocho at a Burger King, where she
contacted her friends to pick her up. By the time one of her
friends arrived, Arocho was "stressed" and "crying," as though
"something bad emotionally [had] happened to her." Arocho later
explained that she would not have had sex with Vélez absent his
offer to obtain the dismissal of her criminal case.
-4-The following week, Arocho went to court for her
scheduled hearing. Arocho did not hire a lawyer or bring money
for bail because she expected that Vélez would have arranged for
the case to be dismissed. Instead, Vélez testified at the hearing
that the case should proceed. The court then allowed the case to
continue and set Arocho's bond at $100. This upset Arocho -- Vélez
had not held up his end of the bargain and Arocho remained
concerned that a criminal conviction would affect her career
prospects. Arocho would later testify at Vélez's trial that she
would have paid over $10,000 (indeed, over $100,000 if she could
have afforded it) to avoid a conviction.
Arocho continued to have hearings in her criminal case
for a little over a year. At first, she was assigned free legal
counsel from Legal Aid. But, after that attorney recommended that
Arocho plead guilty, Arocho hired a private attorney, whom she had
to pay. Once Arocho hired a private attorney, there were a total
of seventeen court dates set. The private attorney charged $400
per hearing. And each time Arocho appeared, she had to miss work.
But some of these court dates were rescheduled because the
prosecution was not prepared.
As it turns out, Vélez was responsible for many of these
delays as he was trying to assist Arocho. Sometimes, he failed to
show up to testify. Other times, the prosecution could not move
forward because Vélez was trying to tamper with evidence related
-5-to the marijuana cigarette that formed the basis of Arocho's
arrest. In fact, Vélez admitted to William Burgos-Vélez
("Burgos"), a police department colleague, that he was causing the
delays to uphold his end of the bargain with Arocho.
On April 10, 2017, Arocho pleaded guilty. As a result,
she had to pay a $1,000 fine and complete community service and a
diversion course. Once Arocho met these requirements, her
conviction was reclassified to a misdemeanor, and six months later,
the conviction was removed from her criminal record. Arocho had
to pay her attorney an additional $400 to have her record expunged.
Eventually, federal authorities became aware of Vélez's
conduct. Burgos, who was also a Federal Bureau of Investigations
("FBI") informant, told federal authorities the information he had
received from Vélez. Separately, Arocho told her attorney about
her interactions with Vélez. Later, Arocho spoke with federal
authorities and participated in grand jury proceedings regarding
Vélez's conduct. Vélez was then indicted, tried, and convicted
for violating 18 U.S.C. § 666(a)(1)(B).
Section 666(a)(1)(B) prohibits government officials
from "corruptly solicit[ing] . . . or accept[ing] . . . anything
of value from any person," if the official "inten[ds] to be
influenced or rewarded in connection with any [governmental]
business [or] transaction . . . involving any thing of value of
$5,000 or more." A conviction under this provision also mandates
-6-that the official work for an "organization, government, or agency"
that receives more than $10,000 in federal funds in a particular
year, a requirement that the government proved at trial. 18 U.S.C.
§ 666(b). On appeal, the crux of Vélez's sufficiency challenge is
that the government failed to produce adequate evidence that the
value of the government "business" or "transaction" -- here,
Arocho's ability to avoid criminal proceedings, a conviction, and
having a criminal history -- was at least $5,000. 18 U.S.C.
§ 666(a)(1)(B).
This case presents a wrinkle that differentiates it from
many cases addressing the transactional element of § 666(a)(1)(B).
The most straightforward category of cases dealing with this
element occurs when the business or transaction that a government
official provides is a government payment to the bribe-giver. For
example, when an official accepts a bribe to award a government
contract to the bribe-giver, the transactional element is
satisfied when the contract provides the bribe-giver with at least
$5,000. A second more straightforward category of case occurs
when a government official provides an intangible business or
transaction that is not easily valued -- for example, increased
freedom for an individual on supervised relief -- in exchange for
a bribe that is easily valued -- for example, earrings with an
established market value and a bag full of cash. See United States
v. Townsend, 630 F.3d 1003, 1008-09, 1011-12 (11th Cir. 2011). In
-7-those circumstances, the value of the bribe may stand as a proxy
for the value of the business or transaction rendered because it
serves as an estimate of "how much a person in the market would be
willing to pay" for that intangible service. Id. at 1011 (quoting
United States v. Marmolejo, 89 F.3d 1185, 1194 (5th Cir. 1996);
see also Bravo-Fernández, 722 F.3d at 13.
This case falls into a third category where neither the
government business or transaction nor the bribe has an easily
ascertainable value, i.e., a dropped criminal charge and a sexual
encounter. Still, there are methods to approximate the value of
such transactions in these more nebulous circumstances. Most
notably, to value the government business or transaction, courts
have relied on the "value of the benefit the bribe-giver will
receive if the bribe is successful." United States v. Owens, 697
F.3d 657, 659 (7th Cir. 2012); see also United States v. Delgado,
984 F.3d 435, 448 (5th Cir. 2021). For example, in United States
v. Curescu, a developer provided $7,000 to a middleman who pocketed
most of the money for himself and then paid a municipal plumbing
inspector $1,000 to sign off on unlicensed plumbing that another
party had performed for the developer. 674 F.3d 735, 738 (7th
Cir. 2012). A jury convicted the plumbing inspector. Id. at 737.
In affirming the conviction, the court of appeals determined that
the value of the inspector's rubber stamp exceeded $5,000. Id. at
743. The court did not look to the amount of the bribe that the
-8-inspector received, which was only $1,000. Id. Rather, it looked
to the benefit that the developer received from not having to redo
the plumbing. Id.
We rely primarily on this latter method of valuation,
which is consistent with the district court's unchallenged jury
instruction explaining that "'value' means the face, part, market
value, or cost price . . . whichever is greater," and emphasizing
that "intangible items, such as . . . sexual services" could be
used to measure value. (Emphasis added.) Accordingly, we ask
whether there was sufficient evidence that resolving the criminal
charge by dismissal was worth at least $5,000 to Arocho under the
circumstances she faced. In so doing, we are mindful of the
"wisdom of the jury" regarding how to value "difficult-to-quantify
benefits," such as Arocho's "liberty interest[]" and a clean
record. Delgado, 984 F.3d at 448.
At the time she was arrested, Arocho was earning eight
dollars an hour and studying to become a full-time nurse with
increased earning potential. She feared that a criminal record
would prevent her from obtaining this career advancement and stated
that she would be willing to pay $10,000 (and even $100,000 if she
had such funds) to avoid this outcome. Further, Arocho's response
and attitude toward her encounter with Vélez lends credibility to
her subjective valuation -- she would not have had sex with Vélez
absent his offer to help her and their encounter left her in tears.
-9-This trial evidence, along with reasonable inferences and
credibility determinations made in the light most favorable to the
government, see Acevedo-Hernández, 898 F.3d at 161, would permit
a reasonable jury to conclude that Arocho, given her young age,
expected her career earnings would increase by far more than $5,000
if she became a full-time nurse and that a drug-related conviction
would likely jeopardize this potential financial gain. And her
subjective valuation (at least $10,000) of gaining dismissal of
the charge against her, along with her decision to put herself
through an emotionally taxing event, support the jury's conclusion
that the value to Arocho of avoiding a criminal record for a
drug-related charge was at least $5,000. That is to say, Arocho's
subjective valuation, which was corroborated by objective indicia
supporting that valuation, supports the jury verdict.
Moreover, this is not a case where there was evidence
only of Arocho's subjective valuation. Throughout her criminal
proceedings, Arocho accrued legal fees and fines that she could
have avoided had Vélez successfully gotten her case dismissed.
Again, there were seventeen hearings scheduled in Arocho's case
after she hired private counsel, and private counsel charged her
$400 per court appearance. Arocho also had to pay a $1,000 fine,
an additional $400 to her attorney to have her criminal record
expunged, and a $100 bond. Assuming Arocho attended all seventeen
hearings (a point to which we return below) these costs amount to
-10-$8,300. And on top of these costs, each time that Arocho had to
attend a hearing, she missed work, where she would have earned
eight dollars an hour.
Vélez makes several unavailing arguments in response.
First, he asserts that Arocho's subjective valuation -- that she
would pay at least $10,000 to avoid a criminal record -- should
not be used as a proxy for the bribe's value. He contends that
relying on Arocho's "personal assessment of value, without
more . . . would effectively vitiate" the transactional element.
While that sometimes may be true, the argument does not describe
this case. As noted, the government relied on several pieces of
evidence to prove its point, not just Arocho's "personal
assessment." A reasonable jury could have linked Arocho's
subjective valuation with her concerns for her career and future
earning potential to conclude that Arocho understood that she had
much to lose given her present circumstances. It also could have
considered Arocho's $1,000 fine, $400 expungement fee, $100 bond,
and other calculable expenditures related to her hearing schedule
and hourly wages. We need not decide whether Vélez's conviction
could be sustained had the government relied solely on Arocho's
subjective valuation because that is not the situation we face.
Next, Vélez contends that many of the costs submitted as
evidence at trial were artificially inflated. Specifically, Vélez
asserts that (1) Arocho had so many scheduled court proceedings
-11-because his failure to show up in court and his tampering with the
evidence stalled the prosecution, and (2) Arocho would have
incurred substantially fewer costs had she stuck with her Legal
Aid attorney. He contends that these costs increased the value of
the bribe after it was initially accepted, that he could not have
anticipated that change, and that the costs therefore should not
be considered when determining the value of the transaction.
This argument does not work for several reasons. As an
initial matter, we do not see why Vélez's tampering with evidence
and his failure to appear in court should work to his benefit.
We also do not see why Vélez should benefit from Arocho's decision
to exercise her right to select her preferred counsel. Vélez had
no reason to anticipate that Arocho would choose a Legal Aid
lawyer or otherwise avoid attorney's fees. So, under the logic
of Vélez's own argument, which hinges on his expectation of
Arocho's costs, it would not make sense to reduce Arocho's
attorney's fees to zero.
Moreover, valuation methods that look to the value
derived by a bribe-giver inherently permit valuation based on
information that may be unknown to the official when he accepts
the bribe. Here, for example, Vélez could have known in the
abstract that Arocho wanted to avoid a criminal charge but not
specifically that she feared that the charge would affect her
-12-career earning potential. That fact would not insulate Vélez from
culpability.
In any event, our prior cases have assessed the value of
a business or transaction using information that was not known
when the deal was struck. In Acevedo-Hernández, for example, a
Puerto Rico trial judge was initially bribed with offers of jobs
for his family members and an appellate judgeship, which came with
a salary raise. 898 F.3d at 155. In assessing the value of the
bribe, we considered not only these expected benefits, but also
restaurant and bar tabs, along with labor costs associated with
home improvements, that did not arise until after the initial
agreement. Id. at 164.
Finally, Vélez points to several lines of testimony
suggesting that not all seventeen hearings occurred due to
rescheduling. This, he continues, means that Arocho likely spent
less on legal fees than the full $8,300 identified above. The
record does not reveal how many of the hearings were cancelled
without Arocho making an appearance, only that seventeen were
scheduled. Nevertheless, she clearly made some appearances,
including for a probable cause hearing in August 2016, and for her
sentencing in April 2017. At the minimum, the jury could have
inferred that Arocho had to pay attorney's fees of some amount in
addition to the fine and the bond that she paid, and further, that
this sum numbered somewhere in the thousands.
-13-But even if a jury could not have reasonably concluded
that Arocho's legal fees were at least $5,000, Vélez's arguments,
viewed collectively, fail for a more fundamental reason. The
government was tasked with demonstrating the value of an intangible
good that defies precise or readily quantifiable
valuation -- Arocho's ability to avoid the immediate and long-term
burdens associated with the criminal process and a criminal
history. To do so, it presented evidence related to Arocho's
career earning potential, evidence that Arocho incurred legal
fees, evidence that Arocho missed work to attend hearings, and
evidence of the emotional cost that Arocho suffered. None of these
pieces of evidence are literal proxies for the cost of avoiding
the criminal process or a criminal conviction; but together, they
paint a picture of that value. See Delgado, 984 F.3d at 448-49.
Vélez's attempts to question Arocho's subjective
valuation, reduce the appropriate cost of her attorney, and trim
the number of hearings Arocho attended do not meaningfully
undermine that image. Though the government could have offered
stronger evidence -- for example, explicit testimony about how
Arocho's career earning potential would be affected by a criminal
record or receipts for Arocho's attorney's fees -- we cannot say
that the "sum" of the evidence was so trifling that "no rational
jury could have found [Vélez] guilty beyond a reasonable doubt."
Acevedo-Hernández, 898 F.3d at 161 (quoting United States v.
-14-Acosta-Colón, 741 F.3d 179, 191 (1st Cir. 2013)). Accordingly, we
reject Vélez's sufficiency-of-the-evidence argument.
RIGHT AGAINST SELF-INCRIMINATION
Vélez's second challenge on appeal is that the
government improperly commented on his failure to testify in its
rebuttal closing argument. A comment of this sort can violate a
defendant's Fifth Amendment right not to "be compelled in any
criminal case to be a witness against himself," Const. amend. V.
See Gomes v. Brady, 564 F.3d 532, 537 (1st Cir. 2009). We reproduce
the alleged violation in its entirety, including the emphases from
Vélez's brief:
But, you know, I want you to consider, in a
situation like this, where a bribe is offered
and a bribe is received, how common or
uncommon is it that a person either making the
bribe or receiving the bribe is going to post
it on Facebook or Instagram, or any other
social media, is going to write somewhere for
everyone to see, or whether those agreements
happen in secret between the two parties, and
usually nobody knows about what happened there
except those two people?
Sometimes we learn about it from one of those
people because they speak up. And in this
case, you may consider whether you learned
about what happened between the two because of
one person or because [of] the two people who
were involved in that agreement and
conversation? You heard from [Arocho], how
she said that they agreed to that before
having sex. I even asked her, Did you have
sex because you found him handsome? She said
no. She said more than once, I had sex with
him because he promised me to help me with my
case. And I asked, What did that mean? To
-15-get it thrown out. So [Arocho] was one of the
two parties involved in that agreement. And
I ask you whether the evidence that the United
States presented to you that [Vélez] himself
said that weighs to prove that element of the
crime.
Vélez did not object to this statement at trial and so,
as he concedes, our review is for plain error. See Fed. R. Crim.
P. 52(b). Among other requirements, this standard of review
mandates that there was a "clear or obvious error." United States
v. Bruno-Cotto, 119 F.4th 201, 206 (1st Cir. 2024). There was
not.
As is often the case with challenges of this type, some
context helps. See, e.g., United States v. Vazquez-Larrauri, 778
F.3d 276, 286 (1st Cir. 2015) (citing United States v. Sepulveda,
15 F.3d, 1161, 1187 (1st Cir. 1993)). In his closing statement,
Vélez argued that the government failed to show that he agreed to
help get Arocho's criminal case dismissed. On rebuttal, the
government made the above-quoted statement, explaining that
bribe-takers rarely announce publicly their crimes but that the
jury could still convict because it had heard from the bribe-giver,
Arocho. The government then informed the jury that it had heard
corroborating testimony from Burgos, the FBI informant who had
stated that Vélez told him about the bribe.
These statements did not obviously leverage Vélez's
decision not to testify at trial. Instead, "assigning ordinary
-16-words their most natural meaning," the government's rebuttal
highlighted proof to fill an evidentiary gap to which Vélez had
pointed. Sepulveda, 15 F.3d at 1187. In other words, the
government was emphasizing evidence that was presented, not the
absence of evidence resulting from Vélez's silence. Given that
the government's rebuttal was not "manifestly intended or was of
such character that the jury would naturally and necessarily take
it to be a comment on the failure of the accused to testify," we
fail to see a clear or obvious error. United States v.
Laboy-Delgado, 84 F.3d 22, 31 (1st Cir. 1996) (quoting United
States v. Lilly, 983 F.2d 300, 307 (1st Cir. 1992)).
Affirmed.
-17-