[00:00:00] Speaker 01:
Thank you, Your Honor, and good afternoon.

[00:00:03] Speaker 01:
If it pleases the Court, Brian McComas on behalf of Mr. Long-Angers, and I'd like to reserve four minutes time.

[00:00:10] Speaker 04:
Okay, watch your clock, please.

[00:00:12] Speaker 01:
I'm sorry, Your Honor?

[00:00:13] Speaker 04:
I said watch your clock.

[00:00:15] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:00:16] Speaker 01:
I'm going to focus solely on issue number one today, and in doing so, we aren't presenting a defense of the culture, the subculture as it's described, pimping and pandering.

[00:00:28] Speaker 01:
We're not presenting a defense of the words used by my client, both in text messages and recorded jailhouse calls, in the sense of the morality of those words.

[00:00:40] Speaker 01:
And we are focused extensively on what we perceive as a lack of nexus between coercion and commercial sexual acts, which is where we think that

[00:00:52] Speaker 01:
the evidence that was admitted and then stricken filled in the gaps to form the finding of reasonable beyond reasonable doubt by the jury.

[00:01:02] Speaker 01:
And in saying that I am conceding that there were acts of pimping in this case and those acts need a definition that is more akin to

[00:01:13] Speaker 01:
the state of California's Penal Code 266 or the United States Code 2421 in that they lacked the coercion necessary to get up to the 1591 finding.

[00:01:28] Speaker 02:
You mean the beating of the woman in her face lacked coercion?

[00:01:33] Speaker 01:
The nexus of that to a commercial sexual act did.

[00:01:38] Speaker 01:
And the reason that I think that it's important in this case to have considered the

[00:01:44] Speaker 01:
how the evidence that was stricken is because that act, that domestic violence, is unfortunately all too common in California in these cases.

[00:01:55] Speaker 01:
But it's not necessarily connected to making her go out and walk the street or making her turn over any money.

[00:02:03] Speaker 02:
It's just plain domestic violence, right?

[00:02:06] Speaker 01:
Well, it's an unfortunate reality of their relationship.

[00:02:09] Speaker 02:
Is the answer yes?

[00:02:10] Speaker 01:
The answer is yes, that is an act of domestic violence.

[00:02:14] Speaker 01:
And I don't think anyone could argue differently, but I think that the question here is when we have these dual intents, which goes back to the defense of the case.

[00:02:23] Speaker 04:
What was the independent evidence of coercion?

[00:02:28] Speaker 01:
The independent evidence as to victim one is these text messages, jail calls.

[00:02:36] Speaker 01:
She didn't testify though, so there wasn't testimony from the victim saying, I felt compelled to do this because I would be beaten.

[00:02:45] Speaker 01:
I felt compelled to do this because I would have no money.

[00:02:48] Speaker 01:
There's actually some text messages where she says, I'm free to go about this, blaming him for not managing their money in a way where they could get food and other elements that would normally be forthcoming in a case like this where the victims actually testify.

[00:03:09] Speaker 01:
Part of our question here as to how this stricken evidence mattered

[00:03:15] Speaker 01:
Because it does go to what the defense tried to present which is that there was a personal relationship But more interestingly is that the defense presented the origin story here, and we don't have that in this year Your whole argument is is that?

[00:03:33] Speaker 03:
Should the evidence should not have been admitted Correct correct in fact the judge ultimately struck it

[00:03:41] Speaker 03:
Correct?

[00:03:41] Speaker 03:
Correct.

[00:03:43] Speaker 03:
And then he admonished the jury to disregard the evidence, the testimony, and the documents that related to it.

[00:03:57] Speaker 03:
Oh, I guess it was a TB.

[00:04:00] Speaker 03:
Is that the correct one?

[00:04:01] Speaker 03:
Yes, sir.

[00:04:04] Speaker 03:
Later on during the trial, there was a proposed curative instruction that was a little bit more forceful, and the district court said, no, I'm not going to give that.

[00:04:14] Speaker 03:
He gave his standard.

[00:04:15] Speaker 03:
He admonished them, and then at the end, he again said, any evidence I told you that was stricken, you're disregarded, so that's to play any role.

[00:04:25] Speaker 03:
We presume that juries follow that instruction.

[00:04:29] Speaker 03:
Why shouldn't we do it?

[00:04:30] Speaker 03:
Why doesn't that apply here?

[00:04:32] Speaker 01:
Well, there is other evidence referring to TB that apparently didn't come within that instruction.

[00:04:37] Speaker 01:
There's both a jail recording saying her name, but also victim number three references a picture of her as a prostitute of my client.

[00:04:48] Speaker 01:
So not everything, and the recordings played in response to a question after the jury instructions.

[00:04:55] Speaker 01:
So not everything did come within that, those curative instructions.

[00:04:59] Speaker 03:
Well, what was wrong?

[00:05:02] Speaker 03:
The two items you just mentioned, why should they have been stricken as well?

[00:05:09] Speaker 01:
Well, I would say for the same reasons that none of this should have came in in the first place, which is the lack of foundation, a direct witness, tying CB.

[00:05:16] Speaker 04:
Were all those objections made?

[00:05:18] Speaker 04:
To the other evidence that you say did not come within the curative instruction?

[00:05:26] Speaker 01:
The objections weren't, but I believe that the proposed curative instruction would have covered all of that.

[00:05:32] Speaker 01:
The proposed curative instruction specifically referenced the evidence to be stricken and then said the reason, which is the more forceful reason we needed a curative.

[00:05:42] Speaker 02:
The instruction you admit was argumentative because it blamed the prosecution as having done something improper.

[00:05:49] Speaker 01:
Would have not proposed that first part of the sentence the second part I would have which it also said The evidence is to be stricken because it's not been proven to be related to mr. Long But it did have the argumentative position of the prosecution did something wrong Believe improper yes, and I don't think I defended that in my briefing But it was the whole instruction that was proposed to the judge wasn't it?

[00:06:14] Speaker 01:
There was a whole instruction proposed to the judge.

[00:06:17] Speaker 03:
And he just said I'm not going to give this.

[00:06:18] Speaker 01:
He did not give that.

[00:06:20] Speaker 01:
Right.

[00:06:22] Speaker 01:
And I recognize that it's an extraordinary case that gets a motion for new trial.

[00:06:27] Speaker 01:
And I recognize that, frankly, there isn't a case with active sexual trafficking where a new trial was granted that I can cite to this court.

[00:06:36] Speaker 01:
But to strike a balance between weighing the evidence and the credibility of witnesses and urging the court

[00:06:41] Speaker 01:
to evaluate how that evidence would have impacted the defense.

[00:06:45] Speaker 01:
And I'm urging the court to consider how the pattern that is alleged is the critical component for the prosecution.

[00:06:54] Speaker 01:
And I'm going to rest as I see them over my six minutes.

[00:06:57] Speaker 04:
All right.

[00:06:57] Speaker 04:
Thank you, counsel.

[00:07:05] Speaker 00:
May it please the court, Christina McCall for the United States.

[00:07:09] Speaker 00:
In this trial, the government presented overwhelming evidence over eight days that Mr. Long Andrews engaged in sex trafficking of victim one.

[00:07:19] Speaker 00:
The experienced trial judge, Judge Mendez, he struck the limited other acts testimony shortly after it began to be introduced.

[00:07:27] Speaker 00:
And he, Sue Espante, timely instructed the jury to disregard the testimony of the three witnesses as to this incident and the seven exhibits that were introduced.

[00:07:39] Speaker 03:
He did it on the basis of foundation, right?

[00:07:42] Speaker 03:
Nobody was going to testify that they knew that the defendant here was the person who was seen beating TB in the bathroom.

[00:07:56] Speaker 03:
Is that right?

[00:07:57] Speaker 00:
Your Honor, that is a fair interpretation of Judge Mendez's ruling at the time, when he said you had to have the McDonald's person do it.

[00:08:05] Speaker 00:
If she can't identify him in the courtroom, it's out.

[00:08:09] Speaker 00:
It's out.

[00:08:10] Speaker 00:
And so mid-trial, he did strike that.

[00:08:13] Speaker 04:
He did not allow... Did the government know he wasn't going to testify?

[00:08:16] Speaker 04:
I mean, how does this happen?

[00:08:18] Speaker 04:
Did the government know, did they think or express to the court at any time that TB was going to come in and testify?

[00:08:28] Speaker 00:
No, Your Honor.

[00:08:29] Speaker 00:
She was not on the witness list.

[00:08:32] Speaker 04:
So did you offer anything else that would tie this testimony to Andrews as the attacker?

[00:08:40] Speaker 00:
Yes, Your Honor.

[00:08:42] Speaker 00:
We did not get to the point in the trial where we would have introduced a

[00:08:46] Speaker 00:
self-authenticating state court record that showed that Mr. Long Andrews was the person who was convicted of this incident at the McDonald's and that the victim was the protected person in that case.

[00:09:00] Speaker 04:
Well, if you wanted the evidence to stay in, why didn't you show it to the judge at the time?

[00:09:05] Speaker 00:
Your Honor, we did have a proceeding outside the presence of the jury, and we did offer to introduce that and to call the witness to testify.

[00:09:15] Speaker 00:
Officers shown that he was the one who had arrested Mr. Long Andrews 10 days later for that incident.

[00:09:22] Speaker 00:
But the judge, in order to protect the record, avoid a mistrial, made the decision not to allow the government to go that far.

[00:09:29] Speaker 00:
If the McDonald's witness did not identify her, he was striking the evidence.

[00:09:34] Speaker 00:
We submit that he gave the correct model night circuit instruction for striking testimony and exhibits.

[00:09:42] Speaker 00:
And that those were never mentioned again.

[00:09:45] Speaker 00:
We didn't mention the TB evidence in our opening statement.

[00:09:50] Speaker 00:
We did not mention it in our closing argument or in rebuttal.

[00:09:54] Speaker 00:
And we didn't call any other witnesses to talk about TB once that ruling was made.

[00:09:59] Speaker 00:
And it is true that the Supreme Court and this court presumes that juries follow their instructions.

[00:10:07] Speaker 00:
There is no evidence here that the jury disregarded- I always find that to be somewhat of a fiction, though.

[00:10:12] Speaker 03:
You know, it's hard to unring the bell.

[00:10:15] Speaker 00:
True, Your Honor, but in light of the overwhelming evidence introduced as to the substantive count, the sole count where victim one, MD, was the victim,

[00:10:24] Speaker 00:
The government did produce, and I would submit, unlike counsel from Mr. Long Andrews, there was an overwhelming amount of evidence of not just violence.

[00:10:34] Speaker 00:
but threats of violence, threats of force, as well as coercion.

[00:10:38] Speaker 00:
And those came in the form of phone calls from jail.

[00:10:42] Speaker 00:
And we did list those in our brief and submitted them as the SCR.

[00:10:48] Speaker 00:
They came in the form of text messages instructing her what to do, making her reply constantly with account, ordering her around, telling her when she could take a shower, telling her who she could be with, who she could talk with, who she could smoke with.

[00:11:02] Speaker 00:
He had her under his coercive thumb, and the evidence the trial showed overwhelmingly why was to cause her to continue to engage in the commercial sex activities.

[00:11:14] Speaker 02:
Neither MD, who was victim one, nor TB, victim two, testified as to any blows by Long Andrews as to them, correct?

[00:11:25] Speaker 00:
That's correct, Your Honor.

[00:11:26] Speaker 02:
We didn't...

[00:11:28] Speaker 00:
Hotel employee testify that long andrews had beaten md Yes, your honor, so we had the eyewitness testimony of mr. Bakta the hotel clerk who did see that part of which a little bit of it was captured on the hotel Security cameras for the parking lot, but more importantly we had BT

[00:11:51] Speaker 00:
She testified that she was out with her pimp and Mr. Long Andrews and MD many times during the charge time frame, that he was strict with her, that she saw him hitting her between 10 or 20 times.

[00:12:06] Speaker 02:
He saw, pardon me, give me the names, who saw hitting who?

[00:12:10] Speaker 00:
Yes, your honor, BT, who was a victim in a different case, saw Mr. Long Andrews, the defendant here, hitting victim one, MD.

[00:12:21] Speaker 00:
And that he was violent, she testified he was violent.

[00:12:25] Speaker 02:
And were there any circumstances which show that that was merely a domestic dispute?

[00:12:31] Speaker 00:
Runner, we would submit there are not.

[00:12:34] Speaker 00:
That it is common for local law enforcement to mistake sex trafficking, incidents of violence, and threats of violence and coercion for domestic violence.

[00:12:44] Speaker 00:
He did eventually, Mr. Long Andrews, pled no contest in

[00:12:50] Speaker 00:
Orange County Superior Court to a domestic violence crime arising out of his beating of victim one MD in the parking lot.

[00:12:59] Speaker 02:
Is that part of the evidence in this case?

[00:13:02] Speaker 00:
Your Honor, it was part of the motions eliminated, but not the evidence before the jury.

[00:13:18] Speaker 00:
Mr. Council for the appellant stated that the coercion and sex acts nexus was lacking here, that it just simply wasn't connected.

[00:13:30] Speaker 00:
We would submit that the evidence in the trial did show both in the times of his orders to Victim One MD, the phone calls from jail, the instructions to someone he called his uncle who appears to have been taking care of MD while he was

[00:13:47] Speaker 00:
temporarily incarcerated, that all of these things actually did show the nexus and the pattern and the knowledge that Mr. Long-Anders would use force, threats of force, and coercion to cause victim one to continue to engage in the commercial sex acts.

[00:14:05] Speaker 00:
In this case, we spoke briefly about presuming that juries follow their instructions and whether or not it's a fiction.

[00:14:11] Speaker 00:
Here, there's no evidence that they did not.

[00:14:13] Speaker 00:
They sent out one note during deliberations and they said, we'd like to hear the phone calls with MD, victim one.

[00:14:21] Speaker 00:
With his uncle and that was a pretty key call They there's no evidence that they considered facts outside the record There's no evidence that they asked to hear more about victim to TB So this presumption in this case is not undercut by any of the facts in the trial if judgment is

[00:14:45] Speaker 00:
made a

[00:15:00] Speaker 00:
There were approximately 29 witnesses who testified at the trial.

[00:15:04] Speaker 00:
This is a blip in the scope of the larger trial.

[00:15:09] Speaker 00:
And given the overwhelming evidence and the court's proper instructions, both at the beginning of the trial, shortly after the questioned other evidence came in, and at the conclusion of the trial,

[00:15:22] Speaker 00:
We submit that any evidence in the introduction of this other acts evidence would be harmless If the court doesn't have any further questions for me We would ask that you affirm both the conviction and sentence of mr.. Long andrews all right.

[00:15:39] Speaker 04:
Thank you counsel Mr.. McComas I

[00:15:51] Speaker 01:
Just very briefly, there was 29 witnesses, and one reason is because this was a case built on wiretaps.

[00:15:59] Speaker 01:
There's plenty of witnesses talking about how they obtained the wiretaps and lots of logistics for foundation, but there's three missing, two missing witnesses that are critical, and those are the two victims that are alleged.

[00:16:12] Speaker 01:
And we do think blips matter.

[00:16:15] Speaker 01:
there's a 20-minute video of this girl crying.

[00:16:19] Speaker 01:
Why is that shown at all?

[00:16:21] Speaker 01:
Why is there three additional witnesses who talk about this in the middle of the day?

[00:16:26] Speaker 01:
If the jury is not told none of this connects to Mr. Long, then how do we get rid of the prejudice?

[00:16:32] Speaker 01:
Because an inquisitive juror could have easily connected dots to TB, to the telephone call plate after the instructions, to BT, to the larger pattern that was offered by the government.

[00:16:46] Speaker 01:
And I would note that while TB wasn't on the witness list, defense counsel noted that she showed up to the court.

[00:16:54] Speaker 01:
She was outside in the hall.

[00:16:56] Speaker 01:
So someone, besides Judge Mendez, could have made the call that there wasn't going to be a witness presented for a foundation of any of this evidence.

[00:17:06] Speaker 01:
And ultimately, Your Honor,

[00:17:08] Speaker 01:
not here to defend domestic violence or not here to defend pimping and pandering over here is because we believe that Mr. Long has been convicted of the wrong crime.

[00:17:19] Speaker 01:
And that crime is a penal code 266 or 2421.

[00:17:22] Speaker 01:
And not all stories about pimping are like a Nora or a night in Siberia.

[00:17:30] Speaker 01:
Some of these are sad, tragic, but it doesn't make them all acts of coercion.

[00:17:36] Speaker 01:
So would ask, would you send us back for a new trial?

[00:17:39] Speaker 01:
or on the limited sentencing issue.

[00:17:41] Speaker 01:
Thank you.

[00:17:42] Speaker 04:
Thank you very much, council.