Page:United States v. Delgado (19-20697) (2021) Opinion.pdf/6

 names. The Government introduced records at trial showing that those four individuals had received favorable rulings from Delgado, including PR bonds, between 2014 and 2016.

Perez then began cooperating with the FBI, which asked him to set up meetings with Delgado in order to gather further evidence.

In December 2016, the FBI instructed Perez to set up a meeting with Delgado. The FBI gave Perez $260 to bribe Delgado, and told Perez that his client, Raul Sanchez, was in jail and had a motion to revoke probation pending in Delgado’s court. Perez called Delgado to set up a meeting with him at Delgado’s house.

On December 13, 2016, Perez went to Delgado’s house wearing a wire. Perez told Delgado that he had a client “sitting in jail” on a motion to revoke. He then asks Delgado: “You think we could do a little wood?” Delgado responds: “Oh yeah … A lot of wood once we get to some fact finding.”

Perez and Delgado then engage in a back and forth about Raul Sanchez. Perez informs Delgado that he will be out of town on Sanchez’s hearing date and needs to resolve it sooner. Delgado replies that he cannot pick Sanchez “out of the herd and say let me do magic over here. That could lead people to wonder and I don’t want people wondering.”

After the conversation digresses into a discussion of Perez’s and Delgado’s personal lives, Perez returns to the issue of Sanchez and asks Delgado to “see if we can get him out.” Delgado responds: “I’m going to help you out … [b]ut it’s how to do it and—and—and you [sic] how to do it right. Cause I can’t just be having these thoughts in the middle of the night about picking a critter out of the litter … somebody can go[:] How’d that happened.”

Perez then tells Delgado: “Let me pay for that wood now and then I come back maybe next week and get it.” He then pays Perez the $260 dollars