In his order issued July 29, Associate Judge Perry B. Inos rejected Jahangir Mohammad Miah’s request.
Miah was charged with two counts of conspiracy to commit marriage fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit document fraud.
A hearing was held on April 1, 2009 with Assistant Attorney General Joe Przyushki appearing on behalf of the government.
Attorney Edward C. Arriola appeared on behalf of the defendant.
In his order, Inos said the four counts of conspiracy should not be consolidated into one single count because “the trier of facts has not yet determined how many conspiratorial agreements or continuous conspiratorial relationships existed.”
Inos added that in a criminal trial, the government bears the burden of proving each element of the case beyond a reasonable doubt, but with regard to multiple conspiracies, the government bears the burden of proving the existence of every conspiracy alleged and the defendant’s membership in each.
The court held that at this stage, neither the government nor the defense has presented its evidence concerning the number of conspiracies into which Miah allegedly entered.
The court said the defendant has not shown that a variance would be prejudicial to his rights.
“A variance arises when the evidence adduced at trial establishes facts different from those alleged in the indictment,” the court added.
In this case, the court said the government alleges that “the defendant was a member of four smaller conspiracies and does not even allege a single overall conspiracy involving all defendants.”
Therefore, the court said that if the defendant is convicted on any conspiracy counts, it should only be for his participation in those particular conspiracies to which he was involved in.
The government filed an information against Miah stating that in Oct. 2008, he conspired with Yuehong Xiong and Alvin J. Taitano to commit marriage fraud.
He was also charged for conspiring with Mazber Rhaman and Rose Santos Peredo to commit marriage fraud in Dec. 2008.
On March 25, 2009, the defendant asked the court to consolidate all the four charges into one count.
On March 26, 2009, the government filed an amended information against the defendant, adding 11 more counts to the first four charges.
