Court Affirms Convictions and Sentences for Trio Charged With Smuggling Arms Into Cameroon

US v. Nji: Nji and his two codefendants were part of the “Peanut Project,” a “group dedicated to sending weapons and ammunition to Anglophone fighters in Cameroon who were battling the Francophone government’s forces.” To that end, another project member named St. Michel (who had served in the US military) set up a “lab” where project members would “clean, prime, and refurbish ammunition” and “assemble firearms” that were then smuggled out of the United States. The operation came to the attention of US officials when a shipping container bound for Nigeria was opened revealing more than 35,000 rounds of ammunition and 39 firearms, none of which had serial numbers (9 were “privately manufactured,” while the others had been obliterated in the lab). The defendants went to trial and were convicted of conspiracy, smuggling, and transportation of firearms with obliterated serial numbers. All were sentenced to 63 months in prison.

On appeal, the Fourth Circuit affirmed the convictions and sentences of Nji and his codefendants. Of particular interest, the Court rejected two of the defendants’ arguments related to evidentiary rulings at trial. First, the court found no abuse of discretion in the district court’s exclusion of their proposed expert witness, who would testify about the conflict in Cameroon, and “avoiding a distracting, collateral mini-trial about the nature and merits of the conflict.” Second, the court also found no abuse of discretion in the district court’s ruling excluding a pretrial statement of a coconspirator regarding St. Michel’s alleged assurance that there was “no need for concern” with the operation. The court concluded that the witness could still assert his Fifth Amendment privilege (he’d yet to be sentenced) and that the pretrial statement was not admissible under FRE 807 because it lacked guarantees of truthfulness (including that it contradicted the declarant’s statements made under oath during his guilty plea). Finally, the court rejected the defendants’ asserted Rogers error, holding that where the supervised release conditions at issue were fully set forth in the PSR and summarized by the district court at sentencing they were sufficiently “imposed.”