United States v. Akanni , 890 F.3d 355 ( 2018 )

United States Court of Appeals
For the First Circuit
Nos. 17-1732, 17-1733
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Appellee,
v.
RASHEED ABIODUN AKANNI,
Defendant, Appellant.
APPEALS FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF RHODE ISLAND
[Hon. John J. McConnell, Jr., U.S. District Judge]
Before
Lynch, Selya, and Lipez,
Circuit Judges.
Jamesa J. Drake and Drake Law LLC on brief for appellant.
Donald C. Lockhart, Assistant United States Attorney, and
Stephen G. Dambruch, United States Attorney, on brief for appellee.
May 18, 2018
LYNCH, Circuit Judge. Rasheed Abiodun Akanni challenges
the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conviction for
marriage fraud in violation of 8 U.S.C. § 1325(c), which prohibits
"knowingly enter[ing] into a marriage for the purpose of evading
any provision of the immigration laws." He does not challenge his
felony convictions for making false statements to immigration
officials. We affirm.1
The evidence presented at Akanni's bench trial included
the following facts. A citizen of Nigeria, Akanni entered the
United States in 2003 on a six-month visa. In 2005, two weeks
after he was arrested for overstaying his visa, he married an
American citizen. Akanni applied for permanent resident status on
the basis of that marriage. In 2009, his application was denied
after his then-wife withdrew her supporting petition, and the two
divorced.
A year later, Akanni applied for asylum. In February
2013, two months before his asylum application was denied, Akanni
married Terri Allen, another American citizen whom he had met a
couple of months earlier. They had separate apartments. Akanni
never informed Allen before their marriage that he was subject to
1 The government reports that Akanni completed his one-
year prison term on January 29, 2018 and was deported to Nigeria
on March 27, 2018, but assumes arguendo that these appeals are not
moot because of unspecified potential collateral consequences of
the conviction and a $100 special assessment that would be vacated
were Akanni to prevail on appeal.
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deportation. When, in May 2013, Allen moved into a new apartment
that she intended to be the marital abode, Akanni deposited some
of his clothes there and spent only three or four nights a week
there. He purported to be at a "friend's house" or at "work"
during the remainder of the week. Unbeknownst to Allen, another
woman, Olufunke Babatunde, with whom Akanni would later have a
child, was living with him in his apartment and had been since
2011. Allen soon suspected Akanni of infidelity, and the two
separated within a few months.
Notwithstanding the separation, Akanni again applied for
permanent resident status in November 2013, and Allen, fearing he
would be deported, acquiesced in his request that she file a
supporting petition and pretend that their marriage was still
intact. In separate interviews before an immigration officer in
September 2014, Akanni and Allen falsely stated under oath that
they still resided together (when they had not for a year), and
gave various inconsistent answers on other matters. The
immigration officer referred Akanni and Allen's case to his
department's fraud unit.
In May 2015, immigration officers, following up on that
referral, visited the purported couple's purported marital abode.
There, they met with and interviewed Allen. Allen informed them
that she and Akanni were separated, and she then took the
opportunity to withdraw her petition supporting his application
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for permanent residency. Allen also told the officers that the
last time she had heard from Akanni -- by phone, "a while ago" --
he had said that he was traveling out-of-state. That same day,
the officers confronted Akanni at his apartment, the mailbox for
which listed the names "Akanni" and "Babatunde." Under oath,
Akanni falsely stated both orally and in writing that he was still
residing with Allen, that Babatunde was his sister, and that he
was staying with Babatunde because of a fight he had had with Allen
just "yesterday." He also admitted that he had adopted a friend's
name as an alias and used the friend's social security and identity
cards to obtain employment.
Akanni was charged with the crimes of making multiple
false statements to immigration officials and engaging in marriage
fraud to evade the immigration laws. On the day set for his trial,
he attempted to flee to Canada. He was detained the following
morning by border patrol officials after he was caught trying to
use another person's U.S. passport to cross the border.
In resolving Akanni's sufficiency-of-the-evidence
challenge, "[w]e draw all reasonable evidentiary inferences in
harmony with the verdict and resolve all issues of credibility in
the light most favorable to the government." United States v.
Grace, 367 F.3d 29, 34 (1st Cir. 2004) (quoting United States v.
Casas, 356 F.3d 104, 126 (1st Cir. 2004)). We ask only whether "a
rational trier of fact could have found [guilt] beyond a reasonable
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doubt." United States v. Dunston, 851 F.3d 91, 98 (1st Cir. 2017).
Considered in its totality, the evidence presented in this case
amply supported the district court's "absolute[] conclu[sion]"
that Akanni duped Allen into marrying him in order to avoid
deportation. Akanni's appellate brief would have us repeatedly
draw implausible exculpatory inferences from a series of facts
that overwhelmingly establish his deceitfulness and culpability.
That we cannot do.
Akanni also argues for the first time on appeal that a
§ 1325 marriage fraud conviction requires findings that the
defendant lacked an intent to "establish a life" with his spouse
and that the defendant's "sole purpose" in getting married was to
evade the immigration laws. The government asks us to reject both
the "establish a life" and the "sole purpose" tests. We leave
these issues for another day. On the facts presented, drawing all
reasonable evidentiary inferences and credibility assessments in
the government's favor, the trier of fact could reasonably have
concluded that Akanni harbored no intent to establish a life with
Allen and instead married her solely to avoid deportation.
Affirmed.
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