In an interview with Billboard on Wednesday, Pina’s attorney, Edwin Prado, stressed that it is typically very difficult to overturn jury verdicts on appeal. “While Pina-Nieves does not dispute that the evidence suffices to show that he constructively possessed the weapon … we do not see how a rational juror could make the requisite inference that Pina-Nieves knew that this weapon had the characteristics of a machinegun,” the appeals court wrote. The court said there was clear evidence that Pina owned the gun, but not that he had been aware that it had been illegally modified into a fully automatic weapon - a key requirement under the law. Though it upheld one of Pina’s convictions, the appeals court overturned another one - ruling that prosecutors failed to prove that he had illegally owned an automatic weapon. The unfair testimony might have been “highly prejudicial,” the court said, but added it was ultimately harmless because Pina likely would have been convicted without it.Ĭrucially, the appeals court cited a tapped phone call in which Pina himself was caught talking to an associate about a safe holding “my guns, rifles, bullets.” In that recorded call, the court said Pina “left no doubt” that the safe “contained guns and bullets that were his.” Court of Appeals for the First Circuit said the government had provided “overwhelming” evidence that Pina owned guns. Cardi B Accuser Agrees to Repay $350K She Spent on Lawyers In His Failed Lawsuit Over Tattoo Imageīut in a decision Monday (Jan.
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