Fabio Ochoa v. United States of America

Miami, Florida criminal defense lawyers represented Defendant charged with drug trafficking.



This appeal requires us to consider whether a criminal de-

fendant's Sixth Amendment right to counsel is violated when mul-

tiple attorneys represent him in plea negotiations with the govern-

ment and one of them labors under a conflict of interest. In 1999,

Fabio Ochoa-Vasquez, a Colombian native, was arrested in Colom-

bia on drug trafficking charges and ultimately convicted in federal

court. Ochoa now appeals the denial of both his amended 28 U.S.C.

§ 2255 motion to vacate his convictions and sentence and his sub-

sequent motion to alter or amend the judgment. He claims that

one of his pre-extradition attorneys, Joaquin Perez, was ineffective

due to a conflict of interest. According to Ochoa, Perez tried to

convince him to pay a thirty-million-dollar bribe or kickback as part

of a plea agreement, which would redound to the benefit of one of

Perez's other clients. But Ochoa was represented by other attor-

neys, and he does not allege that they were conflicted or otherwise

deficient in pursuing legitimate plea agreements on Ochoa's behalf.

The district court held that the allegations in Ochoa's motion

would not establish a Sixth Amendment violation even if true.



* * *



At trial, Ochoa was convicted and sentenced to two concur-

rent terms of 365 months' imprisonment. We affirmed his convic-

tion, sentence, United States v. Ochoa-Vasquez, 428 F.3d 1015

(11th Cir. 2005), and the denial of a motion for a new trial based on

the Perez allegations, United States v. Ochoa-Vasquez, 179 Fed.

Appx. 572 (11th Cir. 2006).

After careful consideration and with the benefit of oral argument,

we affirm.