U.S. v. Hosseini

Dist. Ct. did not commit plain error in denying defendants' motion for judgment of acquittal on charge of concealment-based money laundering where defendants argued that term "proceeds'' under 18 USC section 1956(a) required proof of concealment of net proceeds, as opposed to gross proceeds, of underlying drugs sales of defendants' customers, who used cash generated from said sales to purchase luxury cars from defendants. At time of offense, law was unsettled as to meaning of "proceeds" in concealment money laundering prosecution, and thus any error was not plain. Dist. Ct. also did not abuse its discretion in denying defendant's request to individually question all prospective jurors about possible racial or religious bias against Iranian-Americans, even though record showed that two prospective jurors indicated that they had problem with fact that defendants were Iranian-Americans when Dist. Ct. addressed issue with prospective jurors as group. Dist. Ct. has discretion when conducting voir dire, and Dist. Ct. could properly address racial/religious bias issue to entire group of prospective jurors and then make individual inquiries only for those jurors who registered potential bias.