United States v. Faust, No. 14-8011 (10th Cir. 2015)
Annotate this CaseDefendant-Appellant David Michael Faust was convicted of attempted online enticement of a minor. He challenged his conviction on two grounds: (1) that there was insufficient evidence of intent to engage in illegal sexual activity with a minor to support his conviction; and (2) the district court abused its discretion by refusing to provide his proposed specific-intent jury instruction. To sustain a conviction the Tenth Circuit found that the government only needed to show that defendant took a “substantial step” towards the inducement, enticement, or persuasion of a minor (not towards the element of illegal sexual activity. "To be sure, Mr. Faust’s travel to the motel with his stated plan of having a sexual encounter with 'Joelle's' twelve-year-old daughter and also his contemporaneous possession of condoms may well have bolstered the government’s proof of his intent to persuade, induce, or entice a minor to engage in sexual activity." The Court concluded that the government presented ample evidence from which a rational factfinder could have found beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant intended to persuade, induce, or entice someone whom he believed to be a 12-year-old child to engage in illegal sexual activity and that he took a substantial step in furtherance of this intent. "Accordingly, Mr. Faust’s sufficiency-of-the evidence challenge fails." With regard to the jury instruction, the Tenth Circuit found that defendant did not argue that any of the challenged instructions, in themselves, misstated the governing law. And the Court concluded that, viewed as a whole, the district court’s instructions adequately instructed the jury.
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