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09-1597 U.S. v. McGuire

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//December 2, 2010//

09-1597 U.S. v. McGuire

By: WISCONSIN LAW JOURNAL STAFF//December 2, 2010//

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Mann Act
Sufficiency of the evidence

Where the purpose of interstate travel was both to hold religious retreats and have sex with a minor, the evidence was sufficient to support a conviction for traveling in interstate commerce for the purpose of having sex with a minor.
“After 1991 the defendant was forbidden to travel with minors to his retreats-and all the trips with Dominick took place after that. If a trip has dual purposes, one licit but intended to bolster an illicit sexual purpose, the sexual purpose is ‘the’ purpose, in a reasonable sense of the word. Suppose a salesman employed by Sears Roebuck is directed by Sears to travel to Singapore to sell clothes dryers there. Instead he travels to Bangkok because he wants to patronize child prostitutes. He sells some clothes dryers in Bangkok in the intervals between his visits to the child prostitutes and alters the invoices to make it seem that the sales occurred in Singapore. The purpose of his travel would be sex rather than business, though business would be transacted during the trip. See United States v. Snow, supra, 507 F.2d at 24; United States v. Meacham, supra, 115 F.3d at 1495-96; United States v. Farley, supra, 607 F.3d at 1335; United States v. Bredimus, 234 F. Supp. 2d 639, 646 (N.D. Tex. 2002), affirmed, 352 F.3d 200 (5th Cir. 2003). The defendant in our case had, so far as appears, broad latitude concerning the number and location of the retreats he led, and he configured his travels to optimize his sexual activity.”
Affirmed.

09-1597 U.S. v. McGuire

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois, Pallmeyer, J., Posner, J.

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