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Case 1:20-cr-00330-PAE Document 204 Filed 04/16/21 Page 82 of 239

(Minor Victim-1 and Minor Victim-3) for the first time. In particular, Minor Victim-1 first agreed to be interviewed in September 2019, and Minor Victim-3 first agreed to be interviewed in August 2019.21 The Government conducted multiple additional interviews of both victims, as well as other witnesses, and took additional investigative steps over the next several months before it was prepared to seek an indictment charging the defendant. Those two victims were critical to the investigation, as they helped form the basis of the charges in the Indictment, which the Government sought on June 29, 2020, less than a year after the victims came forward. That period of time— and, in particular, less than one year between when key victims came forward and the Indictment was obtained—cannot possibly give rise to a colorable due process violation.22 See Cheung Kin Ping, 555 F.2d at 1072 (finding that “the government is not responsible for a period of delay during which an important witness is unavailable to it” and describing the delay as the period between the witness’s cooperation and the date of indictment); United States v. Rubinson, 543 F.2d 951, 961 (2d Cir. 1976) (“If there was any intentional delay in returning the instant indictment, it was due in significant measure to the refusal of critical witnesses until 1973 to reveal what they knew.”).
Cf. Lovasco, 431 U.S. at 796 (“Rather than deviating from elementary standards of fair play and decency, a prosecutor abides by them if he refuses to seek indictments until he is completely

21 While the Government is proffering these facts for purposes of this Motion, the underlying information, which is contained in the FBI 302 reports of interviews with the victims, will be produced to the defense as 3500 material in advance of trial.

22 In this respect, the Government notes that significant aspects of the defendant’s argument rest on a faulty premise: i.e., that the Government could have indicted the defendant at any time between 1994 and 2020, but simply chose not to do so for tactical reasons. As noted above, two key witnesses who helped give rise to the instant charges did not agree to speak law enforcement until 2019, facts that significantly undercut the notion that the Government was intentionally sitting on a criminal case against the defendant for any meaningful period of time. Cf. Ex. 3 (OPR Report) at 81 (“Villafaña told OPR that, apart from the women named in the NPA, the investigation had not developed evidence of ‘any other potential co-conspirators.’”); id. at 167 (with respect to Maxwell, “according to Villafaña, in 2007, they ‘didn’t have any specific evidence against her.’”).

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