Defendant 1, Adaobi Stella Udeozor, appealed her conviction and sentence, claiming that (1) the district court abused its discretion by admitting evidence of sexual abuse of the victim by her former husband, George Udeozor, the defendant 2; (2) the district court improperly admitted recorded telephone conversations between George Udeozor and the victim; (3) the district court abused its discretion by including a special findings form on the 2^nd page of the general verdict form used to determine her guilty or innocence.

(1) The defendant argued that the government “infected her entire trial with inflammatory evidence of rape that was committed not by her but her husband,” and of which she had no knowledge.  She argued that this evidence should have been excluded under Fed.R.Evid. 403, because “its probative value was substantially outweighed by the danger of unfair prejudice”. The appellate court noted that district judges enjoy wide discretion to determine what evidence is admissible under the rule, and cited United States v. Williams (4^th Cir.2006), adding that “ [a] district court´s decision to admit evidence over a Rule 403 objection will not be overturned except under the most extraordinary circumstances, where that discretion has been plainly abused.” Thus, the court précised that the probative value of the evidence of sexual abuse was not “outweighed” by any unfairly prejudicial effect, as it was probative of the conspiracy to intimidate the victim and coerce her into involuntary servitude. The court held that it was not an abuse of the district court’s discretion for the trial judge to allow the jury to hear evidence that sexual abuse was used to make the victim believe she had no choice but to comply with the defendants’ demands. Mr. Udeozor’s sexual abuse of the victim was part of a conspiracy involving physical, psychological and sexual abuse. It was one of the forms of force used to coerce the victim and keep her under the defendants’ control. The court also highlighted that to rule this evidence inadmissible outright would be problematic: to reverse the trial court’s admission of such evidence would suggest the inadmissibility of evidence of sexual coercion and subordination in cases of forced domestic servitude, which would be dangerous considering the high incidence of sexual abuse in these types of cases.

(2) Next, Adaobi Stella Udeozor challenged the admission of two telephone conversations between her former husband and the victim which recorded by the police. The appellant argued that they were inadmissible as (a) hearsay or (b) because she was unable to confront George Udeozor at trial (in violation of her 6th Amendment right. The appellate court held that the hearsay evidence fell into the exception under Rule 804(b)(3), which provides for the admissibility of statements made against the declarant’s interest which tend to subject the declarant to criminal liability so that “ a reasonable person in the declarant’s position would not have made the statement unless believing [it] to be true”. In this regard, Mr. Udeozor made multiple statements in these recordings that were against his penal interest: he admitted to smuggling the victim into the United States illegally and to hitting the victim, and while he denied having forcible intercourse with the victim, he admitted to engaging in sexual relations with a minor. Furthermore, he asked the victim whether the police were looking for him and demanded that she tell him everything she had told the police.

The court also found that there had been no breach of the defendant’s right to be confronted with the witnesses against her, as this recorded statements were not testimonial. The court clarified that for a statement to be testimonial, the declarant must have had a reasonable expectation that his statements would be used prosecutorially.

(3) Finally, the appellate court held that the district court did not need to submit the special findings form to the jury separately from the general verdict form as a matter of law. Whether to use a special verdict form is a matter of the district court’s discretion and there was no abuse of such discretion in this case.

As for her sentence, the Court of Appeal found that 87 months’ imprisonment was procedurally and substantially reasonable under the standards set forth in precedent judgments.