Appeal denied for man who drove Iowa 14-year-old to Minnesota for sex

In a 2-1 decision, federal judges denied an appeal Tuesday by a Minnesota man sentenced to 10 years in prison for transporting a minor across state lines for sex.

Luis Moreira Bravo, then 26, was charged in September 2020 with one count of transportation of a minor, a federal crime. He went to trial in June 2021.

When the judge denied his motion that prosecutors be required to prove he knew the victim was underage and that he intended to have sex with her unlawfully, he pleaded conditionally guilty and filed his appeal. He received the statutory minimum sentence.

Prosecutors in court filings describe Moreira-Bravo as having communicated online with the girl and said he drove from his home in Edina, Minnesota, to Iowa to meet her. He "picked up the victim in Iowa late at night," had sex with her and drove her back to Minnesota, where he continued to have sex with her, according to court filings.

The decision by the Eighth U.S. District Court of Appeals said the victim, then 14, told Moreira-Bravo she was over 18. When questioned, Moreira-Bravo claimed to believe she was 19.

But in the sentencing memorandum, prosecutors said Moreira-Bravo ignored signs she was underage both before and when he met her. Spotted with her by police, he was arrested.

Court: In a case of sex with a minor, the victim's age is all that matters

The statute Moreira-Bravo was convicted of violating reads, "A person who knowingly transports an individual who has not attained the age of 18 years in interstate or foreign commerce, or in any commonwealth, territory or possession of the United States, with intent that the individual engage in prostitution, or in any sexual activity forwhich any person can be charged with a criminal offense, shall be fined under this title and imprisoned not less than 10 years or for life."

In his appeal, Moreira-Bravo invoked the 2009 Supreme Court decision Flores-Figueroa v. United States. It stemmed from another Eighth Circuit case in which a man convicted of identity theft successfully argued that the use of the word "knowingly" in the statute he violated meant that prosecutors had to prove he had knowingly appropriated someone else's identity.

Moreira-Bravo also cited a 2019 case, Rehaif vs. the United States, in which the court ruled in favor of a man who had been convicted of being in possession of firearms while in the country illegally. He had come to the U.S. on a student visa, was dismissed from school because of poor grades, and then was charged after firing weapons at a shooting range.

The court agreed with him that he had not "knowingly" been in illegal possession of the guns, as the statute required, because he didn't know his dismissal from the school had negated his student visa. The decision held that the word "knowingly" applies to every subsequently listed element in a statute.

According to Moreira-Bravo, this interpretation means that in order to be convicted, the prosecutors would have to prove he had been aware the victim was underage and that he intended for the sexual activity to be unlawful.

In denying the appeal, Judge Raymond Gruender, joined by Judge Duane Benton, wrote that "under these presumptions, Moreira-Bravo argues, ... 'knowingly' applies to the age requirement because it is a subsequently listed element that separates innocent from criminal conduct. We disagree."

Gruender cited as an example the sentence, “Ted knowingly stole expensive toys from a toy store that was on the verge of bankruptcy,” saying it "indicates that Ted knew he stole toys, knew they were expensive, and knew they came from the toy store. But whether Ted knew about the bankruptcy is ambiguous. Thus, in some statutory phrases that use the word 'knowingly,' neither grammar nor punctuation resolves the question of how much knowledge Congress intended to be sufficient for a conviction.”

The decision cited a longstanding precedent that in sex crimes involving minors, there is no overlooking the age of the victim, and said that whether Moreira-Bravo knew the girl in his case was underage is therefore irrelevant.

Dissenting judge: 'Knowingly' means 'knowingly'

Judge Steven Grasz dissented, saying he thought it was clear that "knowingly" applied to all the parts of the statute, despite the precedent of so-called "strict liability" in cases involving sex with underaged victims.

"In the end, none of the contextual clues utilized by the court convinces me that Congress meant something different than what the plain reading of the text dictates and interpretative canons reinforce — the government must prove Moreira-Bravo knew the individual transported was not yet eighteen years old."

Nina Baker is a news reporter at the Des Moines Register. She can be reached at NBaker@gannett.com or on Twitter @Nina_M_Bak

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Appeal denied in case of man who took Iowa girl, 14, to Minnesota for sex