In early December 2025, Ramon Alexandro Rovirosa Martinez was found guilty at trial of FCPA and related offenses in connection with an alleged Mexican bribery scheme.
In mid-April 2026, Judge Kenneth Hoyt (S.D. Texas) granted post-trial motions by Rovirosa and ordered that he be released from prison. (See here).
Shortly thereafter, on May 8th, the DOJ filed a notice of appeal in the Fifth Circuit. (See here) and twice requested extensions to file its opening brief given that the “Solicitor General has not yet determined whether or on what grounds to allow a government appeal to proceed in this case.”
Recently the DOJ filed its opening brief in the Fifth Circuit.
The Introduction states:
“A jury found that Defendant Ramon Alexandro Rovirosa Martinez repeatedly violated the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and conspired with others to do so. The evidence—including his and his co-conspirators’ incriminating digital messages—showed that he had bribed officials at the Mexican state-run oil-and-gas company to award contracts, pay more, or grant undue advantages to his companies. The district court recognized that this evidence allowed a jury to find Rovirosa guilty and so denied him a mid-trial judgment of acquittal under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29(a). But, after trial, the court relied on Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29(c) to reverse a pretrial Confrontation Clause ruling and dismiss the indictment or enter a judgment of acquittal based on that purported and newly perceived error.
The district court erred, and its Rule 29(c) order warrants reversal. During or after trial, Rule 29 allows a court to grant one remedy on one ground: a judgment of acquittal because the jury did not have sufficient evidence to find a defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt. The court here therefore improperly used Rule 29(c) to dismiss an indictment or grant a judgment of acquittal on a non-sufficiency ground. And, because Rovirosa raised below only meritless sufficiency challenges, this Court should not affirm the district court’s judgment on alternative grounds.”
A footnote states: “The government does not address if a Confrontation Clause error occurred because the answer is unnecessary to reverse the district court’s order and because such claims are not cognizable in a Rule 29 posture. The government neither concedes that such a violation occurred nor waives argument on that point during any future litigation in this case.”
The brief presents the following two issues.
Whether, under Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 29(c), a district court may remedy after trial a purported Confrontation Clause violation by dismissing an indictment or entering a judgment of acquittal.
Whether this Rule 29(c) order may alternatively be sustained based on Rovirosa’s preserved claims as to the trial evidence’s sufficiency.
