United States v. Ricardo Arredondo

OPINION

BOGGS, Chief Judge.

The district court held Ricardo Arredon-do in criminal contempt of court after finding that he gave fabricated evidence of ineffective assistance of counsel to support his petition for postconviction relief from a federal sentence for drug trafficking. Mr. Arredondo appeals from this contempt conviction and from the district court’s accompanying denial of relief from Ms drug sentence. For the reasons explained below, we reverse the conviction for contempt but affirm the denial of postconviction relief.

I

Arredondo was convicted in 1990 of three counts of distribution…