United States of America v. Muhammad Arif

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 24-2323
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United States of America
lllllllllllllllllllllPlaintiff - Appellant
v.
Muhammad Arif
lllllllllllllllllllllDefendant - Appellee
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Eastern District of Arkansas - Central
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Submitted: April 15, 2025
Filed: October 2, 2025
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Before LOKEN, GRUENDER, and GRASZ, Circuit Judges.
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LOKEN, Circuit Judge.
Muhammad Arif owns convenience stores in White County, Arkansas. He was
charged with commercial sex trafficking of a minor, the fifteen-year-old daughter of
his business handyman, in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1591(a)(1).1 At trial, the
1The statute provides that “Whoever knowingly . . . in or affecting interstate or
foreign commerce . . . recruits, entices . . . or solicits by any means . . . knowing [or]

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government introduced evidence that twice in 2019, while driving the handyman’s
daughter, J.W., to her home, Arif solicited her to engage in sexual activity in
exchange for payment. She repeatedly declined and recorded the conversations. At
the close of the trial evidence, Arif timely moved for judgment of acquittal, arguing
the government failed to prove commercial sex trafficking “in or affecting
interstate or foreign commerce,” an element of the § 1591 offense. The district court2
took the motion under advisement and submitted the case to the jury, which returned
a guilty verdict.
Arif then renewed his motion for judgment of acquittal. After considering
post-trial briefing, the district court granted the motion, concluding that driving a car
on a road, without more, is not evidence of “an actual rather than potential effect on
interstate commerce,” as our cases require. United States v. Koech, 992 F.3d 686,
692 (8th Cir.) (quotation omitted), cert. denied, 142 S. Ct. 371 (2021). The
government appeals, arguing that committing a crime that affects interstate
commerce, like commercial sex trafficking, satisfies the commerce element of
§ 1591(a)(1) even if the offense was committed without traveling across state lines,
as in this case. “In reviewing a district court’s grant of a motion for a judgment of
acquittal, this court reviews the sufficiency of the evidence de novo, viewing evidence
in the light most favorable to the government, resolving conflicts in the government’s
favor, and accepting all reasonable inferences that support the verdict.” United States
v. Johnson, 639 F.3d 433, 437 (8th Cir. 2011). Reviewing this legal issue de novo,
and giving the jury’s verdict the deference it deserves, we affirm.
in reckless disregard of the fact . . . that the person has not attained the age of 18 years
and will be caused to engage in a commercial sex act, shall be punished as provided
in subsection (b).”
2The Honorable D.P. Marshall, Jr., United States District Judge for the Eastern
District of Arkansas.
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The handyman who serviced Arif’s convenience stores struggled to provide for
his family and often lacked access to the family’s only vehicle. Arif often drove the
handyman to and from different stores to complete jobs. P.W. returned to Arkansas
in 2019 to be with her dad and enjoyed going along when Arif took him to job sites.
The two occasions at issue occurred in Arif’s vehicle as he drove P.W. home after
sending her father to another site. On May 28, 2019, Arif offered P.W. $100 to
perform sexual acts. She declined and began recording the conversation. Arif
pressured P.W. to engage in sexual activity but she did not acquiesce. When they
reached P.W.’s home, Arif gave her $20, telling her she could use the money to buy
her boyfriend a gift and asking her to promise not to tell anyone about the
conversation. Approximately one month later, Arif drove P.W. home and again
solicited her to engage in sexual activity in exchange for payment. P.W. declined,
again recording this conversation. P.W. reported the two incidents to her parents. In
August 2019, P.W. and the parents reported the incidents to the local police.
Kensett Police Department Detective Mary Rudesill conducted a forensic
interview with P.W. and later interviewed Arif, who acknowledged knowing the ages
of P.W. and her two younger siblings. The criminal case began as a state prosecution
for violation of the Arkansas human trafficking statute, Ark. Code Ann. § 5-18-103.
The federal government took over, and the state proceedings were dismissed. On
February 4, 2020, Arif was charged by indictment with violating 18 U.S.C. § 1591,
part of the Trafficking Victims Protection Act of 2000 (“TVPA”).
At trial, P.W. testified, the jury listened to her recordings, and Detective
Rudesill testified as a government witness. Arif declined to testify; the defense called
no witnesses. Rudesill testified that her investigation revealed Arif drove a black
2016 Nissan Murano SUV, manufactured in Canton, Mississippi. The government
offered no evidence about how the money given P.W. was spent, that Arif’s use of the
vehicle manufactured in Mississippi otherwise affected interstate commerce, or that
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J.W. was ever “trafficked” within the meaning of the TVPA legislative findings in 22
U.S.C. § 7101.
The sole issue on appeal is whether Arif’s actions affected interstate commerce.
The Commerce Clause grants Congress the power to “regulate Commerce . . . among
the several states.” U.S. Const. art. I, § 8, cl. 3. For more than a century, Supreme
Court decisions “have mechanically recited that the Commerce Clause permits
congressional regulation of three categories: (1) the channels of interstate commerce;
(2) the instrumentalities of interstate commerce, and persons or things in interstate
commerce; and (3) activities that ‘substantially affect’ interstate commerce.”
Gonzales v. Raich, 545 U.S. 1, 33-34 (2005) (Scalia, J., concurring in the judgment).
The third category includes “purely local activities that are part of an economic class
of activities that have a substantial effect on interstate commerce.” Id. at 17 (majority
opinion) (quotation omitted). “[W]hen a general regulatory statute bears a substantial
relation to commerce, the de minimis character of individual instances arising under
that statute is of no consequence.” Id. (quotation omitted).
Section 1591(a)(1) prohibits commercial sex trafficking “in or affecting
interstate or foreign commerce.” We confirmed in Koech “that Congress’s use of
‘affecting’ in § 1591(a)(1) . . . ‘suggests that there must be evidence of an actual
rather than potential effect on interstate commerce.’” 992 F.3d at 692 (citation
omitted). This is a constitutionally important inquiry. “When Congress criminalizes
conduct already denounced as criminal by the States, it effects a ‘change in the
sensitive relation between federal and state criminal jurisdiction.’” United States v.
Lopez, 514 U.S. 549, 561 n.3 (1995) (citation omitted). The task of the federal courts
is to reject government contentions that would “convert congressional authority under
the Commerce Clause to a general police power of the sort retained by the States.”
Id. at 567. See Jones v. United States, 529 U.S. 848, 857 (2000) (“Were we to adopt
the Government’s expansive interpretation of § 844(i) [a federal arson statute], hardly
a building in the land would fall outside the federal statute’s domain.”).
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“These days . . . it does not take much for a criminal act to affect interstate
commerce. Any actual impact, no matter how minor, will do.” United States v.
Harris, 83 F.4th 1093, 1096 (8th Cir. 2023) (cleaned up). In Harris, we affirmed a
conviction under the federal identity-theft statute, 18 U.S.C. § 1028(c)(3)(A),
concluding that defendant’s use of the mail to send false quitclaim documents and his
FaceTime and text messaging to communicate with an associate was sufficient impact
on interstate commerce to establish that element of the offense. Id. at 1096.
However, “[a]lthough a probability of affecting commerce is sufficient in some
cases . . . the probability must be realistic rather than merely speculative.” United
States v. Quigley, 53 F.3d 909, 910 (8th Cir. 1995). In Quigley, we affirmed the
judgment of acquittal for an alleged § 1951(a) robbery offense. The defendants
offered a ride to two men who were walking to a liquor store to pick up beer they had
ordered. En route to the store, the defendants beat and robbed the men and left them
injured on the side of the road. Id. at 910. We concluded that the government’s
evidence “was insufficient as a matter of law to show commerce was affected within
the statute’s meaning” because the robbery “had no effect or realistic potential effect
on interstate commerce.” Id. at 909, 911. “The beer sale was completed over the
telephone before the robbery . . . and there is no evidence [the victims] intended to
purchase anything else at the store.” Id. at 911.
By contrast, in Koech, we held the government met its burden to prove “an
actual rather than potential effect on interstate commerce.” 992 F.3d at 692. In that
case, the defendant arranged sexual encounters through calls and text messages on a
foreign-made phone to the minor victim’s sex trafficker, who advertised the victim
on Facebook. After the defendant paid the victim for sex in Duluth, Minnesota, the
victim and the trafficker traveled across state lines to purchase drugs with the money
in Superior, Wisconsin. Id. at 689-90, 693. We concluded the defendant’s actions
actually affected interstate commerce; this was not simply “a purely local
transaction.” Id. at 694. Here, the underlying facts are different, but the government
needed to show a comparable actual effect on interstate commerce.
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One complexity on appeal is that the government’s actual effect theory has
changed dramatically. In the district court, the government argued that, though the
two solicitations occurred without crossing state lines, Arif drove P.W. from job sites
to her home in a vehicle, and “paid” P.W. $20. As both federal currency and cars are
recognized “instrumentalities of interstate commerce,” the government argued, this
evidence was sufficient to permit the jury to find the requisite effect on commerce:
[W]e’re not just arguing the currency, we’re arguing the currency
coupled with the vehicle. . . . Not standing alone, but both of them
together. . . . In most sex trafficking cases use [of] the Internet is always
going to satisfy that element. . . . In this case with a vehicle, that should
satisfy the interstate commerce element.
The district court rejected this categorical contention in its May 24, 2024 decision.
“No authority is cited,” the court observed, “for the proposition that delivering legal
tender, without more, satisfied § 1591's jurisdictional element. . . . [I]f simply giving
money to someone qualifies as affecting interstate commerce, that . . . demonstrates
that a federal police power exists, contrary to the Constitution’s letter.”
The vehicle was important “in what happened,” the court noted, and “using an
instrumentality, such as Arif using his vehicle, is evidence the jury could consider in
deciding whether Arif’s crime affected interstate commerce.” But the government did
not prove “that Arif’s use of his vehicle had any effect, even a minor one, on
interstate commerce. . . . His Mississippi-made vehicle was connected with interstate
commerce, but his crime did not affect that stream. If the sex-trafficking statute’s
limiting word -- affecting interstate commerce -- is to carry any meaning, then the
government’s proof here falls short” (citations omitted). In conclusion, the court
noted that the Arkansas statute, Ark. Code Ann. § 5-18-103, does not require proof
of an effect on interstate commerce, and the state charge was voluntarily dismissed
without prejudice after the federal charge was filed. “The government doesn’t dispute
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that this charge can be refiled and pursued as a matter of Arkansas law, which
contains the great reserve of police power.”3
Rather than allow the state charges to be refiled, the Department of Justice filed
this appeal in mid-2024. On appeal, the government significantly expands its broad
assertion of federal criminal jurisdiction over conduct within the core of the States’
police power -- soliciting a minor for unwanted sex in a vehicle:
Under the Commerce Clause, Congress has the ability to regulate the
instrumentalities and channels of interstate commerce. . . . Arif used a
vehicle and public roadways to solicit sex from a minor. His use of an
instrumentality and channel of interstate commerce as the means to
commit his offense places his conduct in commerce.
The government speculates, despite the total lack of evidence on the question, that a
jury could reasonably infer that someone in P.W.’s situation, with her family
struggling to make ends meet, would spend the $20 on goods or services.
Congress may prohibit conduct committed “through the use of the mail,
telephone, telegraph, or other instrument of interstate or foreign commerce.” That is
the operative language of 18 U.S.C. § 844(e), which prohibits threats to injure or
destroy persons or property by means of fire or explosives. In United States v.
Corum, 362 F.3d 489, 493 (8th Cir. 2004), we held: “The plain language of . . .
§ 844(e) does not require proof of interstate commerce . . . beyond a showing that
Corum used an ‘instrument of interstate commerce,’ namely a telephone, to make his
threat.” But § 1591(a) is textually different and, as always, our analysis begins and
often ends with the plain meaning of the statutory text. “The commerce element in
3We note that Arif can still be prosecuted in Arkansas under the state’s human
trafficking statute if the state statute of limitations did not expire while the
Department of Justice pursued this federal appeal.
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§ 1591(a)(1) is conduct ‘in or affecting interstate commerce,’ not use of an
instrumentality of interstate commerce.” Koech, 992 F.3d at 693. Merely using the
channels or instrumentalities of interstate commerce is relevant but does not
necessarily demonstrate an actual effect on commerce that satisfies the jurisdictional
element.
The government argues that, because a car is an “instrumentality” of
commerce, proof of any use of a car in committing commercial sex trafficking of a
minor is sufficient evidence of an actual impact, like the use of a telephone, the
internet, or a computer. But as our analysis of the facts in Quigley demonstrates,
merely driving a car on a road, without more, does not establish a sufficient interstate
commerce nexus. The use of an instrumentality of commerce for a twenty-minute
intrastate trip in this case is simply not the same as connecting to a multi-state cellular
network or the internet, “a system that is inexorably intertwined with interstate
commerce.” United States v. Trotter, 478 F.3d 918, 921 (8th Cir. 2007). Although
the Mississippi-manufactured Nissan Murano was certainly linked to interstate
commerce, the government’s evidence failed to establish that Arif’s use of the car in
soliciting P.W. during two short intrastate drives to her home had an identifiable
actual effect on intrastate commerce. This is unlike the observable effects of the
defendant’s use of instrumentalities in Koech (cell phone communications regarding
sex trafficking and Facebook advertising of the victim) and Harris (use of the mail to
send false documents and communications via texting and FaceTime). See generally
United States v. Mann, 701 F.3d 274, 301-04 (8th Cir. 2012).
Turning to the second alleged instrumentality, the transfer of $20 of United
States currency, the government on appeal again has no authority supporting its
assertion that the Commerce Clause federalizes any criminal action in which money
played any role. In the district court the government cited a district court decision
from the Tenth Circuit, but that decision did not address the issue and was
subsequently reversed. More to the point, the Tenth Circuit held in United States v.
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Grey that the government failed to meet its burden of proving an effect on interstate
commerce in a money-laundering prosecution where it “did not introduce a shred of
evidence showing the origin or destination of the specific $200 in Federal Reserve
Notes that constituted the single alleged money laundering transaction.” 56 F.3d
1219, 1225 (10th Cir. 1995). Here, the government offered no evidence of where the
$20 came from or how P.W. spent it. Its de minimis showing is in sharp contrast to
the evidence in Koech that the victim and a sex trafficker immediately took
trafficking payments across state lines to purchase drugs.
Finally, the government on appeal argues for the first time that any use of a
roadway -- be it federal, state, local, or perhaps even private -- is sufficient evidence
of an actual effect on interstate commerce because roadways are a recognized channel
of interstate commerce. Again, the government has no supporting judicial authority
for this extraordinary categorical theory. Nor did it introduce any evidence regarding
the brief use of roadways at issue. It simply asserts, “Common sense dictates that a
twenty-minute drive from a business to a residence would be undertaken using
roadways.” The Supreme Court’s extensive Commerce Clause jurisprudence requires
far more evidence and detailed analysis.
The judgment of the district court is affirmed.
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