UNPUBLISHED

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

Plaintiff-Appellee,

v. No. 97-4780

ROBERT CALVIN MAXWELL,

Defendant-Appellant.

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Eastern District of North Carolina, at Raleigh.

James C. Fox, District Judge.

(CR-97-77-F)

Submitted: April 30, 1998

Decided: February 12, 1999

Before WILKINS and NIEMEYER, Circuit Judges, and

HALL, Senior Circuit Judge.

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Affirmed by unpublished per curiam opinion.

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COUNSEL

Mark E. Edwards, Durham, North Carolina, for Appellant. Janice

McKenzie Cole, United States Attorney, Anne M. Hayes, Assistant

United States Attorney, John S. Bowler, Assistant United States

Attorney, Raleigh, North Carolina, for Appellee.

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Unpublished opinions are not binding precedent in this circuit. See

Local Rule 36(c).

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OPINION

PER CURIAM:

Robert Calvin Maxwell appeals his conviction for conspiracy to

possess with intent to distribute cocaine base in violation of 21 U.S.C.

§ 846 (1994), and possession with intent to distribute cocaine base in

violation of 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1) (1994). Maxwell's sole claim on

appeal is that he was denied a fair trial because the district court

improperly allowed the government to introduce evidence that he

lived in a known drug area. We affirm.

On June 21, 1996, narcotics officers prepared to search Maxwell's

room on the second story of a boarding house at 1201 East Lane

Street, Raleigh, North Carolina. Upon arriving at the address the officers heard persons jumping onto a shed in the back of the house and

saw two black males running away. Three feet above the roof of the

shed was an open bathroom window. Inside the boarding house the

officers found both the door to Maxwell's room and an adjacent door

to the bathroom wide open, and inside Maxwell's room they noticed

a window fan that apparently had been removed from the window.

Hanging from the window was a plastic bag containing 88.5 grams

of crack cocaine. From this bag and inside Maxwell's room the officers uncovered a series of small plastic bags, a rusty single edge razor

blade, white residue, a digital scale, a digital pager, $498 in cash, a

loaded .380 caliber semi-automatic weapon, and a rental car contract

issued to Maxwell. Outside the boarding house was a rental car that

corresponded with the rental contract.

On October 29, 1996, police staged a controlled purchase of

cocaine from Maxwell. During the controlled purchase police officers

approached Maxwell's car. Police then observed Maxwell throw a

bag containing 108 grams of crack cocaine out of the car as he drove

away. A confidential informant who had been in Maxwell's car as

part of the staged buy reported that Maxwell had a cellular telephone

and $442 in currency in the car.

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At Maxwell's trial, the government presented three witnesses to

corroborate that Maxwell had been living in the boarding house and

had fled when the police raided the house on June 21. Three other

witnesses testified as to their first hand knowledge of Maxwell's

extensive cocaine distribution activities. Two of these witnesses had

bought cocaine from Maxwell on a routine basis over an extended

period of time. The third witness, who had known Maxwell since he

was a child, testified that he had seen Maxwell using a pager to take

orders for crack cocaine sales.

We review evidentiary rulings for an abuse of discretion, and such

rulings are subject to harmless error review under Fed. R. Crim. P. 52.

See United States v. Heater, 63 F.3d 311, 325 (4th Cir. 1995). "[I]n

order to find a district court's error harmless, we need only be able

to say `with fair assurance, after pondering all that happened without

stripping the erroneous action from the whole, that the judgment was

not substantially swayed by the error.'" Id. (citations omitted). Maxwell asserts that the district court abused its discretion in allowing the

government to introduce irrelevant evidence that the boarding house

where he had been living was located in a known drug area. Even if

the district court erred in admitting this evidence, the overwhelming

evidence of Maxwell's drug distribution activities assures us that the

admission of this evidence had no substantial effect on the jury's

determination of Maxwell's guilt. Accordingly, we find no prejudicial

error from the admission of the contested testimony and affirm Maxwell's conviction.

We dispense with oral argument because the facts and legal contentions are adequately before the court and argument would not aid the

decisional process.

AFFIRMED

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