[DO NOT PUBLISH]

IN THE UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE ELEVENTH CIRCUIT

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No. 14-13246

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D.C. Docket No. 4:13-cr-00104-RH-CAS-1

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,

 Plaintiff-Appellee,

versus

CLIFFORD VIRGILE,

 Defendant-Appellant.

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Appeal from the United States District Court

for the Northern District of Florida

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(June 11, 2015)

Before TJOFLAT, ANDERSON, and SENTELLE,* Circuit Judges.

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* Honorable David Bryan Sentelle, United States Circuit Judge for the District of Columbia 

Circuit, sitting by designation.

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PER CURIAM:

We have had the benefit of oral argument in this case, and have carefully 

reviewed the briefs of the parties and the relevant parts of the record. Defendant 

raises two challenges on appeal, both of which relate to the district court’s denial 

of his motion to suppress: (1) he argues that there was not reasonable suspicion to 

support the Terry1 stop of defendant; and (2) even assuming there was reasonable 

suspicion to conduct a Terry stop, he argues that the seizure of defendant’s keys 

exceeded the scope of a permissible protective frisk under Terry.

We conclude that there was more than enough evidence to constitute 

reasonable suspicion to justify the Terry stop (as will be obvious from our 

discussion below). We conclude that we need not address the second issue raised 

by defendant. We need not resolve whether the officer’s seizure of defendant’s 

keys exceeded the scope of a Terry stop, because we conclude that the officer had 

probable cause by the time he had seized the keys and asked defendant a few 

questions about them. 

Before Officer Williams ever even approached and questioned defendant, he 

had ample evidence constituting probable cause to believe that Charles had 

committed a crime involving the withdrawal of $500 from the Wells Fargo ATM 

 1 Terry v. Ohio, 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868 (1968).

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in the student union complex. Law enforcement had received a report that 

custodians had arrived early, at 6 am, at the virtually deserted student union 

complex and noticed suspicious activity on the part of two black males around an 

ATM. As a result of that report, officers approached Charles, who fled. After 

Charles was caught, and after Miranda warnings, Officer Williams questioned 

Charles, and determined that he had over $2900 in cash on his person, mostly in 

$20 bills which the officer inferred came from an ATM. He also had on his person 

a debit card in the name of another person, about which Charles told the officer 

that it belonged to another person who asked him to get money for him. During 

Officer Williams’ interview of Charles, another officer retrieved a receipt 

reflecting that $500 cash had been drawn from the Wells Fargo ATM at the student 

union at 5:58 am that morning. The receipt had been dropped as Charles fled, thus 

revealing that Charles had withdrawn $500 from that particular ATM using the 

card which was not in his own name. During his interview with Charles, the 

officer also reasonably inferred that Charles had committed a crime because he 

repeatedly asked how much time he was going to get.

Thus, at the time Officer Williams approached defendant, he already had 

probable cause that Charles had committed a crime. The officer had already 

reasonably inferred that Charles was not alone, because the custodians had 

reported that two persons were engaged in suspicious activity around the ATM at 

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the student union complex. Also, Officer Williams had considerable indication 

that the other person with Charles was this defendant. He matched the description 

of the second black male as revealed in the police report. Although a black male 

with dreadlocks and a black hoodie might not have been a sufficient identification 

in other circumstances, at 6:00 am when the area was otherwise virtually deserted, 

the fact that defendant matched the description given in the police report was 

evidence of considerable force. After reading defendant his Miranda rights, and 

after defendant agreed to speak with the officers, further information was revealed. 

In the conversation with Officer Williams, defendant admitted that he knew 

Charles from Miami, and admitted that he had seen him briefly that very morning 

at the student union. Thus, Officer Williams knew not only that defendant 

matched the description of the person indicated in the police report as having 

participated in suspicious activity with Charles, the officer also had defendant’s 

own admission that he knew Charles and that he had seen him at the student union 

that very morning. In light of the fact that virtually nobody else was at the student 

union at that hour of the morning, and in light of the fact that the police report 

indicated that a black male fitting the description of defendant and another black 

male – with respect to whom the officers already had probable cause to believe had 

committed a crime involving a $500 withdrawal from an ATM – were engaged in 

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suspicious activity around that ATM, we believe that the officers had probable 

cause to believe that the defendant was involved in the commission of that crime. 

For the foregoing reasons, we believe that Officer Williams had probable 

cause to believe that the defendant had committed a crime, and thus was justified 

in seizing and retaining the key ring with the keys to the rental car. Thus, the 

judgment of the district court is

AFFIRMED.

 

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