Opinion ID: 3009553
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Joaquin Mordago

Text: Joaquin Mordago was convicted of one telephone count which the government concedes must be reversed (Count Eighteen). Again, we will do so. Mordago's remaining conviction is for conspiracy to distribute in excess of five kilograms of cocaine (Count One). Mordago asserts a number of specific reasons why the admission of the October tapes constituted prejudicial error as to Count One. The government contends, on the other hand, that the admission of the October tapes was harmless error based on the other evidence against Mordago. This evidence included testimony by Paz, a videotape in which Paz was recorded talking with someone, purported to be Mordago, about the quality of certain cocaine, and items seized from Mordago at the time of his arrest.30 30 . These items included the beeper numbers for Paz and Gonzalez-Rivera, and the telephone number of Gonzalez. Mordago's role in the conspiracy involved his drying two and one half kilograms of wet cocaine which Paz received from Quintero and Cruz. Paz testified that Mordago helped him dry the cocaine by mixing it with acetone. According to Paz, Mordago had attempted to sell the three kilograms of cocaine but returned them to Paz when Paz believed that he had a willing buyer in agent Gonzalez at MRK. Paz stated that during the October 31 transaction at MRK, he called Mordago to complain about the quality of the cocaine. Paz's part of this conversation was recorded on the videotape, which was played for the jury.31 There is no evidence, independent of Paz's 31 . The following is testimony by Paz on direct examination by the government. Q: Now, during this part of the videotape, where are you seated? A: Behind a desk. Q: What were you doing? A: I was making a telephone call. Q: Who were you calling? A: Joaquin Mordago. Q: What were you saying to Joaquin Mordago? A: That I was having problems with that kilo, that what he had done was some shit. Q: Now looking at the top of page six of the transcript book, you stated towards the top of that page the following: There is one that you made for me there, that doesn't even have a shape. It doesn't even have shape. testimony, of the identity of the person to whom he was talking during this conversation. In addition to Counts One and Eighteen, Mordago was indicted on Count Sixteen for distribution of cocaine. The jury acquitted him on this count. Count Sixteen was based on the October 11, 1993, sale of five kilograms of cocaine to agent Gonzalez by Paz and Santiago Gonzalez. The government's evidence tying Mordago to the distribution of this cocaine was testimony by an FBI agent who on November 8, 1991, arrested Mordago in the Comfort Inn hotel room registered to Gonzalez, twenty minutes after Gonzalez was arrested in the parking lot. (..continued) No, but we have to do that again. Now, what were you referring to in that part of the conversation that it didn't have shape? A: The kilo that [agent Gonzalez] did not want. Q: When you stated but we have to do that again man, what had to be done again? A: That kilo that didn't have shape. Q: What was going to be done to give that kilo shape? A: Again, to take it, melt it, put it in a vase, I don't know what the man was going to do. Q: That man was going to do, who were you referring to? A: Joaquin Mordago. TT at 42-43 (Sept. 3, 1992; Morning Session). The defense asserted that Mordago was present in Gonzalez's hotel room as part of his efforts to provide information to the government. The government presented several law enforcement officials who testified that Mordago had not been authorized to act in such a manner. We can only hypothesize why the jury acquitted Mordago on Count Sixteen. Mordago asserts that the jury apparently accepted his authorized informant defense as it related to Count Sixteen. Equally plausible, however, is that the jury believed that the evidence against Mordago, arrested while waiting in Gonzalez's hotel room, was insufficient to find that he participated in the distribution of the five kilograms of cocaine to MRK. Given the fact the government presented no evidence that Mordago supplied, delivered, or sought direct payment for the five kilograms which were given to agent Gonzalez on consignment, it is quite possible that the jury did not believe the government had proved beyond a reasonable doubt Mordago's participation in the distribution. The jury was presented with evidence of four taped phone conversations between Paz and Mordago during the month of October, one on October 12, two on October 17, and one on October 23. Agent Clouse testified that during the October 12 telephone conversation, Mordago offered to supply Paz with a device that Paz could use to detect wire taps and scramble telephone conversations to avoid being intercepted. Paz testified about the contents of all four October telephone conversations. In each instance, the conversation was played for the jury, followed by Paz's testimony. During the October 12 telephone conversation, Mordago told Paz that I'm in a pretty bad situation and I want to start doing something, do you understand it? Paz testified that he interpreted this to mean that Mordago wanted to become involved in cocaine trafficking. Paz also testified, based on this conversation, that Mordago had an interest in meeting with Gonzalez-Rivera. During the October 23 telephone conversation, Mordago asked Paz why don't you talk to Papo so that he get me and later told Paz that I want to start working brother. Paz testified that he understood Mordago to mean that he wanted Paz to find him some cocaine so that he could start selling it.32 Without these taped recordings, the only evidence presented by the government of Mordago's role in the conspiracy was Paz's testimony and the facts surrounding Mordago's arrest. 32 . This conversation also contained a statement by Mordago that Alfredo is going to bring to me . . . to fix the blender . . . you brought me yesterday. Paz testified this was a reference to the drying and mixing of the two and one-half kilograms of cocaine received from Quintero and Elsa Cruz. On crossexamination, however, Paz testified that the reference may have been to bullets for a gun that he claimed to have given Mordago. Paz's testimony on this aspect of the recorded conversation is ambiguous. Nevertheless, the government sought to prove that Mordago assisted Paz by drying the cocaine received from Quintero and Elsa Cruz. The government introduced into evidence a telephone conversation between Paz and Gonzalez recorded on October 28 in which Paz told Gonzalez that Joaquin had dried some cocaine for him. This conversation was also inadmissible. Mordago asserts that Paz had an overwhelming motive and bias against Mordago based on the fact that Mordago had supplied information to the government on Paz's drug trafficking activity three weeks prior to Paz's arrest. On October 10, 1991, Mordago informed AUSA Cohan and agent Tyler during a telephone conversation that Paz was distributing between twenty-eight and thirty kilograms of cocaine per week. AUSA Cohan and agent Tyler talked with Mordago by telephone on October 10, 1991, one week after his release from prison. AUSA Cohan testified that she recalled that Mordago told them that he had met Paz at a restaurant called El Kibuk and learned that Paz was distributing between twenty-eight and thirty kilograms of cocaine per week. Agent Tyler testified that during this October 10 telephone conversation, Mordago advised me that he had met, had been to El Kibuk, and had learned that a guy named Cristobal Paz was selling 28 to 30 kilos of cocaine from a supplier in Miami. TT at 15 (Sept. 15, 1992; Morning Session). Mordago's theory, if credible, gives Paz a motive to implicate Mordago in the conspiracy in retaliation for Mordago's role in providing the government with information concerning Paz's drug related activity. Moreover, the only substantive evidence establishing Mordago's role in the conspiracy outside of the October tapes is Paz's testimony. Unlike the other defendants recorded on the October tapes, for whom there was independent evidence beyond Paz's testimony to prove their active role in the conspiracy, no such independent admissible evidence was introduced by the government with regard to Mordago. The government responds that Mordago's arrest on November 8 in Gonzalez's Comfort Inn hotel room was evidence of his role in the conspiracy. However, Mordago's presence in the hotel room did not seem that culpable to the jury. They acquitted Mordago on Count Sixteen. The only other evidence brought to our attention of Mordago's involvement in the conspiracy was his possession of Gonzalez-Rivera's beeper number at the time of his arrest. In a trial without the October tapes, Paz's testimony, with appropriate cross-examination, might be enough to support a finding that Mordago participated in the conspiracy. Here, however, the admission of the October tapes clearly disadvantaged Mordago to a greater degree that it did his co-defendants. Based on this analysis, we do not have a sure conviction that the admission of the October tapes did not prejudice him. We do not reach this conclusion on the basis that Mordago should have been acquitted based on his authorized informant defense.33 Rather, we only find that the admission of 33 . In crediting the information Mordago supplied to the government on October 10, we in no way comment on the sufficiency of Mordago's authorized informant defense. That will be for a new jury to decide if the government seeks to retry the defendant. It is entirely possible that the jury believed, as the government argued, that Mordago was not authorized to engage in the illegal activity that the government sought to prove he engaged in. We only note the information that Mordago provided to the government on October 10 as it impacts on the credibility of Paz's testimony. the October tapes constituted prejudicial error to defendant Mordago. We will therefore reverse Mordago's conviction on Count One.