Opinion ID: 866145
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Wiretapped Conversations

Text: In July 2004, law enforcement agents began intercepting several telephone calls between Hipólito, Pinales, Pena and Heredia. These telephone calls depicted Hipólito attempting to broker several drug transactions with Pinales, with Hipólito asking Pinales to give me some stuff and later reminding Pinales I owe you seven and a half. The intercepted conversations also revealed that the parties spoke in code, referring to kilograms of cocaine as cars and money as tickets. The low point for Hipólito came in the final days of September, when one of his planned cocaine transactions with Pinales went awry. It all began on September 28, when agents intercepted a telephone call where Hipólito told Pinales the following: so, tomorrow, I am going to send the guy over there . . . to bring the tickets, the little tickets, yes, and so you give him that. Pinales responded, [a]lright . . . [t]ell him to call me, so that he meets up with Viejo . . .2 The next day, at 11:47 a.m., Alex Hernández, Hipólito's courier, called Pinales and said: I am Hipólito's guy. I will, I am going to call you . . . in a couple of minutes, do you hear? Pinales told Hernández that this was fine, but gave him another 2 Trooper Cepero testified that, over the course of the investigation, he concluded that Viejo, which in this context translates into English as Old Man, was a reference to either Heredia or Pena. In this particular call, the government posited that Pinales was referring to Heredia. -5- phone number and asked him to [c]all him there. An hour later, Hernández placed a call to the phone number that Pinales gave him, which turned out to belong to Heredia. Hernández again identified himself as Hipólito's guy, and Heredia instructed him to come by here, by near here, by Hyde Park, where the little store3 was located. Hernández told Heredia that he would stop by there to pick up a pair of pants. Heredia then called Pinales to ask what he should give to Hernández, to which Pinales responded the usual or the complete one. Massachusetts State Trooper Jaime Cepero, who was eavesdropping on these calls while sitting in a wire room, alerted surveillance officers that there was a person heading to the Park Avenue Market to meet with Heredia, and that said person was going to be receiving a kilogram of cocaine. At 1:00 p.m., several law enforcement officers, including DEA Task Force Agent Kevin McDonough, were conducting surveillance around the Park Avenue Market. Twenty minutes later, McDonough observed Heredia come out of the Park Avenue Market, wearing an unzipped jacket. As Heredia stood outside, a red Mustang pulled over next to him, and he began to talk with the driver. At that point, Heredia entered the vehicle through the passenger door, and the vehicle then proceeded down Hyde Park Avenue. It stopped just a few blocks away from 115 Navarre Street. Heredia emerged from the vehicle and entered a residence at that location. One or two 3 This is apparently a reference to the Park Avenue Market. -6- minutes later, Heredia exited the residence, this time with his jacket zipped up and his hands inside his pockets. Agent McDonough perceived him to be holding something around his stomach area. Heredia then traveled to the Mustang, reconvened with the driver, and together they headed back to the area of the Park Avenue Market. Now back there, Heredia stepped out of the vehicle, and the vehicle continued on its way. The officers, including Agent McDonough, proceeded to follow it in their unmarked cars. The red Mustang made its way through several streets in Boston, eventually embarking on Interstate 93, northbound. As Agent McDonough was shadowing the vehicle, Trooper Cepero, who was still in the wire room, contacted a nearby Massachusetts State Police barracks to arrange for a marked police cruiser to stop the Mustang. Trooper John Costa and Sergeant McCarthy, who were in the area driving separate police cruisers, spotted the Mustang as it was approaching the town of Wilmington, Massachusetts and ordered it to pull over onto the hard shoulder lane.4 They identified the driver as Alex Hernández and conducted a search of the vehicle using trained canines. The canines sniffed around the vehicle and alerted the officers to an area under the rear of the passenger seat; the officers inspected the floor around this area and found a possible hidden compartment. Hernández was placed under arrest, 4 Trooper Costa testified that, at the time, the Mustang was traveling over the speed limit and was following the vehicle in front of it too closely. -7- and the Mustang was towed to the Andover barracks, where an inspection of the hidden compartment yielded a kilogram of cocaine. As time passed, Hipólito grew anxious awaiting Hernández's arrival. At 3:31 p.m., he called Pinales and asked [a]t what time did you guys give the car to the guy? Pinales replied, [a] while ago . . . [i]s he not answering the phone? No, he is not answering now . . . [y]ou know how that is, said Hipólito. A worried Pinales then told Hipólito [o]h, damn . . . [b]ad sign . . . [t]here are problems there, bro . . . I hope . . . God willing there are not . . . The two agreed that they would wait and see what happened to Hernández, with Hipólito promising to call Pinales as soon as he had news. At 4:57 p.m., Hipólito finally called Pinales and told him: [t]hey caught the man, dude. Dismayed, Pinales asked where, and Hipólito replied, in Andover. Hipólito then told Pinales that he was going to call someone to figure out what was going on. Pinales and Hipólito spoke again on the phone at 7:39 p.m. Pinales warned Hipólito that [i]t seems the friend is singing to the police, and Hipólito advised Pinales to change his phone numbers. Almost two hours later, Hipólito called Pinales and told him that he had spoken with Hernández's lawyer, who confirmed that the police had caught him with that, yes. Several other phone conversations between Hipólito and Pinales were intercepted on the -8- following day. Those recordings mostly featured discussions concerning the amount of Hernández's bail.