Opinion ID: 750120
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Evidence of Illegal Activity

Text: 5 Law enforcement officials began to gather circumstantial evidence of the conspirators' criminal activities in late 1993. Members of the Chicago Police Department who patrolled Ida Wells testified to seeing Lawrence McCarroll, Brock, Anderson, Key, and Jarrett frequently conversing in small groups that would quickly disperse if approached. At trial, Chicago Housing Authority officers confirmed this description of the appellants' furtive actions. A CHA officer also remembered observing Lawrence McCarroll driving through the neighborhood around Ida Wells in a variety of cars, including a Toyota Land Cruiser, a Lexus, a Honda, a Pontiac Grand Am, and a Nissan Maxima. Police officers followed Lawrence McCarroll, Brock, and Jarrett to the conspiracy's laboratory in south Chicago and once photographed the group at that location. 6 The officers also observed more direct evidence of drug sales. One CHA officer, in particular, testified that he saw Key taking money from persons in exchange for small objects while Jarrett looked out for Key. Numerous police officers also testified to seeing Anderson, Key, and Jarrett handing small packages to customers in cars in exchange for money. An officer once retrieved one of these packages and found that it contained white powder. 7 Most dramatically, on October 21, 1994, a CHA officer observed an unindicted co-conspirator named Sconey at Ida Wells hawking heroin like hotdogs at a ball game. The brand name of the conspirators' heroin was Thunder, and Sconey was observed yelling, Thunder, Thunder, I got that whip! For the benefit of other pushers, he would also yell out Car 13 whenever a CHA car drove by and Car 15 when a CPD vehicle approached. Sconey unwittingly approached a CHA officer's unmarked car and asked the officer if he wanted some Thunder. When the officer declined, Sconey asked him to move his car away so other customers could get theirs. 8 The conspirators also provoked suspicion of their activities in a number of confrontations with law enforcement officials. When stopped by police on December 30, 1993, Appellant Anderson stated that he was unemployed and could not explain his possession of $4,252 in cash. Just three days later, Anderson was stopped again by police after he sat in a car near Ida Wells receiving money; Anderson took the police on a six-block car chase, but he was eventually apprehended and found to be carrying $4,150 in cash. Appellants Key and Brock also led police officers on a brief car chase on January 21, 1994. The two co-conspirators abandoned their car after crashing it and fled in different directions; a police officer caught Brock and found him in possession of $470 in cash. Four days after this incident, police stopped Anderson for traffic violations and found him carrying $390. 9 The conspirators continued to entangle themselves with the police throughout 1994. On April 3, a patdown search of Lawrence McCarroll and Anderson revealed over $650 in cash on McCarroll and over $1,000 in cash on Anderson. The next day, Anderson was again in trouble with the law. Upon seeing a CPD officer, Anderson threw a marijuana package to the ground and ran into his apartment. The officer chased Anderson into the apartment and discovered $12,750 cash in a pail, as well as 30-50 gym shoes and a great deal of designer clothing in Anderson's closet. Anderson was again stopped for a traffic violation on May 20, 1994, along with Derrick Jarrett; a pat-down of Jarrett found $1,220 in cash even though he stated that, like Anderson, he was unemployed. 10 Incidents like these convinced law enforcement officials that the conspirators were operating an enormous drug enterprise out of the Ida Wells complex. The Joint Task Force on Gangs, an interagency unit headquartered in the F.B.I.'s Chicago office, installed wiretaps on the conspirators' phones. The conversations secretly taped in late 1994 provided some of the most incriminating evidence against the appellants. The wiretaps recorded countless calls in which the conspirators updated each other on the progress of their heroin sales on the street, called for more heroin to be delivered to those sellers, discussed cutting (diluting) high-purity heroin, and instructed each other about where to deposit the proceeds of their drug sales. The Task Force's wiretaps operated from November 14 until December 22, 1994, and ran again from January 1 until appellants' arrests on January 23, 1995. 11 In particular, the wiretaps captured incriminating conversations among the conspirators regarding their purchases of large amounts of high-purity heroin (which they, in due course, would dilute at their laboratory and sell in small increments at Ida Wells). Appellant Samir Hameen spoke with Lawrence McCarroll on December 3, 1994, about paying $12,500 for one hundred grams of heroin. One week later, Lawrence McCarroll and Hameen agreed to take care of some business that day, and then later complained about the way in which their heroin supplier had driven a hard bargain. Hameen and Lawrence McCarroll spoke again on December 18 about their need to buy more heroin from their wholesale seller before Christmas. Calls from a three-week period showed that the conspiracy regularly bought many hundreds of grams of highgrade heroin. 12 The wiretaps also provided evidence of a wholesale purchase on January 15, 1995, just before law enforcement officials arrested the conspirators. Accompanied by Judy McCarroll and Lawrence McCarroll's young son, Hameen drove to a meeting at which he tried to purchase more than 500 grams of high-purity heroin from Sam, the conspirators' wholesale seller; Sam only had 500 grams available but said that he would have more heroin the next day. Over a cellular phone, Lawrence instructed Hameen to pay $58,000 for the 500 grams. Hameen later reported to Lawrence over the phone that Sam had stated that this amount was insufficient and had insisted on their usual rate of $12,500 per 100 grams. Hameen told Lawrence that he had promised to bring the additional money to Sam at their next purchase and had overcome Sam's reluctance by reminding him that they had been doing this for over a year and that they were regular customers who came back to him like milkmen. While driving back from this purchase, police officers stopped Hameen and Judy McCarroll, who successfully concealed the half-kilogram of heroin by sticking it under her shirt and holding her crying grandson close to her chest. Soon thereafter, Judy McCarroll reported the incident to her son in a recorded conversation in which she declared that her quick thinking was a product of divine intervention. 13 The wiretap evidence was corroborated by a series of purchases by the Government's informant, Fred Kinnie. Kinnie purchased heroin of varying degrees of purity from Appellant Brock on six separate occasions from July 21 to December 8, 1994. Kinnie bought six grams of heroin for $1,800 on July 21 and Brock informed him that the heroin could be diluted eight to ten times; the Government later determined that this heroin was 69% pure. Kinnie acquired another six grams of heroin for $1,800 on August 19, but this time the heroin was 83% pure. In making his third purchase at Ida Wells on September 5, Kinnie had to ask Appellant Jarrett where to find Brock. He followed Jarrett's directions and made a third purchase of six grams of 57%-pure heroin for $1,800; Kinnie observed Brock hand the $1,800 immediately to Appellant Key. Kinnie once more bought six grams for $1,800 on September 30, whereupon Brock told Kinnie that he could handle sales up to 250 grams if Kinnie desired more heroin. The heroin at this fourth purchase was 61% pure. At the fifth purchase on November 11, Kinnie bought seven grams for $2,000 and this heroin tested at 61%-pure (the same level as the heroin of the fourth purchase). Finally, Kinnie made his last and largest purchase on December 8. He bought ten grams of 43%-pure heroin and a G pack, which contained fifty, half-gram packages of heavily-diluted heroin (7.7% purity). The ten grams sold for $2,500, while the G pack cost Kinnie $1,000. 14 Further information about the conspiracy's activities was provided by Linda Davis, a resident at Ida Wells who allowed the appellants to store drugs and money in her apartment in exchange for money. The conspirators referred to Davis as Miss D in a number of recorded phone calls. In August 1994, for example, Appellant Key gave her a plastic bag of ten- and twenty-dollar bills packaged in rubber bands; Appellant Anderson later came to retrieve this package from her. Davis testified at trial that Appellants Jarrett and Brock also followed this practice of depositing packages of rubber-banded cash with her regularly. 15 The conspirators flaunted their newfound wealth to their neighbors, but they went to great lengths to hide it from the Government. Four of the appellants--Judy McCarroll, Lawrence McCarroll, Dwight Anderson, and Jeffrey Brock--did not file income tax returns for the years 1990-1994. The McCarrolls took charge of laundering much of the conspiracy's profits. Telephone wiretaps in January 1995 recorded Lawrence and Judy discussing the purchase of a $150,000 apartment building and over $25,000 of jewelry. Teresa Howard (a co-defendant who did not appeal her conviction or sentence) bought three cars with cash for Judy McCarroll and helped funnel the conspiracy's drug money into other legitimate assets. Also, a man named Angelo Evans purchased two expensive cars with cash provided by Lawrence McCarroll within a two-month period in late 1993. Just prior to his arrest, Lawrence McCarroll was negotiating with Evans over the cash purchase of a luxury sedan that was to be a birthday present for Judy McCarroll.