Opinion ID: 352547
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Witness Edelen.

Text: 52 Audrey Edelen was a witness for appellants at the hearing who also signed a prior affidavit. She had been treated as a patient by Maturo. Through her testimony, appellants sought to support the claim of wiretapping. She testified that when the U.S. Attorney interrogated her, he told me he had records of several calls that I had made to that office, and he gave me the times . . . and dates of some of them (Tr. 42-43). From this appellants argued that the records must have resulted from illegal wiretapping of their telephones. However, no testimony was adduced as to any wiretapping, and all alleged wiretapping was categorically denied by the United States Attorney (Tr. 155). He did not recall the precise source of her telephone calls to which he had referred. It was the Government's standard operating procedure in criminal cases to issue subpoenas for telephone toll calls (Tr. 156-157). He also thought it probable that we got her name from laboratories where the defendants submitted tests . . . (Tr. 157). More in keeping with the information referred to, however, is the possibility that they were recorded as long distance calls from Edelen's home at Route 2, Box 2362-C, LaPlata, Maryland (Tr. 39) some miles from Washington, D.C. In any event, the Edelen testimony is not fully supportive of wiretapping, no other creditable evidence supports such accusation, and the flat denial of all said activity by the U.S. Attorney clearly outweighs appellants' claim. 53 We close this phase of the discussion by noticing that there is nothing in the testimony of the witness Joseph Sarnella, . . . Chief of the (D.C.) License Bureau and the comments of appellants' counsel with respect thereto, that even remotely resembles any improper conduct by the prosecution. 54