Opinion ID: 6111678
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Video of January 6 Hotel Suite Meeting

Text: In the second video -- capturing a meeting the next day (January 6) in a Revere, Massachusetts hotel-room suite -- the following transpired: 2As later explained by the testifying law enforcement agents, a basket and a sixty-two are common amounts of cocaine base bought and sold in the drug trade. - 6 - R.E. enters the hotel suite, at the time occupied by Pena, Ortiz, and an unidentified third male, to consummate the previously negotiated cocaine deal. Shortly after R.E. arrives, Pena steps into the bathroom with R.E., closes the door, turns on the faucet, and flushes the toilet. Though the sound of flowing water distorts the audio, Pena is seen in the mirror counting money, purportedly in exchange for crack cocaine that is out of the frame of the recording device.3 Upon exiting the bathroom, Pena and R.E. rejoin Ortiz and the unidentified man to converse about several topics. During this conversation, Ortiz reveals: Yo, he (the unidentified third man in the room) just said he had a whole bunch of dope, crack, he pushing it. Ortiz also informs R.E. that his (Ortiz's) runner was using a rental car obtained under his cousin's name. R.E. then departs from the hotel room and returns to his car. In the aftermath of this recorded meeting, ATF agents recovered two plastic bags from R.E. The parties stipulated at trial that the two bags contained, in total, 49.13 grams of cocaine base. 3 At trial, the prosecution argued that Pena completed the transaction in the bathroom without Ortiz and the unidentified third man in the hotel room because the unidentified man was a competing drug dealer. - 7 -