Opinion ID: 681305
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Joaquin Morgado

Text: 165 Joaquin Morgado was convicted of one telephone count which the government concedes must be reversed (Count Eighteen). Again, we will do so. Morgado's remaining conviction is for conspiracy to distribute in excess of five kilograms of cocaine (Count One). Morgado 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 Morgado. This evidence included testimony by Paz, a videotape in which Paz was recorded talking with someone, purported to be Morgado, about the quality of certain cocaine, and items seized from Morgado at the time of his arrest. 30 166 Morgado'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 Morgado helped him dry the cocaine by mixing it with acetone. According to Paz, Morgado 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 Morgado 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 testimony, of the identity of the person to whom he was talking during this conversation. 167 In addition to Counts One and Eighteen, Morgado 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 Morgado to the distribution of this cocaine was testimony by an FBI agent who on November 8, 1991, arrested Morgado in the Comfort Inn hotel room registered to Gonzalez, twenty minutes after Gonzalez was arrested in the parking lot. 168 The defense asserted that Morgado 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 Morgado had not been authorized to act in such a manner. We can only hypothesize why the jury acquitted Morgado on Count Sixteen. Morgado 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 Morgado, 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 Morgado 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 Morgado's participation in the distribution. 169 The jury was presented with evidence of four taped phone conversations between Paz and Morgado 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, Morgado offered to supply Paz with a device that Paz could use to detect wire taps and scramble telephone conversations to avoid being intercepted. 170 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, Morgado 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 Morgado wanted to become involved in cocaine trafficking. Paz also testified, based on this conversation, that Morgado had an interest in meeting with Gonzalez-Rivera. During the October 23 telephone conversation, Morgado 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 Morgado to mean that he wanted Paz to find him some cocaine so that he could start selling it. 32 171 Without these taped recordings, the only evidence presented by the government of Morgado's role in the conspiracy was Paz's testimony and the facts surrounding Morgado's arrest. Morgado asserts that Paz had an overwhelming motive and bias against Morgado based on the fact that Morgado had supplied information to the government on Paz's drug trafficking activity three weeks prior to Paz's arrest. On October 10, 1991, Morgado informed AUSA Cohan and agent Tyler during a telephone conversation that Paz was distributing between twenty-eight and thirty kilograms of cocaine per week. 172 AUSA Cohan and agent Tyler talked with Morgado by telephone on October 10, 1991, one week after his release from prison. AUSA Cohan testified that she recalled that Morgado 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, Morgado 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). 173 Morgado's theory, if credible, gives Paz a motive to implicate Morgado in the conspiracy in retaliation for Morgado's role in providing the government with information concerning Paz's drug related activity. Moreover, the only substantive evidence establishing Morgado'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 Morgado. 174 The government responds that Morgado's arrest on November 8 in Gonzalez's Comfort Inn hotel room was evidence of his role in the conspiracy. However, Morgado's presence in the hotel room did not seem that culpable to the jury. They acquitted Morgado on Count Sixteen. The only other evidence brought to our attention of Morgado's involvement in the conspiracy was his possession of Gonzalez-Rivera's beeper number at the time of his arrest. 175 In a trial without the October tapes, Paz's testimony, with appropriate cross-examination, might be enough to support a finding that Morgado participated in the conspiracy. Here, however, the admission of the October tapes clearly disadvantaged Morgado 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. 176 We do not reach this conclusion on the basis that Morgado should have been acquitted based on his authorized informant defense. 33 Rather, we only find that the admission of the October tapes constituted prejudicial error to defendant Morgado. We will therefore reverse Morgado's conviction on Count One.