Opinion ID: 2959836
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Howard and Restifo Search

Text: Based on three intercepted telephone calls indicating that defendant John E. Howard, III would be traveling to the Woodbury Commons shopping complex to purchase cocaine, a team of New York State narcotics investigators and agents of the United States Drug Enforcement Agency (the “investigatory team” or the “team”) was assigned to surveil Howard on May 20, 2004. Howard left his residence at approximately 10:30 a.m., and the team followed his vehicle. After briefly losing sight of the vehicle, the team observed Howard entering the New York Thruway (“Thruway”) at the Schenectady entrance. At that time, he had a passenger with him in the car, who was later determined to be defendant Christopher Restifo. -3- Howard and Restifo parked and left Howard’s vehicle in the lot at Woodbury Commons, returning to it roughly two and a half hours later. At approximately 4:45 p.m., a sport utility vehicle (“SUV”) arrived and parked nose-to-nose with Howard’s vehicle. Howard exited his vehicle, entered the SUV, and sat in its passenger seat for three to four minutes. He then returned to his own vehicle to retrieve a black knapsack. He reentered the SUV, this time with the black knapsack in hand, and sat there for a few minutes, at which point he returned to his vehicle and retrieved a small black object, which the district court suggested might have been a cell phone. Reentering the SUV, he sat in it for an additional four minutes and then exited the vehicle carrying the same black bag. He placed the black bag in the trunk of his vehicle and entered his vehicle on the passenger’s side while Restifo moved to the driver’s seat. The vehicle left the Woodbury Commons parking lot, with Restifo driving and Howard in the passenger seat, and proceeded north on the Thruway, followed by the investigatory team. Having been informed by members of the investigatory team that an exchange had been made, the team leaders decided to stop and search the vehicle. Because no determination had been reached whether to arrest Howard and Restifo at this point in the investigation, the team leaders devised a ruse to lure Howard and Restifo away from their vehicle so that it could be searched, unbeknownst to them, by law enforcement personnel. Between 6:00 and 7:00 p.m., approximately one hour north of Woodbury Commons, Howard and Restifo were pulled over by two uniformed New York State troopers, who told them that the police were investigating a complaint of road rage involving a vehicle fitting the description of Howard’s vehicle. They asked Howard and Restifo to come with them to the nearby trooper barracks to investigate the complaint. At this point, according to the district -4- court, “[t]he vehicle was surreptitiously tampered with so that the vehicle would remain unlocked even if Howard and Restifo attempted to lock it.” Howard, 406 F. Supp. 2d at 219. Howard and Restifo accompanied the troopers to the barracks, leaving parked on the side of the Thruway “what they believed was their locked Acura,” according to the district court. Id. At the barracks, troopers purportedly investigating the road rage incident interviewed the defendants, who continued to cooperate fully. Meanwhile, members of the investigatory team searched Howard’s vehicle, including the trunk. They retrieved a black knapsack, inside which they found about one kilogram of cocaine in a sealed package and a black plastic shopping bag that contained about eight ounces of cocaine hydrochloride. They also found a smaller zip-close bag containing $20,100. The team retained all of these items as evidence. The team leaders directed the personnel conducting the search of the vehicle to make it appear as though the vehicle had been vandalized while it was left unattended on the side of the Thruway. They broke a pool cue found in the back of the car, presumably belonging to the vehicle’s occupants, and used it to pry open the glove compartment, damaging the glove compartment and making it appear as if there had been an attempted break-in. Approximately forty minutes after they stopped the vehicle, and after being advised that the site of the vehicle was cleared of investigators, the troopers returned Howard and Restifo to their vehicle. At no time did the investigatory team try to procure a search warrant. Moreover, the district court stated that the defendants “remained unaware of the actual events involving the [vehicle search] up to the time of the suppression hearing.” Id. The government disputes this fact, however, and claims that, “[w]hile additional details of the search may have been disclosed for the first time during the suppression hearing, Howard received notice that the search occurred -5- when he received a copy of the criminal complaint against him on June 9, 2004. Restifo learned no later than August 5, 2004, at which time he was provided with a copy of, and arraigned on, the superseding indictment, that the police were aware he had cocaine in the car with him on June 1, 2004.”