Opinion ID: 539182
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The July 14, 1987 Arrests and Seizures

Text: 15 On the evening of July 14, 1987, seven DEA agents and approximately one dozen state police officers executed the July 14 warrant, knocking and identifying themselves before entering. In the process of executing the warrant, the agents seized, inter alia, large quantities of cocaine in various stages of production and arrested the 11 defendants. 16 When the officers entered, they found eight of the defendants in the basement and the other three on the first floor. Those in the basement were Gomez-Sanchez, Garcia, Jaramaillo, Cortez, Berrio, Gomez, Bolivar, and Heriberto Torrez. Of this group, Berrio and Cortez were found in a room on the right side of the basement, an area used to leach cocaine base out of the charcoal in which it had been imported into the country. Near Berrio were, inter alia, a triple-beam scale and numerous cheesecloth bags full of spent charcoal. Both Berrio and Cortez were covered with charcoal dust. 17 Gomez-Sanchez, Garcia, Jaramaillo, Gomez, Bolivar, and Heriberto Torrez were found in a room on the left side of the basement, an area used to process the cocaine base into cocaine hydrochloride. Nearby were 17 drums containing cocaine in varying stages of crystallization, a hydraulic press, and glass containers of hydrochloric acid. Like Berrio and Cortez, these six defendants were covered with charcoal dust. 18 The other three defendants, Villegas, Valbuena, and Johana Torrez, were on the first floor of the house when the agents entered. Villegas, who had just arrived at the house with groceries, was found standing near the kitchen. Johana Torrez was observed standing at a table in the living room. On the table were a sewing machine with a piece of cheesecloth in position to be stitched, a large roll of cheesecloth, and a number of already sewn cheesecloth packets. Valbuena was found fully clothed in a shower stall in the first floor bathroom; the front of his clothing was covered with charcoal dust. 19 On the first floor of the house, the agents also seized, inter alia, two 30-kilogram barrels of quinine (a common cocaine cutting agent), a .22 caliber rifle, four notebooks with records relating to weights of the charcoal bags and cocaine. In addition, a triple-beam scale was seized from a closet, and approximately two kilograms of packaged cocaine were seized from another closet. 20 Upstairs, the agents discovered unpressed cocaine drying under heat lamps in the bathroom, fifteen one-pound cloth-wrapped packages of drying cocaine and women's clothing in a bedroom closet, and two microwave ovens and a number of portable fans in the hallway. In all, the agents found more than 24 kilograms of cocaine drying in the upstairs area.