Opinion ID: 866145
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Indictment and Investigation

Text: On July 27, 2005, Díaz-Arias and twelve other co- defendants were charged pursuant to a four-count, first superseding indictment issued by a grand jury in the District of Massachusetts. Díaz-Arias was only charged in Count One of the indictment, which alleged that he participated in a conspiracy to distribute at least five kilograms of cocaine, from January to October 2004, at various locales within the District of Massachusetts. Among the other defendants who were charged in Count One were Manuel Pinales, Rafael Heredia,1 Richard Pena and Tajh M. White. The following facts are recounted in the light most favorable to the verdict. United States v. Poulin, 631 F.3d 17, 18 (1st Cir. 2011). The charges brought against Díaz-Arias arose out of an investigation conducted by the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) during the summer and fall of 2004. The focus of the investigation was an organization involved in the distribution of large quantities of cocaine in the Boston area. Manuel Pinales was identified as the leader of the organization, receiving cocaine in quantities of between 30 and 80 kilograms at a time from a source of supply in the Dominican Republic. Pinales and his cohorts then 1 Heredia was also known as Luis Clas or Cuba. During DíazArias' trial, the government referred to him as Luis Clas. On appeal, both parties refer to him in their briefs as Heredia. We do the same here. -3- distributed these drugs to customers in the Boston, New Bedford and Lowell areas of Massachusetts, as well as to customers in Rhode Island. According to the results of the investigation, the core members of the Pinales organization were Heredia, Rodríguez and Pena. The DEA investigation relied on court-authorized wiretaps on phones belonging to Pinales, Rodríguez, Pena and Heredia. The evidence submitted at trial against Díaz-Arias consisted primarily of recordings of conversations between Pinales, Pena, Heredia and a man referred to as Hipólito, whom the government later identified as Díaz-Arias. The government also relied on several drug ledgers that were seized on October 8, 2004, pursuant to search warrants executed on 115 Navarre Street, where Heredia maintained an inventory of cocaine, and at another location known as the Park Avenue Market, a grocery store run by Pinales. The government's position at trial was that the ledgers linked DíazArias (referred to in the ledgers as Hipólito or H.P.) with several kilograms of cocaine and thousands of dollars paid or owed to the Pinales organization. The wiretap recordings, which the government also used to prove that Díaz-Arias was a regular customer of the Pinales organization, are discussed in more detail below. -4-