Opinion ID: 614400
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Roberts's Statements to Federal Authorities

Text: In response to an implicit defense assertion that Beckford was not present when the Barbados flight was offloaded on November 5, 2005, a matter discussed in more detail in Part II.A.2 of this opinion, see infra 156-64, ICE Agent Heather O'Malley was permitted to testify to certain parts of a proffer statement that Roberts made while attempting to cooperate with federal authorities on November 2, 2006. With his attorney present, Roberts told federal officials that on November 5, 2005, he had been summoned to a meeting by Victor Bourne, who instructed Roberts to remove baggage from the Barbados flight. Roberts adjusted crew schedules to ensure that employees who would normally have offloaded the Barbados flight would be occupied elsewhere. Roberts then called Clive Beckford and told him that Bourne needed Beckford to remove bags from the Barbados flight. When Roberts arrived at the gate for the Barbados flight, which had landed early, Bourne was already waiting on a freight tractor. Bourne and Beckford then began unloading baggage from the flight, while Roberts operated a Cochran. At one point, Beckford told Roberts that any containers remaining on the aircraft were empty, whereupon Beckford and Bourne drove away with the removed baggage. Roberts proceeded to the front of the aircraft where he offloaded what he thought were empty containers. While this account of events differed in some respects from that provided by Beckford, it conclusively refuted defense counsel's implicit assertion that Beckford was not present for the unloading of the Barbados flight.