Opinion ID: 790797
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Intercepted Telephone Calls and Surveillance

Text: 10 In a series of recorded telephone conversations played for the jury, Valentin and Garcia discussed their drug operation with each other as well as with fellow conspirators. We focus here on calls relating to the charged March 20, 2002 transaction. 11 On the morning of March 18, 2002, Valentin and DeArmas discussed an imminent drug transaction and squabbled over price. Later that same day, DeArmas proposed consummating the deal at the site of a previous meeting, whereupon Valentin stated that he would talk to Yuri, because it was Yuri who was driving the last time. Gov't Ex. 106T at 5 (emphasis added). In another call that evening, Valentin told DeArmas that he was putting Bonitillo on the telephone to discuss the meeting site. Gov't Ex. 107T at 16. The monitoring interpreter, who had an opportunity to listen to a voice exemplar given by Garcia, identified Garcia as the person next heard on the recording agreeing to meet DeArmas at the place where we went that time. Id. 3 12 Case agent Paul Klemick of the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) testified that, at the appointed time, he and other law enforcement officials surveilled the meeting site, which was in the vicinity of the Clearview Expressway and Union Turnpike in Queens, New York. There, Klemick spotted a parked Toyota Camry registered to DeArmas's home address. He further observed two men in a blue Jeep registered to Sophia Toribio, Garcia's common-law wife, at the same address as that on a New York State driver's license in the name of Yuri Garcia. For a brief time, agents followed the Jeep, but soon after the vehicle began to engage in evasive action, they abandoned the endeavor. Trial Tr. at 114. 13 Nevertheless, a telephone conversation intercepted shortly after midnight on March 19, 2002, revealed that the planned drug exchange had, in fact, occurred, but not to the satisfaction of the defendants. Valentin was intercepted telling DeArmas, I am waiting for, eh . . . `Bonitillo' is opening one of them. Gov't Ex. 108T at 2. A few seconds later, Valentin reported that the cocaine was like chalk and asked DeArmas, How can that be? Id. at 3. Valentin was then overheard stating to someone in the background, Yuri, open up another one, so we can take a look, immediately after which Garcia replied, This is no good. Id. at 3-4. As Valentin and DeArmas quarrelled, the former stated, Yuri is now opening another package. Id. at 5. A moment later Garcia pronounced, This one is even uglier. Id. at 6. 14 In a series of calls on the evening of March 19, 2002, DeArmas, Valentin, and Garcia planned a meeting to discuss the bad batch of cocaine. Initially, Garcia urged DeArmas to meet him in the Bronx, only to change the site in a subsequent call to Dyckman Street off the Henry Hudson Parkway in Manhattan. 15 Agent Klemick testified that, at the latter site, he saw both the blue Jeep registered to Sophia Toribio and DeArmas's Toyota. Police Detective Ronald_Nicastro, also part of the surveillance team, testified that he was able to observe the driver of the Jeep and, based on a license photograph obtained from the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles, identified him as Yuri Garcia. Authorities followed both cars to 525 Riverdale Avenue in the Bronx, a location that Tejada identified at trial as Valentin's and Garcia's stash house. There, Nicastro saw Garcia and DeArmas enter the building. 16 The following day, March 20, 2002, Garcia and DeArmas were intercepted discussing the return of the unsatisfactory cocaine. Garcia indicated that he would arrange for Negro—which Tejada testified was a name by which he was sometimes called, see Trial Tr. at 20—to deliver the drugs. Gov't Ex. 112T at 3. In a subsequent conversation, intercepted shortly after 7:00 p.m., DeArmas and Garcia expressed concern that the delivery had not proceeded as planned: 17 DeArmas: What's happened? 18 Garcia: I don't know yet. 19 DeArmas: Where are you? 20 Garcia: I'm up here already. 21 DeArmas: Should we go up there, to see if maybe the man arrived, and left the stuff there or something? 22 Garcia: No, I don't want to take that risk of going inside there. 23 DeArmas: But we have to find out what's going on somehow, right? 24 Garcia: Yes, we have to find out what's going on .... 25 Gov't Ex. 113T at 1-2. 26 What had happened, of course, was that agents had arrested Tejada in possession of ten kilograms of cocaine outside DeArmas's stash house on East 72nd Street in Manhattan. Later that night, Garcia and DeArmas were overheard discussing Tejada's arrest and the need to secure legal representation for him. See Gov't Ex. 114T. 27 Thereafter, relations among the conspirators grew strained as DeArmas pressed Garcia and Valentin for payment owed on previous drug deals, while Garcia and Valentin complained about the financial problems resulting from the March 20, 2002 seizure. In a May 2, 2002 conversation, Garcia and Valentin computed their debt to DeArmas as $81,000. On May 5, 2002, Garcia proposed to DeArmas that they meet the following day to discuss this obligation. In anticipation of this meeting, on May 6, 2002, Garcia and Valentin discussed making a partial payment of $9,000 to DeArmas, with Garcia promising Valentin that he would bring the papers, the list to the meeting. Gov't Ex. 126T at 2. 28