Opinion ID: 495278
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Cocaine and Quaalude Operations

Text: 12 The principal cocaine and quaalude operations involved in this case began in late 1979, when Aleto met Miami residents Anthony Benanti and Roland Sokol at a meeting in Denver, Colorado. Benanti testified that he and Sokol had a source of Colombian cocaine and quaaludes, Frank, Jose, and Nicholas Strusberg, but lacked an adequate means of transporting the drugs from Colombia. Aleto informed them that he had a friend with a plane and the ability to transport drugs from Colombia. A second meeting was held in Miami in early 1980, at which Benanti, Aleto, Deters, and Bobby Pucci (a Benanti associate) were present. At the meeting, it was arranged that Deters would fly to Colombia and return with a load of quaaludes. Meanwhile, in February 1980, Deters contacted Lager in Minnesota and asked him to find an airplane hangar in a specified area of Oklahoma. Lager did as requested, driving to Oklahoma and locating and renting two adjacent hangars at an airport in Anadarko. At about the same time, Deters rented a house in Chickasha, Oklahoma, eighteen miles from Anadarko. Deters told the owner of the house that he was renting it for Carl Ryan; at some later point, the owner met Jerald Holbrook, who identified himself as Carl Ryan. The house was rented for a little over a year, during which the owner saw it occupied at various times by Deters, Holbrook, and a number of other persons. This house and the Anadarko hangars were used as a base of operations for subsequent cocaine and quaalude flights. 13 The first flight took place in mid-April 1980. As arranged earlier, Deters served as pilot; Holbrook served as his co-pilot. Aleto, who was with Deters and Holbrook in Oklahoma, called Benanti in Miami when the plane left for Colombia. Benanti then called Sokol to let him know the plane was on its way. Sokol called Benanti back when the plane left Colombia. Deters and Holbrook arrived back in Oklahoma with eight cartons, each containing 25,000 quaaludes, and were met by Aleto. Not all of the quaaludes were of a salable grade. Part of the remainder was distributed to Houston, Texas, 6 and the rest were taken by Aleto to Benanti and Pucci in Baltimore, Maryland, where Benanti and Pucci distributed them. 14 A second flight took place in July, 1980. This flight was also preceded by planning meetings in Denver and Miami in which Benanti, Deters, and others participated. The operation went off much the same as the first, except that government witness Walter Schieche, rather than Holbrook, was the co-pilot. Schieche had been recruited to the operation by Deters. Twelve to fifteen cartons of quaaludes were brought back this time. Holbrook and Pucci transported eight cartons to Benanti in Baltimore, where Benanti and Pucci distributed them; the remainder went to Houston, Texas. 15 A third flight took place in the fall of 1980, this time with Holbrook and Schieche as pilots. This time, twelve cartons of quaaludes and twelve kilograms of cocaine were brought back from Columbia. After the plane landed in Oklahoma, the drugs were loaded into a pickup which Holbrook then drove to Dallas, Texas. Schieche and Deters, who had met the plane, went to Dallas the next day. There they met Holbrook, Benanti, Benanti associate Fabio Binetti, Frank Strusberg, and a Strusberg associate. Strusberg took a third of the drugs, Holbrook took a third, and Binetti took a third. Holbrook drove the cocaine he was given to California, where Benanti met him, took the cocaine, and sold it. Binetti delivered the drugs entrusted to him to Pucci in Atlanta. 16 Holbrook and Schieche were again the pilots on a fourth, and, as it turned out, final trip to Colombia, which took place in March 1981. This flight departed from an airport in Mount Vernon, Illinois, and on its return landed at an airport south of St. Louis, Missouri. Again, Holbrook and Schieche brought back twelve cartons of quaaludes and twelve kilograms of cocaine. Deters met the flight, and Holbrook took the drugs to St. Louis in a car while Deters and Schieche flew the plane to another airport. Deters, Binetti, Benanti, and Lager met Holbrook in St. Louis and divided the drugs. Binetti, Deters, and Holbrook each took possession of a third of the drugs. Binetti delivered the drugs entrusted to him to Pucci in New York. Holbrook again delivered the cocaine portion of the drugs he was given to Benanti in California, where Benanti sold it. 17 Deters gave his cocaine, which was contained in two briefcases, to Lager. Lager took it to Minnesota and then to South Dakota, where he awaited instructions. Shortly thereafter, Deters called Lager and instructed him to deliver part of the cocaine to Caspersen. Lager took one briefcase of cocaine to Caspersen's house, where he met Caspersen, Deters, and an unknown third man, to whom he saw Caspersen give the cocaine. Lager kept the other briefcase until May 1981, when he delivered it to Deters and another man in Dallas, Texas. In July 1981, at Deters's instance, Lager picked up money from Caspersen that Caspersen owed Deters for the cocaine he received; Lager delivered the money to Deters in Minnesota. 18 A fifth flight to Colombia was planned, but never took place. Holbrook and Schieche were again to serve as pilots. Deters and Benanti each fronted $50,000 to the Strusbergs in connection with the planned flight. The Strusbergs eventually reported that they could not obtain more drugs in Colombia. However, they did not return the $100,000 advance, but instead gave Deters and Benanti two kilograms of cocaine. Deters and Benanti distributed the cocaine to several customers. 19 A portion of Benanti's cocaine went to Binetti, who was later arrested in Baltimore on charges connected to this cocaine. Binetti cooperated with authorities, and this led to Benanti's arrest in June 1982. Benanti in turn agreed to cooperate with authorities by working as an undercover agent. From June 1982 to October 1983, Benanti tape-recorded a number of face-to-face meetings and phone conversations in which past and possible future drug activities were discussed. Portions of these recordings were introduced at trial, and Benanti testified that certain voices on the tapes were those of Deters and Holbrook. At several points in the tapes, the name Ron or Ronnie is mentioned in connection with past activities; Benanti testified that these were references to defendant Prescott. 20 The government alleged that Ronald Prescott was the Houston, Texas distributor of cocaine and quaaludes for the business. Evidence concerning Prescott came principally from Schieche and Benanti. Schieche testified that on his first flight to Colombia (which was the second Colombia flight overall), when he and Deters landed near Anadarko, they were met by Pucci and Holbrook, who then transported the drugs from the run to Oklahoma City. The next day, Schieche traveled to Oklahoma City with Kragness's wife, Karen Kragness; there he briefly met with Deters, Holbrook, and Pucci in a hotel room, where they were engaged in sorting the quaaludes, removing those not of a salable grade. A fourth man whom Schieche did not know was also in the room, but did not handle the drugs in Schieche's presence. Some months later, just before Schieche's second flight (the third overall), he traveled with Deters to Dallas, where Deters was to meet a Houston man named Ronnie and arrange for Ronnie to take Deters's share of quaaludes from the upcoming flight. Schieche was not formally introduced to the man but saw Deters with him in the hotel lobby when the man checked out; Schieche recognized him as the fourth man in the Oklahoma City hotel room after the previous flight. Shortly after the man left, Deters told Schieche that the man in the lobby was Ronnie. 21 In early 1982, Schieche met Deters in Madison, Wisconsin. Deters informed Schieche that an IRS criminal investigation was afoot, and instructed him that, if asked, he should say that Deters and Benanti were in the exporting business. Deters then mentioned the name Ronald Prescott; in response to Schieche's question about whom he was referring to, Deters responded: You remember Ronnie from Dallas, when we were in Dallas at the motel. Tr. 1515. Deters continued that the story as to Ronnie was that Deters was selling him oak flooring. Deters also told Schieche at some point that Ronnie was from Northern Minnesota. Tr. 1547-48. Prescott is in fact from Duluth, Minnesota, and, according to his brother, lived in Houston from about 1975 to 1985. Tr. 2782. At trial, Schieche identified Prescott as [t]he person that looks most like the person I saw in the Dallas lobby, Tr. 1456; however, Schieche conceded on cross-examination that he could not identify Prescott from among the general population, but meant only that Prescott was the most similar among persons seated at the defense counsel table. Tr. 1682-83. 22 Benanti testified that sometime after the group's second flight to Colombia in July 1980, but before the third trip in the fall of that year, Deters told him that the Houston purchaser of their drugs was a man named Ron. Tr. 1768. Later in his testimony, Benanti stated that he met Ron Prescott in Miami, and that pursuant to business discussions they had then, he later sold Prescott cocaine on five or six occasions. Tr. 1772-74. The defense contends that the record establishes that Benanti's and Prescott's meeting occurred in 1983, and that therefore the sales occurred in 1983 or later, well after the last drug sales alleged in the indictment, while the government argues that they took place in 1981; we address this debate infra, Part VII. A. 23 Other testimony relevant to Prescott came from Mary Amundsen and from Lager. Amundsen, who is Deters's ex-wife, testified that she saw Prescott use cocaine once during a vacation the Deters and Prescott families took together in Florida in 1981. Tr. 1731-35. Lager testified that when he delivered the second briefcase of cocaine to Deters and another man in Dallas in May, 1981, see supra, p. 851, the other man was identified to him as Ron. However, Lager testified that he saw the man only very briefly, and at trial was unable to identify Prescott as the man he saw with Deters. Tr. 852.