Opinion ID: 658545
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Velasquez's Suppression Motion

Text: 12 Following the raid on the Roebling Street mill, the government applied to a magistrate judge for a search warrant for Velasquez's apartment. The supporting affidavit by one of the agents who had participated in that raid stated, inter alia, that weapons and 20,000 glassine envelopes apparently filled with heroin had been found in the fifth floor drug mill; that when several agents attempted to enter, other agents waiting outside the building saw plates containing a white powder believed to be heroin being thrown out the window; that individuals from the mill had fled down a fire escape in a rainstorm and gone into Velasquez's apartment; and that agents found four individuals there, wet and covered with white powder, feigning sleep. An Assistant United States Attorney (AUSA) also told the magistrate judge, inaccurately, that agents had previously received information about narcotics trafficking in the apartment as well as at the mill. Velasquez, in reliance on this misstatement and on the fact that the affidavit did not disclose that a security sweep of his apartment had turned up no weapons or contraband, unsuccessfully challenged the validity of the search warrant issued for his apartment on the ground that it was obtained on the basis of false information. He also contended that the warrant was issued on less than probable cause. He pursues these contentions on appeal. We find in them no merit. 13 With respect to a challenge to the probable-cause determination, the duty of a court reviewing the validity of a search warrant is simply to ensure that the magistrate had a 'substantial basis for ... conclud[ing]' that probable cause existed. Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 238-39, 103 S.Ct. 2317, 2332-39, 76 L.Ed.2d 527 (1983) (quoting Jones v. United States, 362 U.S. 257, 271, 80 S.Ct. 725, 736, 4 L.Ed.2d 697 (1960)). A search warrant issued by a neutral and detached magistrate is entitled to substantial deference, and doubts should be resolved in favor of upholding the warrant. United States v. Travisano, 724 F.2d 341, 345 (2d Cir.1983). We think it plain that the indisputable information provided by the search warrant affidavit, describing (a) the substantial heroin processing operation in the mill, and (b) the processing individuals' use of the Velasquez apartment one floor below as a haven from government pursuit, provided an ample basis for the magistrate judge to issue a search warrant for Velasquez's apartment. 14 In order to prevail on a contention that a search warrant was issued on the basis of false information, a defendant must show that the false statements were made knowingly and intentionally, or with a reckless disregard for the truth, and that they were necessary to the finding of probable cause. See, e.g., Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 155-56, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 2676-77, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978); United States v. Orozco-Prada, 732 F.2d 1076, 1089 (2d Cir.), cert. denied, 469 U.S. 845, 105 S.Ct. 154, 83 L.Ed.2d 92 (1984); United States v. Barnes, 604 F.2d 121, 151-53 (2d Cir.1979), cert. denied, 446 U.S. 907, 100 S.Ct. 1833, 64 L.Ed.2d 260 (1980). Velasquez has not made these showings. 15 The suggestion that agents had had information as to illegal activity in Velasquez's apartment before the millworkers fled there was not made in the agent's affidavit, and Velasquez presented no evidence that the AUSA's misstatement was intentional or reckless. Further, it is plain that even without any suggestion of prior knowledge of a drug connection with Velasquez's apartment the affidavit provided ample probable cause for the issuance of a search warrant. Hence, the AUSA's misstatement was not necessary to the finding of probable cause. 16 Nor was the search warrant affidavit's failure to state that a security sweep of Velasquez's apartment had turned up no weapons or contraband a material omission. The affidavit stated that agents had secure[d] the apartment. That process normally involves a protective sweep, and had such items been found, the affidavit would likely have so stated. Thus, we think it likely that the magistrate judge inferred from the affidavit's disclosure of a sweep, together with its silence as to discovery of incriminating items, that the security sweep turned up no such items. Certainly the magistrate would not have inferred from such silence that incriminating items had been found. In any event, the existence of probable cause was not diminished by the fact that contraband and weapons were not sufficiently exposed to view to be discovered in a security sweep.