Opinion ID: 407601
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The Search of the Warehouse.

Text: 62 On November 25, 1980, Agent Fiorentino sought and obtained a third warrant to search the warehouse space leased to David Sterling and Sterling Enterprises, Ltd., at the Sound Genesis warehouse at 2001 Bryant Street in San Francisco. 63 The warrant to search the warehouse authorized a search for a shipping container with false walls used for the distribution of cocaine, and tools used to modify the container. This search produced perhaps the most damaging evidence of all against both defendants Boese and Freeman. Inside the warehouse the Government found a shipping trunk with a false bottom, various tools, paraphernalia used in the distribution of cocaine, and several handwritten notes which showed that Boese was involved in the smuggling of cocaine along with Freeman. Both defendants had argued at trial that they were unwitting couriers of cocaine shipments during their travels; they claimed that the scuba diving tanks with false bottoms which had been searched at the Dallas airport and found to hold cocaine were modified and filled with cocaine without their knowledge. The evidence at the warehouse effectively destroyed this theory. 64 Boese argues that probable cause did not exist to search the warehouse for the shipping container and tools. We disagree. Fiorentino's affidavit accompanying the application for the third warrant explained that agents had found a letter from David Sterling, President, Sterling Enterprises, Ltd., to Sound Genesis. The letter was dated November 14, 1980, and requested permission for Dennis Stevens (another Boese alias) to enter the warehouse to remove the property of Sterling Enterprises. The property was listed as a storage container and various tools and equipment. Fiorentino further explained that during the May investigation of Boese and Freeman in San Francisco, Freeman had attempted to contact Boese several times (under the name of Sterling) and left messages for him telling him that Freeman was at the warehouse. Finally, Fiorentino reiterated that an earlier search of the Seadrift premises had uncovered a scuba tank modified with a false bottom and that there was reason to believe that the storage container would be similarly modified. From these facts the magistrate could reasonably have concluded that probable cause existed to search the warehouse for the items sought; the evidence listed in the affidavit strongly suggests that the warehouse was used as a storage area and base of operations for cocaine smuggling and that the items listed in the letter to Sound Genesis were used in the defendants' illegal operations. We find no defect in either the third warrant or the third search. 11 65