Opinion ID: 2803111
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Withheld Evidence

Text: The evidence of Delgado's letter to the prosecutor consisted of two photocopied pages of handwritten text. The certified translation of the letter states as follows: To: The Prosecutor Dina Avíla Jímenez From: The best cooperator, Harry S. Delgado Hello! I hope under God Almighty that when you receive the foregoing in your hands, you enjoy perfect health together with your co-workers -11- and relatives. It is my best wish from the bottom of my heart. About me, I tell you that [illegible], I am well health-wise. I will start by saying that this is to let you know to please remember these 2 things, the first is that Jeanette4 is on probation and before she leaves the country, to clarify that point of view, because otherwise, they'll deem her as a fugitive and they may take away my daughters, and that would kill me, please clarify this thing of the probation first; and the second thing, I need an order from the Judge so that when they transfer me Jeanette can visit me, remember that I am not legally married, and to get visits you have to fill in a paper that you have to put your home and the criminal record and it is not convenient for any jail to know where Jeanette lives, what we want is that the least they know, the better, please help me, I am doing everything for my daughters and Jeanette. I need you to help me please. I promised you, the last time we saw each other, to do everything you said and I have done it to the point that you know how this has gotten, we have more than we expected, more evidence and more strength for the case, I hope you can help me, I will The photocopy of the letter is cut off after I will at the end of the letter's second page. The prosecutor reports that when she re-discovered the letter after the trial, she asked the FBI agents to go through each . . . folder or envelope to see if they could find the original, but they were unable to find it. Ramos-González, 747 F. Supp. 2d at 286—87. The prosecutor said that the agents could not find any other materials related to the letter, and she denied destroying any part of the letter herself or 4 Jeanette was Delgado's conjugal partner. -12- instructing the agents to destroy part of the letter. The district court was unable to definitively determine whether additional pages were missing from the letter and, if so, how such pages may have disappeared. Id. at 284.
Delgado made notes of two conversations with Andy and Medina on the night of December 9, 2008, one at 8:57 p.m. and the other at 9:18 p.m. Id. at 287. Those conversations took place through the toilet system at MDC, id. at 287, where, as we mentioned above, Delgado, Xiomara, Andy, and Medina were all incarcerated leading up to the drug trafficking trial. The notes reflect that Andy and Medina attempted to curry favor with Delgado (who they presumably knew was the lead cooperator) and to downplay their own roles in the conspiracy. According to the notes, Medina said: Look [Delgado], I'm calling to tell you that I am cooperating in the case with the prosecutor and I know you are getting [Xiomara] ready. . . . Andy and I are going to cooperate, I already started to cooperate. Medina then questioned Delgado as to why the government was plac[ing] [him] at the [drug] point when you know that I wasn't working there. Andy also denied being an enforcer. Delgado replied: You very well know that you were dealing, and proceeded to remind Medina of a time when he assisted Delgado with storing guns. The rest of the -13- conversation basically reiterated Medina's pleas to Delgado to treat him well in prison. Delgado's notes also relate a later conversation between Delgado and Andy that had a similar tenor to Delgado's conversation with Medina. Andy asked why the government had him down as an enforce[r]. Delgado replied: Listen, you know that I know about your situation, and to tell you a little something, do you remember the meeting in Caguas, where you, [Ramos], Manolo, [Bam Bam], Eddie, Omar, and the others were there? Andy said: Yes, yes, yes, it's true, but I'm going to cooperate and I'm going to bring down all of those who stayed behind, and, What I want is that when we go up there, for us not to be enemies, but friends, and be only [one], so we can help each other. They then agreed to talk to each other again the following day at 8:00, but there are no notes of any subsequent conversations on the record. At some point the prosecutor, according to her testimony at a post-trial proceeding, scolded Delgado for making the notes after he turned them in and ordered him to stop making them.
FBI agents interviewed Medina three times in November and December 2008 about the drug conspiracy, but Medina never testified at trial. The prosecutor turned over the FBI 302 Reports (the FBI's official notes of what was said during the interviews) prior to trial, but she withheld rough notes transcribed by one of the -14- interviewers, FBI Special Agent Carlos Barreiro. The rough notes were finally disclosed to defense counsel in September 2012 at one of the post-trial evidentiary hearings involving allegations by Ramos and Omar that the government intimidated Medina, causing him not to testify on behalf of Ramos at an earlier post-trial hearing. These notes, including the Spanish version and English translation, span 121 pages of our appellate record. The rough notes' content largely overlaps with the information in the disclosed 302 Reports. However, Omar, whose motion for a new trial on the basis of these notes was joined by Ramos, argued before the district court that the rough notes contained various new pieces of exculpatory impeachment evidence. For example, the notes stated that Andy and another individual tapped Xiomara's [phone] line and listened to conversations between her and [Delgado] in prison. Medina also omitted any mention of Omar's involvement within the time period in the indictment (the only mention of Omar concerned events occurring in 1999), which Omar argued below and on appeal is totally exculpatory as to him. And Medina inferred that Delgado murdered a man known as Barquilla, even though Delgado denied having anything to do with that murder while on the stand.