Opinion ID: 782497
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Hamilton's Assistance to Wharry in Maintaining a Crack House

Text: 25 The government's evidence to support Counts Three and Five against Hamilton was provided principally by Wharry and Gabriele. Wharry was one of Messere's informants who both sold and used crack. In March 2000, she lived in an apartment at 1213 First Avenue with Roger Little (aka Hodgy) and allowed others to use and sell crack there. 26 Wharry testified that Hamilton was well aware of her use of her residence as a crack house, in part because she would call Hamilton and inform him that drug dealers were there. She described one occasion on which she had called Hamilton to her prior residence on Eighth Avenue to tell him drug dealers were there. On that occasion, Hamilton responded that he was coming and instructed her to make sure the dealers did not flush anything down the toilet. When Hamilton arrived, he arrested the drug dealers. When he left, he told Wharry there were cigarettes upstairs (Tr. 986); Wharry then found crack cocaine upstairs in a cigarette box. This was consistent with her previous experiences with Hamilton. And she thereafter continued to provide Hamilton with information and to call him when drug dealers were in her home; Hamilton continued to come and take the dealers away; and he always left crack behind for Wharry. ( See Tr. 984-88.) 27 In late 1999, Wharry moved her residence, and her operation of a crack house, from Eighth Avenue to 1213 First Avenue. Her relationship with Hamilton continued: 28 Q. Did Mike Hamilton know that there was a crack house being operated at 1213 First Avenue during the time that you lived there? 29 A. Yes. 30 Q. How did he know that? 31 A. It was obvious. There was so many drugs coming in and out of my house. I would always call him when the drug dealers were coming up there, and he would come up and bust them. 32 Q. Had he ever been in there and seen drugs without arresting people? 33 A. Yes. 34 (Tr. 999.) Wharry testified that she receive[d]... protection from Mike Hamilton as [she was] running this crack house (Tr. 1000); that she was able to find out about police activity and police raids from Siler and Hamilton (Tr. 995); and that she never got arrested (Tr. 999). 35 The government also called as a witness Antoinette Zwicker who testified that from the fall of 1999 and into 2000, she went to 1213 First Avenue to use drugs pretty much every day. (Tr. 867.) Zwicker testified that she went there 36 [b]ecause that was where I felt the most — I felt safest there. I felt like nothing was going to happen to me while I was using drugs there. 37 .... 38 Q. Why would you feel safe? 39 A. I figured that nothing would happen if Darla was an informant for Hamilton. 40 Q. Why did you think that? 41 A. Because that is what she told me. I remember her calling him all the time, always calling him if she had any problems, if she wanted people out of the house or just for whatever, pretty much if she wanted people out of the house, and I just felt safe there because I figured nothing would happen. 42 (Tr. 867-68.) 43 The events of March 8, 2000, were described by Wharry, Zwicker, SPD Officer Gabriele, who was then working with a task force of DEA agents and SPD vice squad officers (the Task Force), and members of the Task Force. Gabriele testified that on March 8, the Task Force planned to have a confidential informant make a controlled buy of narcotics at 1213 First Avenue, and that in fact the informant made such a purchase of 9.5 grams of crack cocaine on that day. 44 In preparation for the controlled buy, the Task Force had positioned several vehicles to conduct surveillance of Wharry's building, and the informant had been fitted with a wire transmitter that enabled Gabriele to hear and record conversations carried on inside the building. At approximately 1:15 p.m., the Task Force surveillance was in place. At approximately 1:46 p.m., over the informant's wire, Gabriele heard the telephone ring in Wharry's house and then heard Wharry announce that Hamilton was on his way to pick up a wallet. At approximately 1:53 p.m., members of the Task Force observed Hamilton drive into the surveillance area. Recognizing the surveillance — as he later indicated to Wharry — Hamilton did not stop at Wharry's house but instead drove past. Task Force members observed him drive around the surveillance area for several minutes. Wharry came out of the building and walked to the sidewalk; for the next ten minutes or so she walked up and down the street, walked up the stairs, came back down, and looked up and down the street. She finally reentered the building. Inside her apartment, she was heard complaining that she had waited for Hamilton and that he had not shown up. 45 Hamilton then reached Wharry by telephone and persuaded her to meet him two blocks from the house. Task Force members had observed Hamilton making calls on his cell phone, and telephone company records for that telephone showed that between 1:46 p.m. and 2:02 p.m., Hamilton called Wharry's number six times. At least four of those calls were made after Hamilton first drove into the surveillance net. 46 At 2:07 p.m. Task Force members observed Wharry meet Hamilton and enter the back seat of his car. Hamilton then drove out of the surveillance area; at 2:10 he was observed driving back into the area. A minute later, Wharry was observed getting out of Hamilton's car, and one Task Force member testified that she ran back to her building looking back, with a fearful look on her face. She looked terrified. (Tr. 929.) 47 Wharry testified that when she went out to meet Hamilton, there was a police van parked in front of her house. 48 Q. How did you know it was a police van? 49 A. Because when I went down and met Hamilton, he said, you see that van, right. I was like, yes. He looked at me, sure, yes. He won't tell me exactly.... 50 (Tr. 1003.) Wharry described her meeting with Hamilton as follows: 51 Q. How is it that you happened to see Mike Hamilton on March 8, 2000? 52 A. He had called me, and I went down and met him two blocks down, and he saw me. He wanted to talk to me. 53 Q. Why did you meet him two blocks down? 54 A. You know, because he couldn't come in front of the house. 55 Q. Tell the jury what happened when you met Mike Hamilton that day? 56 A. I got in the car, and I ducked down because he said get down, and he did a U-turn, and he asked me if I seen the van. I say, yes. And he took me around. He asked me who was up in the house. He asked me if there was any drugs up there. I said no. He just kept going for a ride and talking to me. 57 Q. What else did he say to you? 58 A. You haven't been selling to nobody, right, you and Hodgy. He asked if me and Hodgy had been selling to anybody, and I said no. He said that the vice wanted me and Hodgy, to be careful. 59 .... 60 Q. Did he say anything else to you as he drove you around? 61 A. He told me they were going to send somebody up with a wire. 62 (Tr. 1003-05 (emphases added).) 63 When Wharry returned home from her meeting with Hamilton, Gabriele heard and recorded her conversation. On that tape, which was admitted over Hamilton's objection, Wharry tells those present that Hamilton has warned her that vice officers are after her and Hodgy, that they are sending someone up with a wire, and that Hamilton has told her to get out of the apartment ( see GX 1-9.1T (Hamilton, he's trying to keep me away from here, and I was like, you know, `Drop me off back' (UNI [ i.e., unintelligible]) and acting like he knows. They're getting ready to come up in here.)). 64 Zwicker, one of those present in Wharry's apartment on March 8, testified, without objection, that Wharry, when she returned to the apartment after seeing Hamilton, 65 was upset, hysterically crying, just letting everybody know get out because Hamilton told me something is going on. I don't know. She was like she thought that the house was going to get raided. She didn't know exactly what was going on, but something was going on. 66 Q. Had she just met with Hamilton? 67 A. Yes. 68 (Tr. 872.)