Opinion ID: 660294
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The April Theft

Text: 2 On April 27, 1989, Luis Guevara, Eduardo Paula, and Orlando Brito stole a truck containing frozen seafood and drove to an abandoned warehouse. There, Guevara stated that he would ask Chaves, who owned a seafood company called J & F Seafood, to dispose of the seafood using one of Chaves' trucks. Upon Guevara's request, Chaves left the truck's key under the front seat. 3 On April 28, 1989, Guevara, Paula, Brito and Diego Diaz, Jr., picked up Chaves' truck at J & F Seafood and used the truck to transport part of the stolen seafood from the warehouse to Chaves' business. Chaves assisted them in unloading the truck's contents. Later that day, Chaves went to David Arthur Schlinder, a middleman in the sale of seafood, and offered him a good deal on lobster tails, providing a sample case. Schlinder displayed the lobster tails to Henry Torres, a large distributor of seafood in the area. Torres told Schlinder that the lobster tails were stolen and belonged to him. Torres took the sample case and reclaimed the remainder of his seafood from Chaves. Later that day, Guevara and Diaz, Jr., returned to Chaves for payment, but Chaves refused to pay because he had returned the seafood to its rightful owner, Torres. When Guevara and Diaz, Jr., demanded Torres return the seafood, Torres threatened to call the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). 4 The next day, Chaves purchased the remainder of the frozen seafood from Diaz, Jr., and Guevara. Chaves also gave Guevara two bottles of champagne in recognition of Guevara's lost profits from Torres' reclamation of his seafood. Later, Chaves brought Schlinder into a large walk-in freezer at J & F Seafood and told him that the FBI had approached Chaves and that Schlinder should not speak with them if contacted.