U.S. v. Leavitt
| Citation | 878 F.2d 1329 |
| Decision Date | 03 August 1989 |
| Docket Number | No. 85-5773,85-5773 |
| Parties | 28 Fed. R. Evid. Serv. 435 UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Robert LEAVITT, Rolondo Sosa, a/k/a Ernesto Matos, Carlos Garces, Carlos D. Coronel, a/k/a John Doe, a/k/a "El Chino", David Catena, a/k/a David Caterer, Hilario Perez-Diaz, a/k/a Joe Doe, a/k/a "Yayo", Manuel De Armas, Hector Ortega, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | United States Courts of Appeals. United States Court of Appeals (11th Circuit) |
Dexter W. Lehtinen, U.S. Atty., Lynn Lamprecht, Linda Collins Hertz, David O. Leiwant, Asst. U.S. Attys., Miami, Fla., for plaintiff-appellees.
Clifford B. Hark, Miami, Fla., for Leavitt.
Frank J. Petrella, Atlanta, Ga., for Catena.
Theodore J. Sakowitz, John Weinberg, Federal Public Defenders, Randee J. Golder, Asst. Federal Public Defender, Miami, Fla., for Perez-Diaz, De Armas, Garces, Sosa.
Sophie DeMayo, Miami, Fla., for Coronel.
Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.
Before CLARK and COX, Circuit Judges, and HENDERSON, Senior Circuit Judge.
This appeal arises from the conviction of eight defendants on various drug charges for their involvement in a scheme that imported millions of quaalude pills and large quantities of marijuana into the United States between December 1980 and August 1981. The appellants raise numerous issues on appeal. Finding no error, we affirm the convictions of all the defendants on all the charges.
The testimony at trial proved that between December 1980 and October 1981, a core group of individuals imported a shipment of quaaludes into the United States on the average of once a month. On some occasions, the shipments also included marijuana. Martin Gil, an unindicted coconspirator, 1 masterminded the scheme with his middleman Carlos Garces. Frank Smidt and John Crump provided the drugs through connections in Colombia and Robert Leavitt was the distributor of the drugs in the United States. The shipments were generally imported in the same manner. One of several pilots including Wilbur Jackson, Russell Crump, and David Catena, would fly a plane into the Bahamas at night where the shipments were unloaded. Hector Ortega and Jose Rodriguez were responsible for unloading the shipments and transferring them to speedboats which brought the cargo into the United States. Carlos Coronel, a/k/a/ "El Chino", often supplied the speedboats and stored the drugs in Miami. Manuel De Armas, Rolondo Sosa, and Hilario Perez, a/k/a/ "Yayo" assisted at various stages.
Four of the individuals intimately involved in the importation scheme agreed to testify for the government: Jose Rodriguez, John Crump, Russell Crump and Wilbur Jackson. Rodriguez worked for Smidt, Garces and Gil at various times and therefore was present at many of the meetings regarding the shipments and was actually involved in every attempted shipment for Gil. John Crump testified about the few transactions in which Rodriguez was not involved. Russell Crump and Wilbur Jackson were both pilots who flew on several of the missions. They testified to the following sequence of events.
John Crump testified that in December 1980, Frank Smidt told him that Carlos Garces wanted to buy quaaludes and marijuana from them and would supply a plane to fly to Colombia. At the time Rodriguez worked for Smidt and was present when Garces and Schmidt discussed a plan to import the quaaludes and marijuana. Crump arranged for the quaaludes and marijuana to be picked up at a landing strip in Colombia. The load was then flown to Bimini where it was loaded into speedboats and brought to Miami. When the pills arrived in Miami, Smidt asked Rodriguez to bring samples of the pills and marijuana back to Smidt and Garces. Garces took three of the pills and lost consciousness. Later Garces told Rodriguez that the pills were of good quality.
Because much of the load was wet, however, Garces was unable to pay Smidt all the money he owed. Thus in January 1981, John Crump, Smidt, and Rodriguez agreed to import another load with Garces to help him pay off the first load. Crump met with Garces several times to plan the deal and communicated with Crump's partner, Jaime Guillot-Lara, in Colombia, by ham radio. In April 1981, they sent a plane down to Colombia to pick up a supply of over 300,000 quaaludes. This load was also flown to the Bahamas and then taken by speedboat to Miami. Garces eventually paid Crump $60,000 in installments for this shipment.
During this same time, Gil was organizing a comprehensive importation scheme. In December 1980 Gil hired Wilbur Jackson to fly to and from South America to pick up quaaludes. Jackson testified that he had a series of meetings with Gil, his wife Thelma, and Hector Ortega to iron out the details. Gil agreed to pay Jackson $25,000 to fly from Bimini to Colombia where he would land, load the drugs, and refuel. He would then fly back to Bimini at night and the quaaludes would be transferred to boats to bring them to the United States. Ortega's job was to light the runway at the airstrip in Bimini and to oversee the unloading and transfer of the cargo to the speedboats.
Jackson made his first trip to Colombia in December 1980 accompanied by another pilot named Bassem "Sam" Bourhan. Upon landing in Colombia, Jackson weighed the boxes and opened several of them to ensure that they were getting quaaludes. They loaded approximately fifteen to sixteen hundred pounds of quaaludes pills--one million quaalude tablets--onto the plane and took off for Bimini. As was his responsibility, Ortega lit up the runway and supervised the unloading and transfer of the pills to the speedboats.
In January 1981, Gil asked Jackson to go to Bimini to help load a second shipment of quaaludes onto boats and ensure that they were transported safely to Miami. The shipment was to be flown in by Sam and another pilot named Roberto. Jackson met with Ortega and Manuel De Armas to discuss the loading of the boats. De Armas and Jackson went to Bimini at night and waited at the dock area of an abandoned hotel but they never received any quaaludes. The next morning they were informed that the pilots had been arrested by the Bahamian police the night before in the possession of thirty boxes of quaaludes.
Because of the failed attempt, Gil, Ortega, Jackson and Sam planned another shipment. 2 Jackson and Sam went to Bimini and flew to Colombia but were unable to establish radio contact there. Because they were low on fuel, they flew to Aruba and called Gil who told them that there was a slight delay. About two days later, Jackson and Sam flew back to Colombia and picked up approximately fifteen to sixteen hundred pounds of quaaludes. In Bimini, they were met by Ortega and Gil. Ortega and some Bahamians unloaded the quaaludes and transferred them to the speedboats.
After the success of these two shipments, Gil bought his own airplane to use in the drug operations--a Queen Air N911Q. In the new plane, Jackson and Sam brought a shipment of quaaludes into Bimini for Pedro Andres. Ortega loaded them into speedboats and the shipment was brought to the United States.
During this same time, Rodriguez participated in discussions with Gil, Ortega, Garces and Rolondo Sosa about using a larger plane, a DC-3, in the importation scheme. In March 1981, Jackson flew a shipment to Bimini in the DC-3. While Rodriguez, Gil, Ortega and Sosa were waiting for the plane to land, another plane touched down and dropped sixteen packages of marijuana and took off again but these packages were confiscated by the Bahamian police. When the DC-3 landed, they all unloaded the shipment which included quaaludes and marijuana into a van to be brought to the docks. Along the way, they stopped at the police station and Gil was able to retrieve eight packages of the confiscated marijuana.
At the docks, the boxes of pills were loaded into boats provided by Carlos Coronel. However, there was not enough room for the marijuana from the DC-3 as well as the marijuana from the other plane. Since the other marijuana seemed to be of better quality, those packages were loaded onto the boat and Coronel set off for Miami. The other packages were stored in the Buccaneer Hotel in Bimini. Sosa, Ortega, and Rodriguez stayed overnight in the hotel. Later that afternoon, a gang tried to steal the marijuana from the hotel and when the police came to break up the crowd, they confiscated the marijuana. This time, however, Gil could not get the seized marijuana back. Back in Miami, Rodriguez delivered two boxes of pills to Robert Leavitt at his house.
In April, Gil planned another shipment using the DC-3 and Coronel's boats. This time they planned to import methaqualone powder instead of tablets. Russell Crump flew down to Colombia and David Catena, another pilot, flew as a passenger. Catena was the only one who knew the coordinates of the landing strip in Colombia and the individuals with whom they dealt. After they picked up the shipment of quaaludes and were on the way back to Bimini, Crump was told by radio to try to land without lights. When the plane landed, everyone on the plane was arrested. Catena told everyone to relax and that everything would be all right. The men were placed in jail overnight but were released the next day after Gil paid a fine. After this incident, Gil decided to move his operation to the West End in Freeport.
The first shipment to come into the West End was in April 1981. Gil planned the shipment with De Armas, Sosa, Ortega, and Rodriguez. After a delay due to mechanical problems with the plane, the shipment came in and was loaded onto a boat supplied by Coronel. De Armas, who owned the load, was upset because Coronel had only supplied one boat...
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