People v. Rendon
| Decision Date | 22 June 2000 |
| Citation | 709 N.Y.S.2d 698,273 A.D.2d 616 |
| Parties | THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, Respondent,<BR>v.<BR>RUBEN RENDON, Appellant. |
| Court | New York Supreme Court — Appellate Division |
Defendant came to the attention of the authorities during a narcotics investigation conducted by the State-wide Organized Crime Task Force (hereinafter OCTF) in the summer of 1997. OCTF was aided in its investigation by an individual (hereinafter the informant) who agreed to cooperate after his participation in drug trafficking was discovered by an undercover OCTF investigator. The informant disclosed that defendant was his supplier and agreed to undertake a drug buy under OCTF surveillance. On August 11, 1997, in the presence of the investigator, the informant telephoned a person he knew as "Ruben," later determined to be defendant, from a local motel and allegedly arranged to purchase cocaine. According to the informant, defendant agreed to deliver the cocaine within half an hour. About 30 minutes later, another member of the OCTF surveillance team observed a vehicle in the parking lot of the informant's motel and, immediately thereafter, saw defendant driving away from the motel in a vehicle registered in his name. The informant then turned over a packet of cocaine to an OCTF investigator, indicating that the drugs had been supplied by defendant.
On August 26, 1997, the informant advised the OCTF investigator who arranged the previous drug buy that defendant had visited him unexpectedly. During their encounter, defendant allegedly stated that he was moving to Arizona and was, thus, willing to supply 4½ ounces of cocaine for $1,800. The following day, the informant telephoned defendant in the presence of the investigator in order to schedule delivery of the cocaine. The investigator recorded the exchange and listened to the informant's side of the conversation. As delivery was set for 30 minutes later, OCTF agents undertook surveillance of the motel and defendant's home and maintained radio contact concerning the planned transaction.
The record reveals that the surveillance team saw defendant leave his residence within half an hour after the telephone call and they followed him as he drove in the direction of the motel. OCTF officers stopped defendant's vehicle before arrival at the motel and placed defendant under arrest. The initial pat-down search of defendant's person revealed no contraband, but another investigator who arrived at the scene undertook a more thorough search and discovered cocaine hidden in defendant's groin area.
During pretrial proceedings, defendant moved to suppress the discovery of cocaine by asserting that the authorities lacked probable cause for his arrest and that the search of his person was unlawful. After a suppression hearing, at which two OCTF investigators described the aforementioned events, the court concluded that the arrest was supported by probable cause and ruled that the cocaine was admissible as it was discovered during a lawful search incident to an arrest.
We affirm County Court's suppression ruling. "Probable cause for a warrantless arrest may be based on hearsay information, but only upon a showing that both the basis of knowledge and veracity components of the Aguilar/Spinelli test have been met" (People v Di Falco, 80 NY2d 693, 696 [citations omitted]). In this case, the arrest was based both on information supplied by the informant and by the observations of OCTF investigators which provided circumstantial evidence of defendant's involvement in the drug transactions. The investigator's reliance on the informant was proper since that individual had firsthand knowledge of defendant's criminal conduct based on his ongoing involvement in drug transactions with defendant. Moreover, it was reasonable for the authorities to deem the information provided to be true after their surveillance confirmed certain details of the...
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