U.S. v. Perlaza, s. 86-1310
| Decision Date | 13 May 1987 |
| Docket Number | Nos. 86-1310,86-1325,s. 86-1310 |
| Citation | 818 F.2d 1354 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Orley E. PERLAZA and Alvaro Llanos, Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
James R. Holloway, Jerry B. Kurz, Federal Defender Program, Chicago, Ill., for defendants-appellants.
Patrick J. Foley, Asst. U.S. Atty. (Anton R. Valukas, U.S. Atty.), U.S. Attorney's Office, Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff-appellee.
Before WOOD, and RIPPLE, Circuit Judges, and ESCHBACH, Senior Circuit Judge.
The United States charged defendants Orley Perlaza and Alvaro Llanos with conspiracy to distribute cocaine and to possess cocaine with an intent to distribute it in violation of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 846 (1982). In addition, the United States charged defendant Perlaza with possessing cocaine with an intent to distribute it and charged defendant Llanos with aiding and abetting Perlaza's possession of the same, all in violation of 21 U.S.C. Sec. 841(a)(1) (1982). A jury found both defendants guilty of all counts as charged. The district judge subsequently sentenced Perlaza and Llanos on their convictions. Perlaza and Llanos appeal their convictions on the bases of insufficiency of the evidence and an improper jury instruction. We affirm.
Early in the morning of June 20, 1985, a Chicago police lieutenant assigned to the Chicago Police Department's Drug Enforcement Administration Task Force learned from another officer that ten kilograms of cocaine were being brought into Chicago by a Freddie Correra. Knowing that Correra had been previously observed at the residence of defendant Alvaro Llanos, at 5042 North Lawndale in Chicago, the lieutenant made arrangements to set up a surveillance operation in that area.
About 8:45 a.m. that same morning in a different part of the city, and unbeknownst to the police lieutenant and his emerging surveillance team, another part of this scenario began to unfold. Defendant Orley Perlaza and a second man registered for a room for two at the Caravelle Motor Inn located near Chicago's O'Hare Airport in Rosemont, Illinois. Both men were middle-aged Hispanics. Perlaza was assisted in registering for the room by the second man--Perlaza apparently spoke only broken English. Perlaza first signed the registration folio. Perlaza then produced his driver's license and passed it to the second man along with the registration folio. The second man wrote the license number from Perlaza's driver's license onto the folio. He also wrote the address "4936 N. Lawndale" on the folio, 1 although Perlaza's license had an address listed as "3105 W. George Street." Perlaza then took the folio back and rewrote, on the bottom portion of the folio, the address that the second man had written on the top portion; he omitted one number, however, by writing the address number as "493" instead of "4936."
Having finished writing in the folio, the second man completed the registration process by paying for the room in cash from a large amount of cash in his pocket. The registration clerk then assigned Perlaza and the second man to room 116. Neither man had any luggage. A maid testified she saw Perlaza enter room 116 later that morning.
Back to the police operation, by 10:30 a.m. the Chicago police lieutenant had a surveillance team in place near Llanos's residence. The team consisted of himself and five or six other police officers, each equipped with a separate automobile, binoculars, and a radio transmitter.
Freddie Correra never appeared at Llanos's residence. But at 1:30 p.m., Llanos and an unidentified male, female, and child left Llanos's residence and got into a black Subaru automobile. For the next thirty or forty minutes, Llanos drove the Subaru around his general neighborhood in an unusual fashion, circling blocks and driving very slowly, sometimes stopping completely at a curb and then driving off again. Llanos eventually arrived at a laundromat at Montrose and Francisco Streets. Although this trip took thirty or forty minutes, a normal driving trip from Llanos's residence to the laundromat would take only five or ten minutes to complete.
Llanos and the male, female, and child got out of the Subaru and went into the laundromat. Over the next forty-five minutes Llanos placed and received at least twelve telephone calls at a pay telephone located in the laundromat. At the conclusion of this series of telephone calls, a Lincoln Versailles automobile pulled into the parking lot of the laundromat. The Lincoln had no license plates. Llanos walked out of the laundromat and approached the Lincoln. He shook hands and had a brief conversation with the driver of the Lincoln, William Marulanda. 2 Following this brief conversation with Marulanda, Llanos got into the Lincoln. Marulanda and Llanos left the laundromat and drove west on Montrose Street. Shortly thereafter the male, female, and child who had accompanied Llanos to the laundromat got back into the Subaru and returned to Llanos's residence.
Marulanda and Llanos drove slowly on Montrose Street, stopping occasionally, and "backtracking" several times on other streets. They pulled into two gasoline stations, but sought no service, and then resumed driving on the streets in that neighborhood. They circled several blocks and then drove very slowly in the right-hand lane of Lawrence Avenue, a four-lane thoroughfare. From there, Marulanda and Llanos got onto the Kennedy Expressway, travelling in the far right-hand lane. They drove as slow as 35 m.p.h., which caused traffic to back up behind them on the expressway; the speed limit on the expressway was 55 m.p.h. Marulanda and Llanos then got off the Kennedy Expressway at Cumberland Avenue to go south. But instead of leaving the expressway on the southbound exit ramp, they left on the northbound exit ramp and then turned across the northbound traffic on Cumberland Avenue to travel south.
Marulanda and Llanos then pulled into the parking lot of the O'Hare Plaza Hotel located just south of the exit from the expressway onto Cumberland Avenue. They parked facing Cumberland Avenue and sat in the Lincoln for about five minutes. They then drove back onto Cumberland Avenue and reentered the Kennedy Expressway. Marulanda and Llanos drove to the next exit and got off the expressway at River Road. Circling and backtracking, they drove back to Cumberland Avenue. Once on Cumberland Avenue, they drove to the Caravelle Motor Inn, located at 5400 Cumberland Avenue--the same motel at which Perlaza and the second man had rented a room earlier that morning. All this driving from the laundromat, at Montrose and Francisco Streets, to the Caravelle Motor Inn, at 5400 Cumberland Avenue, took between forty-five minutes and one hour to complete. A normal trip from the laundromat to the motel would take from ten to thirty minutes to complete, depending on traffic conditions.
After parking the Lincoln in the parking lot of the Caravelle Motor Inn, Marulanda got out of the car and looked around. He went to the trunk, opened it, and put something inside a brown paper grocery bag already in the trunk. Marulanda picked up the bag, which appeared to have clothing exposed at the top, and carried it into the motel. Once Marulanda was in the motel, Llanos got out of the Lincoln, looked around, walked toward a fenced-in swimming pool at the motel and then returned to the Lincoln.
After twenty minutes went by, Marulanda came back out of the motel and walked toward the Lincoln. He was carrying a brown paper bag, but it was smaller than the bag he had carried into the motel.
The Chicago police lieutenant and the other task force officers moved in and apprehended Marulanda and Llanos. The lieutenant examined the paper bag Marulanda was carrying and found within it a clear plastic bag containing a white, powdery substance. The white powder field-tested positive for cocaine. The officers orally advised Marulanda in English of his rights and provided him the same information in Spanish on a typewritten form. The officers also advised Llanos of his rights. Llanos said "he didn't understand what was going on ... his car had broken down, that he never saw the driver of the Lincoln before, and that he just picked him up on the side of the road to assist him."
The lieutenant asked Marulanda from which room he had come and Marulanda led the lieutenant to room 116. No one was inside the room and Marulanda did not have a key to it.
Knowing that Marulanda had just come from room 116, the officers obtained the registration form from the desk clerk and ascertained that the room had been registered in Perlaza's name earlier that morning. The officers sought and obtained a search warrant for the room and began to search the room sometime after 9:00 p.m. Above the acoustic ceiling tiles in the bathroom of room 116, the officers discovered a blue gym bag. The gym bag had within it $34,230 in cash and numerous clear plastic bags containing 2541 grams of cocaine. The officers also discovered a triple-beam scale, a brown paper bag containing rags, a strainer, plastic bags, and two cans of acetone. (Acetone, when added to diluted cocaine, apparently makes the cocaine appear chunky and pure.)
Perhaps unaware of what had happened at the motel after he registered for room 116 on June 20, Perlaza returned to the motel by taxicab the next day. Perlaza apparently spoke better English than he had the day before because he asked in English to stay in room 116 for an additional two evenings. Perlaza filled out an additional registration form and asked for a key to room 116. He paid the room charge and a fee for an additional key and walked to room 116. As he did so, the desk clerk notified her supervisor that someone had inquired about room 116. The supervisor called the police.
A maid was there cleaning room 116 when Perlaza arrived. She asked Perlaza if he was checking out. He told her...
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