United States v. Castro-Aguirre
| Decision Date | 28 December 2020 |
| Docket Number | 19-1110,19-1188,19-1126,Nos. 19-1074,s. 19-1074 |
| Citation | 983 F.3d 927 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. Hector Saul CASTRO-AGUIRRE, et al., Defendants-Appellants. |
| Court | U.S. Court of Appeals — Seventh Circuit |
Bradley A. Blackington, Bob Wood, Attorneys, Office of the United States Attorney, Indianapolis, IN, for Plaintiff-Appellee.
Craig M. Sandberg, Attorney, Sandberg Law Office, P.C., Deerfield, IL, for Defendant-Appellant in No. 19-1074.
Mario Garcia, Attorney, Brattain Minnix Garcia, Indianapolis, IN, for Defendant-Appellant in No. 19-1110.
Amir Mohabbat, Attorney, Chicagoland & Suburban Law Firm, P.C., Oak Park, IL, for Defendant-Appellant in No. 19-1126.
Annice M. Kelly, Attorney, Kenosha, WI, for Defendant-Appellant in No. 19-1188.
Before Flaum, Rovner, and Wood, Circuit Judges.
Illegal drugs often do not originate in the community where they are consumed, and so the drug business—like its legitimate counterparts—commonly includes a complex distribution network. That was true of the arrangement before us, which involved large quantities of cocaine and methamphetamine that moved throughout the southwestern and northeastern United States. Eventually the government caught up with the participants. Among those it indicted were four who chose to go to trial: Jose Manuel Carrillo-Tremillo, Hector Saul Castro-Aguirre, John Ramirez-Prado, and Rafael Rojas-Reyes. These four have joined in the present appeal, in which they challenge rulings the district court made at the guilt phase, as well as some of its sentencing decisions. For the most part, we find no reversible error. The only exception is Carrillo-Tremillo's conviction for conspiracy to launder money, which we set aside.
The defendants before us all played active roles in a cross-country drug organization: Castro-Aguirre served as the head of operations; Ramirez-Prado handled logistics, including providing cars and hotels for distributors and couriers; Rojas-Reyes coordinated sales in Indianapolis; and Carrillo-Tremillo conducted sales in the northeast. To set the stage, we provide a brief overview of their activities from 2015 to 2016.
Castro-Aguirre coordinated shipments of methamphetamine—usually 30 pounds apiece—from a trailer park in Tucson, Arizona, to Avon, Indiana (a suburb of Indianapolis). Ramirez-Prado rented SUVs and booked hotels for couriers along the route. Once the packages reached their destination, Rojas-Reyes took over and sold the methamphetamine in Indianapolis.
Castro-Aguirre also handled cocaine sales in New Jersey and New York. Ramirez-Prado and other couriers transported bulk quantities of cocaine from Arizona and Indianapolis to New York. There, Castro-Aguirre fronted the drugs to Carrillo-Tremillo, who would sell them and remit the proceeds to Castro-Aguirre. In much the same way, Castro-Aguirre furnished Carrillo-Tremillo with anywhere from 10 to 100 kilograms of cocaine on credit for distribution in Reading, Pennsylvania. Castro-Aguirre arranged for couriers to pick up the proceeds from his various sellers and deliver the cash to him in Arizona.
The final trip to Reading proved to be the downfall of the organization. The deal started out routinely, when Castro-Aguirre fronted 100 kilograms of cocaine to Carrillo-Tremillo. The drugs made it to Reading, but alert law enforcement officers caught up with the couriers and stopped them near the Illinois-Missouri border. There the agents seized $2,400,000.
That is just the bare outline of the operation. It had many moving parts, only some of which are important to this appeal. One key event involved the kidnapping and murder in 2016 of Angel Barrios-Moreno, who supplied the operation with drugs that he transported across the Mexican-U.S. border. The evidence indicated that leaders of the infamous Sinaloa Cartel had ordered the hit. They did so because Barrios-Moreno failed to pay a debt to the cartel after law enforcement officials seized a major drug shipment. The cartel was not forgiving: during one of Barrios-Moreno's trips in Mexico from Nogales to Sinaloa, members of the Sinaloa Cartel kidnapped Barrios-Moreno and two others—his nephew Adrian Barrios-Moreno and a friend Luis-Carlos Cebrero-Alvarez—and demanded a $500,000 ransom.
When Castro-Aguirre learned of the kidnapping, he immediately started to raise money for the ransom. He sent couriers to pick up cash and drugs from Rojas-Reyes and Ramirez-Prado. Once he had collected $250,000, Castro-Aguirre sent couriers to make a partial payment on the ransom to a cartel member in New York. Despite these efforts, the cartel ultimately killed Barrios-Moreno, along with the other two men it had seized.
In January 2018, the government indicted twelve defendants. The four now before us proceeded to trial. The following chart provides the counts, charges, and verdicts for each one:
# Charge (Statute) Castro-Aguirre Carrillo-Tremillo Ramirez-Prado Rojas-Reyes
Conspiracy to Distribute 500+
1 grams of methamphetamine G1 G G G
and/or 5+ kilograms of cocaine
(21 U.S.C. §§ 841(a)(1) & 846)
Engaging in a Continuing
2 Criminal Enterprise (21 U.S.C. G
§ 848(a), (b)(1))
Engaging in a Continuing
3 Criminal Enterprise (21 U.S.C. G
§ 848(a), (b)(1))
Conspiracy to Launder Money
4 (18 U.S.C. § 1956(h)) G G G G
Distributing 500+ Grams of
5 Methamphetamine Mixture (21 G
U.S.C. § 841(a)(1))
Distributing 50+ Grams of
6 Methamphetamine Mixture G
(21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1))
Possession of 50+ Grams of
8 Methamphetamine Mixture (21 G
U.S.C. § 841(a)(1))
Editor's Note: The preceding image contains the reference for footnote1
The jury found each defendant guilty of conspiracy to distribute the controlled substances and conspiracy to launder money. As the chart indicates, Castro-Aguirre and Rojas-Reyes were also convicted on several additional charges. The district court sentenced all the defendants to lengthy terms in prison.
The defendants have appealed from their convictions, their sentences, or both.
We have organized their contentions as follows: Section II addresses evidentiary rulings, Section III resolves challenges to the underlying convictions, and Section IV briefly discusses the sentencing arguments.
The defendants raise two primary evidentiary points: the first concerns the district court's decision to admit evidence of cell-site locations collected pursuant to the Stored Communications Act ("the Act"); and the second relates to the court's decision to allow the jury to hear about the Barrios-Moreno kidnapping and murder. The standard of review for both points is generally deferential. To the extent the court made legal determinations, our review is de novo , United States v. Figueroa-Espana , 511 F.3d 696, 701 (7th Cir. 2007), but we review decisions whether to admit or exclude evidence only for abuse of discretion, United States v. Johnson , 916 F.3d 579, 586–87 (7th Cir. 2019) (quoting United States v. Causey , 748 F.3d 310, 316 (7th Cir. 2014) ).
The defendants argue that the district court erred by denying their motion to suppress cell-site location information (commonly called CSLI) that the government obtained using the procedures set out in the Act. They contend that this information was collected in violation of the Fourth Amendment, because, midway through the trial, the Supreme Court ruled that the government must obtain a warrant if it wishes to obtain some CSLI. See Carpenter v. United States, ––– U.S. ––––, 138 S. Ct. 2206, 201 L.Ed.2d 507 (2018).
"CSLI is location information generated by cellular phone providers that indicates which cell tower a particular phone was communicating with when a communication was made." Orin S. Kerr, The Effect of Legislation on Fourth Amendment Protection , 115 MICH. L. REV. 1117, 1128 (2017). Any cell phone with a functioning battery regularly communicates with cell towers. The phone leaves behind a trail, which is refreshed "as frequently as several times per minute," showing its rough location (within 50 meters or so of the actual spot). United States v. Curtis , 901 F.3d 846, 847 (7th Cir. 2018) (quoting Carpenter , 138 S. Ct. at 2219–21 ). With this information, the government has a near-perfect record of the phone's location (and thus, presumptively, that of the user). Carpenter , 138 S. Ct. at 2217–21.
The Act permits the government to obtain a court order authorizing the collection of "non-content information." 18 U.S.C. § 2703(c). Before Carpenter, the government could either seek a warrant for this information or it could "obtain[ ] a court order for such disclosure under subsection (d) of this section." Id. at § 2703(c)(A), (B). Subsection (d) specified that a court order could issue "only if the governmental entity offers specific and articulable facts showing that there are reasonable grounds to believe that ... the records or other information sought, are relevant and material to an ongoing criminal investigation." Id. at § 2703(d). That standard is significantly lower than the probable-cause requirement for a warrant. See, e.g., Terry v. Ohio , 392 U.S. 1, 88 S.Ct. 1868, 20 L.Ed.2d 889 (1968). The defendants here do not contend that the government failed to present "specific and articulable facts" for its order. Instead, relying on Carpenter , they contend...
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