United States v. Correa
| Decision Date | 17 October 2013 |
| Docket Number | No. 11 CR 0750,11 CR 0750 |
| Parties | UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, v. JASON CORREA and SAUL MELERO |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
MEMORANDUM OPINION AND ORDER
Before the Court are Defendants Jason Correa and Saul Melero's joint motion to suppress evidence [74, 75]. For the reasons below, Defendants' motion is denied.
The Seventh Circuit has described "the resolution of a motion to suppress" as a "fact-intensive inquiry" in which the district court must make "credibility determinations" based on "its opportunity at the suppression hearing to hear the testimony and observe the demeanor of the witnesses." United States v. Kempf, 400 F.3d 501, 503 (7th Cir. 2005); see also United States v. Springs, 17 F.3d 192, 194 (7th Cir. 1994) (). In this case, the Court conducted a suppression hearing that spanned parts of April 18, 2013 and May 2, 2013, during which counsel for Defendants Correa and Melero and counsel for the Government presented the testimony of six witnesses: Defendant Correa, Drug Enforcement Administration ("DEA") Special Agents Thomas Asselborn and Craig Schwartz, DEA Task Force Officers Mike Giorgetti and Steve Hollister, and DEA Group Supervisor James Laverty. After considering the testimony of the witnesses and assessing their credibility, the Court sets forth the following recitation of thefacts surrounding the encounters between the Defendants and DEA officers that gave rise to the federal charges against the Defendants and their motion to suppress currently before the Court.
On October 19, 2013, DEA agents surveilled a brief meeting between a confidential source ("CS") and two unknown males ("UM1" and "UM2") inside a restaurant at 53rd and Pulaski in Chicago, Illinois. After the meeting, UM1 and UM2 swapped cars with the CS; the CS left the restaurant in the red GMC Canyon truck in which UM1 and UM2 had arrived, while UM1 and UM2 drove away in the vehicle originally driven by the CS. DEA Agents followed UM1 and UM2 and observed them enter a parking garage near the intersection of 18th and South Prairie. Roughly 25 minutes later, the agents saw UM1 and UM2 emerge in the CS's vehicle from the parking garage attached to 1717 South Prairie and drive back to 53rd and Pulaski, where they again met the CS, switched back to their original vehicles, and left. DEA Agents then met with the CS, discovering $500,000 in cash that was not in his vehicle prior to the meeting, while other DEA agents followed UM1 and UM2 to a residence in Lyons, Illinois.
Eight days later, on October 27, 2011, DEA agents, including Special Agent Asselborn, surveilled the Lyons, Illinois residence. Around 1:40pm, the agents observed UM2 exit the residence's garage in the same red GMC Canyon truck. DEA Agents then followed UM2 to a grocery store in the area of Canal Street and Roosevelt Road in Chicago, where he parked in the lot next to a silver Jeep Cherokee at 3:08pm. There, SA Loonan observed UM2 meet with an unknown male, later identified as Defendant Correa, in the Starbucks within the grocery store, while SA Schwartz conducted surveillance of the parking lot. Soon after, the two men left the store and walked to UM2's red Canyon truck, where UM2 pulled out a multi-colored bag and handed it to Correa, who placed it in the rear passenger side of his Jeep. Correa then left the parking lot in the Jeep and headed south on Canal Street. At that point, SA Asselborn instructedtask force officers over DEA radio to initiate a traffic stop if they observed probable cause to conduct one. TFO Giorgetti followed Correa by a distance of two car lengths, and TFO Hollister trailed Giorgetti in another car.
Correa continued south on Canal Street until 18th Street, where TFO Giorgetti observed him turn left without using his turn signal. Farther down 18th street, TFO Giorgetti activated his emergency lights and siren and pulled over Correa near the intersection of 18th Street and Wabash. Donned in a bulletproof vest marked "Police" on both sides, TFO Giorgetti approached the driver's side of the truck, as TFO Hollister approached the passenger side of the vehicle. After asking Correa for his license and registration, TFO Giorgetti asked Correa if he had anything illegal in the Jeep. When Correa answered in the negative, TFO Giorgetti asked if he could search the vehicle, to which Correa replied, "go ahead." TFO Hollister witnessed the exchange.
While TFO Giorgetti searched the vehicle, TFO Hollister conducted a pat down of Correa on the side of the road. TFO Giorgetti found a Chicago Bears bag, with a black plastic bag inside, located on the floor behind the passenger seat. Inside the black plastic bag was a clear plastic bag, containing what TFO Giorgetti believed to be cocaine. At that point, TFOs Giorgetti and Hollister took Correa into custody and transported him to the DEA office, where TFO Hollister administered his Miranda rights and turned Correa over to Group Supervisor ("GS") Laverty.
Before Correa was taken from the scene of the traffic stop, SA Asselborn arrived and found a bag on the front passenger seat that contained four garage door openers, three sets of keys, and four cell phones. SA Asselborn took the bag and drove to 1717 South Prairie - the building from which UM1 and UM2 emerged eight days earlier in a car containing $500,000 incash - to determine if the garage door openers worked at that address. When none of them opened the garage, SA Asselborn spent roughly 10-15 minutes testing the garage door openers on nearby buildings until he finally had success at 1819 South Michigan Avenue, a ten-story apartment and condominium building. SA Asselborn then instructed SAs Loonan and Barnum to meet him at the front entrance, where they gained access to the lobby using a key fob from the bag. Inside the lobby, SA Asselborn tested a key from the same key ring that contained the fob on a number of the building residents' mailboxes, eventually finding its match in the mailbox for unit 702. Believing this to be Correa's home, SA Asselborn contacted GS Laverty and asked if Correa would consent to a search of the unit. At about 4:50pm, in a small interview room where Correa was not handcuffed, GS Laverty asked Correa if the agents could search unit 702. Correa replied, "go ahead and search it," but refused to sign a written consent form. SA Asselborn and the other agents then conducted the search.
Using keys from the bag he recovered from the Jeep, SA Asselborn opened the front door to the one-bedroom unit. In the kitchen, agents recovered numerous items typically used in the packaging of narcotics for sale on the street, including: zip lock bags, heat seal bags, a heat sealer, rubber gloves, a rubber mallet, a rolling pin, two digital scales, and a grinder with white powdery residue. In addition, agents found checks in the name of Saul Melero, mail addressed to Saul Melero, Saul Melero's birth certificate, a receipt for furniture and a utility bill for another address in Saul Melero's name, a marriage certificate for Saul Melero and Veronica Martinez, a court order from a case captioned Veronica Martinez Melero v. Saul Melero, a box of checks in the name of Marcelina Sanchez, and utility bills to Alfredo Melero for unit 702. In the living room, agents found a piece of mail from the U.S. government addressed to Saul Melero that contained a passport photograph, as well as a piece of paper that appeared to be a drug ledger.SA Asselborn used keys from the bag to open the locked bedroom door and a black hard plastic case found on the bedroom floor. The bedroom contained marijuana, two kilo presses, and boxes of Dormin. The locked black box contained 1.9 kilograms of a substance that field tested positive for cocaine, 1.4 kilograms of a substance that field tested positive for heroin, 538 grams of a substance that tested positive for marijuana, a bag of pills that field tested positive for Ecstacy and methamphetamine, 18 boxes of Dormin that contained 72 capsules each, a bottle of Inositol (a cutting agent for cocaine), two breathing masks, and a .32 caliber semiautomatic handgun.
Agents showed photos of Correa to neighbors, who believed him to be a resident of unit 702. One neighbor said she had seen packages in the mailroom addressed to S. Melero of unit 702. After the search, one of the neighbors approached the agents to inform them that the other resident of unit 702 was standing outside on Michigan Avenue in front of a white SUV. The neighbor then pointed out the person - who turned out to be Saul Melero - to the agents. Coincidentally, GS Laverty was out front at that time, waiting be let into the building. SA Branum relayed the description of Melero to GS Laverty, who got in his car and drove down ahead of Melero on the street. With his gun in "low ready position," Laverty ordered Melero to the ground, and other agents arrived and handcuffed him.
Correa argues that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated and that all evidence must be suppressed because: 1) the agents lacked authority to effectuate a traffic stop for failure to use his left turn signal, 2) the agents lacked both probable cause and reasonable suspicion to lawfully pull him over for a drug offense, 3) he never consented to a search of his vehicle, 4) even if he did, the agents exceeded the scope of that consent, 5) SA Asselborn's taking and use of thegarage door opener, fob, and keys constituted an illegal search and seizure, 6) he never consented to a search of unit 702, and 7) even if he did, any of the agents' earlier illegal actions tainted the consent, rendering the search of the apartment unconstitutional. The Government argues that the agents had reasonable...
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