US v. Savides
| Decision Date | 20 July 1987 |
| Docket Number | No. 87 CR 17.,87 CR 17. |
| Citation | 664 F. Supp. 1544 |
| Court | U.S. District Court — Northern District of Illinois |
| Parties | UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff, v. Christ SAVIDES, et al., Defendants. |
COPYRIGHT MATERIAL OMITTED
Anton R. Valukas, U.S. Atty. by Thomas L. Knight and William Cook, Asst. U.S. Attys., Chicago, Ill., for plaintiff.
Edward M. Genson, Chicago, Ill., for defendant Savides.
Patrick A. Tuite, Chicago, Ill., for defendant Pace.
Terence Gillespie, Chicago, Ill., for defendant Wilson.
Christopher Cronson, Oak Park, Ill., for defendant Cialoni.
Robert Novelle, Chicago, Ill., for defendant Greco.
Sam Adam, Chicago, Ill., for defendants Besase and Smith.
This order concerns defendant Savides' supplemental motion to suppress evidence seized from his residence and defendants Besase, Pace, and Greco's motions to suppress evidence seized from their persons and vehicles. For the reasons stated herein, Savides and Greco's motions are granted in part and denied in part. Besase and Pace's motions are denied.
Pursuant to defendants' requests, this court held extensive pretrial hearings over a period of weeks at which testimony concerning the issues at dispute was offered. The following rendition of relevant facts is based on this court's observations at the hearings.
On March 8, 1986, officers of the Chicago Police Department Gambling Unit arrived at the Park Ridge, Illinois condominium of defendant Christ Savides to execute a gambling search warrant. Aside from Savides, defendants Anthony Besase, Joseph Pace and Donald Greco were present in the residence at the time of the search. Upon entering the residence, police observed Besase emerging from the kitchen and Greco from the bedroom area of the apartment. Pace was found in the den area of the residence carrying a paper bag. Both Pace and Greco were still wearing overcoats. The four were detained in the living room while the search was conducted.
Entering the bedroom from which Greco was observed exiting, officers found nine one-kilogram packages of cocaine lying uncovered in the middle of a bed. Another kilogram of cocaine wrapped in plastic was found in a kitchen drawer together with a razor that had apparently been used to open the package. Upon entering the room in which Pace was located when police arrived, police found $63,000 in United States currency lying on a bookshelf and in the top drawer of a cabinet. Aside from the large amount of narcotics and currency, police seized the following items from Savides' apartment: five handguns, ammunition, sports schedules, slough sheets, tally sheets, water soluble paper, photographs, various personal, business and money order checks, business cards, miscellaneous papers, phone books, a Visa charge card, and a silver money clip. At some point after discovering the ten kilograms of cocaine, officers, believing they had interrupted a large-scale narcotics transaction, arrested the four men. Searching Pace, police discovered that the paper bag he had been holding contained nearly $13,000 in cash. From Besase, police recovered a set of car keys and a receipt from a Daytona, Florida hotel indicating Besase had been a guest on March 6, 1986. According to Besase's identification, he resided in Toledo, Ohio. No items subject to dispute were seized from the person of Savides or Greco at the time of their arrest.
On March 9, 1986, Chicago police officers returned to the vicinity of Savides' residence and located cars which Besase, Pace, and Greco had driven the day before. Presumably acting pursuant to state and federal statutes allowing vehicles used in the commission of a felony drug offense to be seized preliminary to forfeiture, the officers removed the vehicles to a police station. Before leaving the vicinity of Savides' apartment, however, the cars were opened and briefly searched. Upon arriving at a nearby station, the contents of the cars were removed and inventoried. Conducting searches of the three vehicles, police discovered and seized various items which they believed incriminated defendants for drug trafficking. No search warrants, however, were obtained prior to seizing these items. Inside the car believed to have been driven by Pace, police found a red cash receipts book appearing to contain customer accounts with code numbers instead of names. Police also discovered an address book without a cover. Briefly scanning through the red book to assure nothing was lodged between its pages, officers noticed notations of large dollar amounts next to the coded names. According to dates recorded alongside the dollar amounts, the notations had been made recently. In light of the circumstances surrounding Pace's arrest, police concluded the cash receipts book was a record of cocaine customer accounts and seized it as evidence. An address book found next to the cash receipts book was also briefly perused by the officers. During this limited examination, police saw the same types of code numbers found in the cash receipts book recorded on the back page of the address book. Believing this address book also contained evidence of Pace's criminal activities, the item was seized. Police also seized various receipts and documents purportedly showing the vehicle had been driven by Pace the day before. A similar cash receipts ledger together with an address book was seized from the car Greco had operated. The initial examination of Greco's address book, however, revealed nothing incriminating. After seizing the ledgers from Pace and Greco's vehicles and examining them in detail, police discovered identical information was recorded in the two books. Inventorying the contents of Besase's vehicle, officers found and seized receipts indicating Besase had been in Georgia and Indiana days earlier.
Days later, police began to review the evidence seized from defendants and their cars. Police were informed that Besase was believed to be a reputed organized crime figure from Ohio. Suspecting Besase may have used his car to transport the ten kilograms of cocaine found in Savides' residence from Florida, police returned to Besase's car with a trained narcotics sniffing dog. The dog alerted positively to the rear window well of the car. Upon closer inspection, police discovered a hidden compartment behind the rear seat which was electronically controlled by a switch under the dashboard. A piece of carpeting was removed from the secret compartment and delivered to a crime laboratory where it was determined to contain cocaine. Similarly, no warrant was obtained prior to the subsequent search of and seizure from Besase's automobile.
The seizures outlined above to which defendants object comprise three categories: (1) items seized from Savides' residence, (2) items seized from the persons of the defendants at the time of arrest, and (3) items seized from defendants' vehicles. Parties' arguments concerning these seizures will be addressed in turn.
Savides asserts that the seizure of certain items from his residence violated his Fourth Amendment rights in that the seizures were beyond the scope of the search warrant, were not in plain view of the officers searching and that no probable cause existed to believe that the seized items were instrumentalities or evidence of a crime. The items Savides seeks to exclude under the foregoing arguments include: ten kilograms of cocaine,1 five handguns, $63,000 in United States currency, various personal, business and money order checks, certain business cards and miscellaneous papers, photographs, telephone books, a roll of film,2 a Visa charge card and a silver money clip.
The search warrant executed by Chicago police authorized the seizure of "records of wagers on sports events, sports schedules, slough or tally sheets, comingled United States currency and any and all paraphernalia related to the illegal act of gambling and the telephone numbered 698-0374." According to the foregoing language, police were entitled to search the entire condominium for such small items as money, documents and gambling paraphernalia. Conducting the authorized search, police discovered nine one-kilogram packages of cocaine in Savides' bedroom on the middle of his bed. Another kilogram package was recovered from a kitchen drawer. Clearly, the locations in which the cocaine was found were within the scope of the warrant and within plain view of the searching officers. Probable cause existed to believe the packages contained controlled substances. As such, the packages were properly seized.
The handguns Savides seeks to suppress were found in a bedroom closet. Officers noticed that the serial number on one of the firearms had been filed off. Under 26 U.S.C. §§ 5861(h), 5871, possession of such a firearm is prohibited. As such, the gun was lawfully seizable as evidence showing Savides knowingly possessed the contraband firearm. With regard to the remaining firearms, the evidence is unclear as to whether police learned the guns were not lawfully registered while they were in Savides' apartment. A police report indicates that at some point a computer search was executed and no registration could be found for the guns. Yet, this court does not know if this information was obtained before or after the guns were seized. Since no affirmative testimony was offered by the government on this point and the search warrant did not specify the seizure of firearms, this court is unable to find a basis for supporting the seizure of the four remaining guns. Although police certainly had the authority to secure the firearms while conducting their search, seizure without probable cause to believe they were fruits, evidence or instrumentalities of a crime was not permissible. See U.S. v. Owen, 621 F.Supp. 1498 (D.Mich.1985). As such, Savides' motion to suppress the four remaining firearms is granted.
Searching the den area of the Savides' condominium,...
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