In the spring of 2017, DEA agents began investigating a large-scale drug trafficking operation operated by brothers Yusef Phillips and Ray Anthony Lee. Using evidence they obtained over the many months of their investigation, DEA agents obtained permission to tap Phillips and Lee's cell phones. Casting the net permitted by their Title III wiretaps, agents uncovered text messages and recorded conversations between Alex Castro and Phillips and between Dante Howard and Phillips wherein they discussed purported drug transactions. Based on their investigation, agents arrested seventeen members of the alleged drug trafficking operation, including Castro, Howard, and Solon Tatum. A jury subsequently convicted all three defendants of conspiring to distribute controlled substances, among other charges.
On appeal, Castro challenged the district court's order denying his motion to suppress the evidence obtained through the wiretaps. Chiefly, he argued the wiretaps were not necessary because the Government had already obtained substantial evidence against the members of the drug trafficking organization using traditional investigation methods by the time they submitting their wiretapping applications. In a published opinion, the Court agreed with the district court's order denying Castro's motion. Like the district court, the Court accepted the Government's representation that traditional investigation techniques were unlikely to lead agents to Phillips and Lee's sources of supply. The fact the DEA accomplished some of its goals using traditional investigation techniques, the Court concluded, did not mean it had to call off the remainder of its investigation.
Howard challenged the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conspiracy conviction. The Government, he claimed, only presented evidence he purchased drugs from Phillips, not that he was involved in the drug trafficking operation. The Court rejected this argument, pointing to Phillips's testimony that he sold large quantities of drugs to Howard from late 2016 through September of 2017, evidence that Phillips and Howard used coded language attributed to drug dealing, and their concerns about avoiding detection by law enforcement. Citing to the same evidence, the Court also rejected Howard's hearsay challenge to certain statements introduced against him pursuant to the co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule.
Tatum likewise challenged the sufficiency of the evidence supporting his conspiracy conviction. Not so, the Court held. Pointing to Lee's testimony about fronting a kilogram of cocaine to Tatum on two occasions, the Court concluded the jury correctly found he was a participant in the drug trafficking organization.
Tatum also challenged his conviction for possessing cocaine with the intent to distribute on July 18, 2017, noting the Government introduced no evidence he sold cocaine after that date. The Court rejected this argument as well, holding the Government merely had to prove his intent to distribute the drugs, not that he actually distributed them.
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