United States v. Abdulrahman Jamea

CourtCourt of Appeals for the Third Circuit
DecidedMay 29, 2026
Docket24-2457
StatusUnpublished

This text of United States v. Abdulrahman Jamea (United States v. Abdulrahman Jamea) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Abdulrahman Jamea, (3d Cir. 2026).

Opinion

NOT PRECEDENTIAL

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS FOR THE THIRD CIRCUIT ____________

No. 24-2457 ____________

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

v.

ABDULRAHMAN ABDELAZIZ JAMEA, Appellant ____________

On Appeal from the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania (D.C. No. 2:19-cr-00167-001) District Judge: Honorable Arthur J. Schwab ____________

Submitted Pursuant to Third Circuit L.A.R. 34.1(a) January 23, 2026 ____________

Before: RESTREPO, PHIPPS, and MASCOTT, Circuit Judges

(Filed: May 29, 2026) ____________

OPINION* ____________

PHIPPS, Circuit Judge.

In June 2019, an Ohio man was indicted in federal court in Pennsylvania for his

involvement in a string of armed pharmacy robberies. He was represented by court-

appointed counsel, but after he requested a new attorney, the District Court assigned him a

* This disposition is not an opinion of the full Court and pursuant to I.O.P. 5.7 does not constitute binding precedent. different lawyer. Through that attorney, he sought to suppress evidence obtained from his smart phone because the affidavit in support of the search warrant contained a

misrepresentation. The District Court denied that motion without holding a Franks

hearing. Through that same attorney, the man also moved to dismiss the indictment based on the denial of his Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial because his trial was scheduled

to begin 57 months after his indictment. The District Court denied that motion as well. As

the trial date approached, the man unsuccessfully requested a new lawyer, and later he

unsuccessfully sought to represent himself. After a trial, the jury found him guilty.

This appeal of that judgment disputes the denials of the pretrial motions – to

suppress and to dismiss – and it also contests the rejection of the requests for new counsel and for self-representation. For the reasons below, we will affirm the judgment of the

District Court.

BACKGROUND

Starting in September 2018, several pharmacies in Western Pennsylvania near

interstate highways were robbed for controlled substances and cash. There were other

commonalities among the robberies: they occurred in the morning, usually by multiple

persons, one of whom was armed, and the target was always the drug safes, where the

Schedule II narcotics were held.

Beyond those similar profiles, the United States Drug Enforcement Administration had no leads after the first few robberies.1 That changed with the November 22, 2018,

robbery of the CVS on Centre Avenue in Pittsburgh. Surveillance footage revealed a man

wearing distinctive white shoes with pink laces acting as a lookout and a maroon

1 Those include the September 6, 2018, robbery of a CVS Pharmacy on Browns Hill Road in Pittsburgh; the September 27, 2018, robbery of a CVS Pharmacy on Erie Street in Edinboro; and the November 17, 2018, robbery of a Rite Aid pharmacy on Third Street in Beaver.

2 2016 Hyundai Sonata with a temporary Ohio license plate as the getaway car. In investigating the robbery, the Pittsburgh police contacted the Ohio Bureau of Motor

Vehicles to ascertain the ownership of the vehicle, but due to a glitch, the Ohio BMV could

not provide that information until after the vehicle received permanent tags. Cf. Ohio Rev. Code § 4503.182(A) (2017) (indicating a temporary placard can be used for 45 days).

In early 2019, after an additional pharmacy robbery,2 the DEA contacted the Ohio

BMV for ownership information concerning the maroon Hyundai Sonata seen at the

November 22 robbery. This time, the Ohio BMV reported that the registered owner of the

vehicle was Abdulrahman Jamea of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, a suburb of Columbus.

As the pharmacy robberies in Western Pennsylvania continued, the clues mounted. Surveillance footage captured Jamea’s Sonata as the getaway car of another robbery of the

Centre Avenue CVS Pharmacy on February 14, 2019. His Sonata was also caught on

surveillance footage of a May 10, 2019, robbery of a Rite Aid pharmacy on Chartiers Street

in Bridgeville. The same video showed Jamea getting out of the car, entering the Rite Aid,

and using a black smart phone while inside.

Days after the robbery of the Bridgeville Rite Aid, on May 15, 2019, there was a

shooting at an apartment complex in Columbus, Ohio. See State v. Jamea, 2022 WL

1555938, at *2 (Ohio Ct. App. May 17, 2022). A twelve-year old witness indicated that

after a maroon Sonata pulled up next to another car with four men inside, an occupant of the Sonata started shooting at those men, hitting one in the head. See id. Law enforcement

found Jamea later that day at a gas station with a gunshot wound, see id. at *3, and after

arresting him, they recovered a semi-automatic pistol and a black Apple iPhone 7 from his Sonata.

2 In December 2018, the CVS Pharmacy on Pine Avenue in Erie was robbed in a similar manner.

3 Within a week of that development, on May 22, 2019, the DEA applied in the Western District of Pennsylvania for a warrant to search the iPhone 7. The 41-paragraph

affidavit in support of that warrant sought to establish probable cause needed to search the

phone. See Dalia v. United States, 441 U.S. 238, 255 (1979) (explaining that a Fourth Amendment warrant has three attributes: approval by a neutral magistrate, a finding of

probable cause, and a particularized description of the items to be seized and places to be

searched). The affidavit mentioned that surveillance footage placed Jamea’s Sonata at

three of the pharmacy robberies and had recorded him acting as a lookout and manipulating

a black phone at the Bridgeville Rite Aid robbery.

The affidavit also included details of other pharmacy robberies that had occurred in West Virginia and Ohio, which the DEA associated with Jamea. In particular,

Paragraph 26 of the affidavit described a pharmacy robbery in Vienna, West Virginia, and

it averred that Jamea texted the address of that pharmacy using the iPhone 7 recovered by

Ohio police. The identification of Jamea’s iPhone 7 as the source of the text was incorrect;

it was sent from another phone number, albeit one that the DEA associated with Jamea.

A magistrate judge, who did not know of the inaccuracy in Paragraph 26 at the time,

granted that application and issued a warrant for the search of Jamea’s iPhone 7. That

search revealed photos of his maroon Hyundai Sonata, a video of him wearing white shoes

with pink laces like those worn by the lookout at the November 2018 Centre Avenue CVS robbery, text messages coordinating the distribution of narcotics, a note that appeared to

be a drug inventory, and a search to a pill-identifier website.

The law caught up with Jamea shortly afterward. With respect to the shooting in Columbus on May 15, a grand jury in Franklin County, Ohio, indicted him on May 28,

2019, on four charges of felonious assault, see Ohio Rev. Code § 2903.11. See Jamea v.

4 Warden, 2024 WL 4542814, at *2–3 (S.D. Ohio Oct. 22, 2024). And for the pharmacy robberies, a federal grand jury in the Western District of Pennsylvania indicted Jamea and

two other men on June 11, 2019.3 See 18 U.S.C. § 3231

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United States v. Abdulrahman Jamea, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-abdulrahman-jamea-ca3-2026.