United States v. Dominic Cortina

630 F.2d 1207, 1980 U.S. App. LEXIS 14197
CourtCourt of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit
DecidedSeptember 11, 1980
Docket79-2226
StatusPublished
Cited by39 cases

This text of 630 F.2d 1207 (United States v. Dominic Cortina) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals for the Seventh 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. Dominic Cortina, 630 F.2d 1207, 1980 U.S. App. LEXIS 14197 (7th Cir. 1980).

Opinion

BAUER, Circuit Judge.

The government appeals from an order of the district court suppressing certain evidence obtained in a search pursuant to a search warrant. The trial court found, and the record supports, the following facts: William I. Brown, an agent for the Federal Bureau of Investigation, deliberately lied in an affidavit presented to support the search warrant. There was no probable cause for the search without the facts misrepresented by Brown. The district court suppressed all the evidence resulting from the search. We affirm; this Court will not condone a fraud upon the judicial system.

I.

The twelve individual and two corporate defendants here were indicted for racketeering, extortion, and illegal gambling in connection with two race track messenger services, Mr. Lucky’s Messenger Service (Mr. Lucky’s) and Finish Line Messenger Service (Finish Line). 1 The indictments were the result of an investigation conducted over several years by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

As part of his investigation of the messenger services, FBI Agent William Brown contacted Pamela Bridges, a former employee of Mr. Lucky’s, in late March 1977. He showed her pictures of the individual defendants, and asked if she could identify them and explain their jobs at Mr. Lucky’s. Tr. 482-84. Bridges recognized most, but not all, of the individuals. Tr. 493, 496. From time to time thereafter Brown had conversations with Bridges in which she described other individuals at Mr. Lucky’s. Brown reported the substance of his conversations with Bridges on contact sheets.

In June 1977, Bridges began working at Finish Line Messenger Service. She continued talking with Brown, and was then able to identify additional persons who she discovered worked at Finish Line. Tr. 493, 496. Bridges received a total of $3,400 for the information she gave Brown. Tr. 464.

On April 22, 1977, FBI Agent Linda Stewart presented Magistrate Jurco with an affidavit in support of warrants to search defendants William McGuire, Michael LeDonne, and the main offices and recap offices of Mr. Lucky’s and Finish Line. The warrants called for seizure of:

all instrumentalities, implements, and apparatus, certain betting records and wagering paraphernalia consisting of, but not limited to, accounting sheets, tape recordings, adding machines, telephone numbers, [and] telephone records.

Stewart did not have personal knowledge of most of the information in the affidavit. Instead, she swore that a “confidential informant” referred to as “Source Number One” “told Special Agent William I. Brown . who in turn told me” the information contained in the affidavit. Stewart supported the reliability of the informant by stating that

*1209 Source Number One has furnished information regarding the identities of numerous individuals allegedly engaged in illegal gambling activities. Most of this information has been corroborated by independent investigation by Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and officers of the Chicago Police Department including examination of police arrest records, physical observations and comparison with information received from other confidential sources.

The affidavit recited many “facts” allegedly obtained by Source Number One through “observation and personal conversations” with many of the defendants. The affidavit stated that several of the defendants had admitted to Source Number One that they were not in fact acting as messenger services, but were “booking” a large portion of the orders that the public placed with them. As it was later learned, Source Number One was Pamela Bridges.

Based on the affidavit, Magistrate Jurco issued the search warrants at issue here. When the warrants were executed on April 22, 1977, FBI agents seized hundreds of boxes of items and papers from the main offices of Mr. Lucky’s and Finish Line. The agents took virtually every scrap of paper at each location, including thousands of dollars. The warrant for the personal search of William McGuire was executed on McGuire on the premises of Finish Line. 2

After the indictment was filed, the defendants moved to suppress the results of the searches on the grounds that many of the documents seized were outside the scope of the warrants. The defendants also argued that the warrants were supported by a false affidavit. In support, they attached the affidavits of several of the defendants who swore that they had never said any of the things attributed to them by Source Number One. The defendants requested a hearing under Franks v. Delaware, 438 U.S. 154, 98 S.Ct. 2674, 57 L.Ed.2d 667 (1978), to determine whether government agents misrepresented information in the affidavit. Judge Decker denied the motion to suppress on June 27,1979. He held that the defendants’ affidavits did not establish that the government did not receive the information in the affidavit, but only that Source Number One may have lied or exaggerated when providing the information.

There matters rested until September 11, 1979, the day before trial was to begin. As part of its final pretrial preparation, the government had received the FBI informant file on Pamela Bridges. The file included Agent Brown’s contemporaneous reports of his meetings with Bridges, a portion of an FBI administrative file, and Bridges’s grand jury testimony. Since the government expected to call Bridges as a witness, it gave portions of the file to the defendants pursuant to the Jencks Act, 18 U.S.C. § 3500. The government also delivered the additional materials to Judge Davies (to whom the case had been reassigned) with a letter reciting that “[bjased on our review of the file, we anticipate that the defendants may renew their motion to suppress the evidence and the accompanying motion for an evidentiary hearing.”

The government had understated its concern. Brown’s contact reports and Bridges’s grand jury testimony supported almost none of the information attributed to Source Number One in the April 22 affidavit. Information in eight of the affidavit’s fourteen paragraphs was not supported by material in the file. These eight paragraphs stated that Source Number One had obtained, on dates specified in the affidavit, the following information from various defendants at Mr. Lucky’s an.d Finish Line:

(a) through observation and personal conversations with [defendants] Raymond Brown, Michael LeDonne, William McGuire and individuals associated with McGuire, that McGuire is in charge of handicapping and booking 75% of all horse racing bets called into the Finish Line. Express Messenger Service located at 506 West Van Burén;
*1210 (b) that McGuire had told Source Number One that the bets handicapped by McGuire are retained in private bookmaking operated by McGuire and his associates. The remainder are sent to local race tracks for placement in the pari-mutuel wagering system;

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
630 F.2d 1207, 1980 U.S. App. LEXIS 14197, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-dominic-cortina-ca7-1980.