United States v. Harrison

354 F. Supp. 3d 270
CourtDistrict Court, W.D. New York
DecidedDecember 6, 2018
Docket18-MR-382
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 354 F. Supp. 3d 270 (United States v. Harrison) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, W.D. New York primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
United States v. Harrison, 354 F. Supp. 3d 270 (W.D.N.Y. 2018).

Opinion

HONORABLE RICHARD J. ARCARA, UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

*272Defendant Elizabeth Harrison is charged in a Criminal Complaint with one count of cyberstalking in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 2261A(2) and one count of making a false statement in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1001(a)(2). The charges arise from defendant Harrison's alleged threatening harassment of an Assistant United States Attorney ("AUSA") and from the defendant's alleged false denial of her name when she was confronted by federal law enforcement officers about the alleged cyberstalking. The United States contends the defendant was retaliating against the victim AUSA1 for twice having prosecuted the father of two of the defendant's children.

The United States has moved pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3145(a)(1) to revoke a decision of Magistrate Judge H. Kenneth Schroeder, Jr., that denied the United States' motion to detain defendant Harrison pending trial and ordered her pretrial release. On November 8, 2018, the Court stayed the release order pending disposition of the United States' motion to revoke the order. The Court heard oral argument and proffers from the parties on November 14, 2018.

For the reasons that follow, the Court finds that the defendant is a danger to the community and the victim AUSA, and that no release condition or combination of conditions available to the Court will reasonably assure the safety of the community and the AUSA. The United States' motion pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 3145(a)(1) to revoke the November 7, 2018 pretrial release order is therefore granted and the defendant is ordered detained pending trial.

INTRODUCTION

Background. In 2001, defendant Harrison was convicted of a violent assault (a stabbing) in violation of New York Penal Law § 120.05(2). According to a police report about the stabbing, defendant was known by a street name, "Dynamite." She used that street name in a salacious text message to the victim AUSA. Dkt. No. 6-5, pp. 16-18. She has a felony forgery conviction from the same time period as the stabbing conviction, but no record of violence or other serious criminal activity since then.

Defendant Harrison is the single mother of four children (ages 15, 13, 11, and 7). She has worked "at a lot of places2 " as a cook and has done warehouse work. According to the Pretrial Services Report, she does not have enough earnings to support herself and her four children, and she does not receive any child support payments. Nevertheless, the defendant uses marijuana daily even though she was required to attend substance abuse treatment in 2016 in connection with some sort of Family Court proceeding. She reports suffering depression intermittently for about 7 years. On average, the defendant has moved her residence within the City of Buffalo about once a year during the same roughly seven-year time period.

In 2011, and again in 2017, the victim AUSA prosecuted Amilcar Ramos, who is the father of the two youngest of defendant Harrison's children, in two separate cases. The first prosecution in 2011 was a state case for an armed robbery of a drug dealer; Ramos was convicted after a jury *273trial of participating in tying up the drug-dealer's family, including children, and holding them at gunpoint, in connection with the robbery.

At that time, the AUSA was an Assistant District Attorney for Erie County, in this District. Ramos was sentenced to 25 years' imprisonment. Defendant Harrison and some of Ramos' family members were heard referring to the AUSA during that prosecution as the "white devil" or the "blue-eyed white devil." 18-MJ-176, Dkt. No. 3, p. 4, ¶ 8; Dkt. No. 8, p. 9.

In late October of 2017, approximately two weeks before jury selection for Ramos' trial during the second prosecution handled by the victim AUSA, which involved federal charges arising from a 2009 kidnaping, robbery, extortion and murder of another drug dealer3 , law enforcement officers received an anonymous tip. The tip was in a letter addressed to the City of Tonawanda, New York, police department. The letter stated that Ramos' mother, Helene Arroyo, and others, all led by Ramos, were "planning to make a massacre." The tip stated that "the weapons" were in a storage unit rented in Arroyo's name at " 'LIFE STORAGE' in Tonawanda, N.Y." It listed Arroyo's telephone number, and said, "... you can get her." 17-MJ-5294, Dkt. No. 1, p. 3, ¶ 4.

No other individuals, including defendant Harrison, were named in the anonymous tip letter; however, the defendant had been in frequent contact with Ramos, who is in a state prison in Malone, New York, several hours from Buffalo. The defendant relied on an alias, "Tonya Hunt," to place calls to Ramos in the state prison facility in Malone, using the same difficult-to-trace voice-over-internet telephone number the defendant eventually admitted using to contact the victim AUSA. Dkt. No. 6-4, p. 2; Dkt. No. 3, p. 10, ¶ 30. In addition, prison records show that the defendant visited Ramos in the state prison facility using her own name at least a few times in the months before the anonymous tip was received. Dkt. No. 6-4, pp. 7-8.

As a result of the anonymous tip, law enforcement officers obtained a search warrant for the numbered storage unit rented in Arroyo's name at a Life Storage location in Tonawanda, New York. 17-MJ-5294, Dkt. No. 1. Officers found and seized a semi-automatic M-4 rifle, a .25 caliber semi-automatic pistol with a defaced serial number, and more than 500 rounds of ammunition. Id. The ammunition included several full 30-round magazines for the M-4 and a total of more than 300 rounds for the M-4. Id.

The day after the weapons and ammunition were found, Arroyo spoke to a Federal Bureau of Investigation Special Agent during a recorded phone call. After denying that she had known there were weapons in her storage unit, Arroyo admitted that she did know it. She volunteered that they had been there "a long time," but when asked to identify the weapons that she was aware of, Arroyo responded, "I ain't gonna say." 17-MJ-5294, Dkt. No. 1, pp. 5-6, ¶ 13. Arroyo refused to speak further before she could be questioned about a "massacre." Id.

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354 F. Supp. 3d 270, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/united-states-v-harrison-nywd-2018.