Articles Posted in Drug Crimes

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This past Monday night Malden, Massachusetts police stopped a car that had been reported stolen in Brockton. After removing a passenger from the car the driver struck two police officers with his vehicle and pinned another officer against a parked vehicle. Two suspects, James Calo of Malden and Mark Dwyer of Framingham were arrested. A third suspect, Alexander Nesom was shot and killed by police officers. Dwyer initially evaded apprehension but was caught less than twelve hours later. When the police were able to stop the vehicle they found four bags of heroin on Calo. Charges of receiving motor vehicle and possession with the intent to distribute heroin are pending in the Malden District Court.

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Shooting Suspects Arrested And Arraigned In Malden District Court

One charge not mentioned in the article that I would think would issue is assault with the intent to murder. If the driver of the car deliberately drove into the three police officers he hit he can be charged with this crime. Assault with the intent to murder is a crime pursuant to Massachusetts General Laws Chapter 265 Section 18. This crime is a felony and is punishable by up to twenty years on state prison. This crime must be prosecuted in the Superior Court. To prove armed assault with the intent to murder the government must proved beyond a reasonable that the defendants 1) committed an assault; 2) having a specific intent to kill the victim; and 3) that they did so acting with malice, which is defined as an absence of justification or mitigation. In cases such as this one the driver defends these charges by presenting evidence that he never intended to strike the officers with the vehicle, rather that he was trying to make his escape. The passenger’s defense will embrace his lack of knowledge as to the actions that driver ultimately took.

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Just the other day a joint drug task force executed a search warrant at 43 Union Street in Southbridge, Massachusetts. Present at the time were Santos Sanchez and Yasmin Torres. Sanchez had outstanding federal warrants in other jurisdictions. During the execution of the search warrant law enforcement personnel found twenty two grams of cocaine, fourteen rounds of ammunition, a nine millimeter firearm, over eight grams of marijuana, drug trafficking paraphernalia and prescription pills. Sanchez is being held on a half million dollar bail. Sanchez was charged with trafficking cocaine, a school zone violation, possession of a firearm, possession of ammunition and related drug charges. Yasmin Torres has been charged with the same crimes and was released on a low bail.

Drugs, Guns Found At Home Of Southbridge, Massachusetts Man

There are a multitude of defense strategies often associated with these types of cases. For one thing the validity of the search warrant can be challenged through a motion to suppress the search and seizure. If successful all of the items seized pursuant to the search warrant get suppressed and cannot be used as evidence against the defendants. Motions to dismiss work at times as well on cases such as this one. Where there is not telling whose substances these are and it is legally impossible for the district attorney to prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt the case can get dismissed. Trying cases like this one can result in an acquittal also. An Experienced Criminal Defense Lawyer will try to attribute the drugs to the other defendant, particularly if the cases are severed.

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A Home Invasion that took place in Westford, Massachusetts has resulted in the issuance of criminal charges against three Massachusetts men. According to reports the victims were supposedly drug dealers who were targeted due to their access to weapons and money associated with drug dealing activities. It is alleged that Daniel Cummins and Carlos Vega of Bedford tried to tie up one victim and duct tape another. Kamil Sylvain of Cambridge, Massachusetts has also been charged with this crime. Cummins brother Christopher was arrested in connection with this case on May 15th of this year. The charges now pending in the Ayer District Court are Home Invasion, Assault and Battery and Assault by Means of a Dangerous Weapon. All defendants are being held on bail pending a hearing on dangerousness.

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Massachusetts Men Charged With Home Invasion To Be Prosecuted In Woburn Superior Court

Quite often these cases are not as clear cut as the police reports seem to suggest. A typical scenario involving a dubious home invasion claim occurs when a drug deal goes bad. In that situation the “victim” calls the police and makes a report claiming that the defendants broke into his home, assaulted him, committed various acts of violence and made certain threats. Obviously the caller never reports that all parties were involved in drug transactions or other illicit activities. Nor does the caller admit that the assaultive conduct was a mutual undertaking and that he came out on the losing end of the battle. Experienced Criminal Defense Lawyers are quick to see what actually happened and use this to their advantage in defending their clients.

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Last week after receiving complaints about “suspicious activity” Methuen, Massachusetts police began a surveillance in the area of Wheeler Street and Lowell Street. Officers observed a couple of cars arrive and “engage in some sort of transaction”. Believing that they had just witnessed a drug deal the police moved in and arrested twenty two year old Gustavo Baez-Franco. On his possession and in his car the police found eighty eight grams of cocaine and thirty eight grams of heroin. The drugs that were found in the car were located in a hidden part of the console. Nearly four thousand dollars cash were also seized from Baez-Franco. No drugs were found in the other car. The case will initially be prosecuted in the Lawrence District Court and subsequently indicted to the Essex County Superior Court in Salem. The charges will be trafficking heroin and trafficking cocaine.

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Cocaine and Heroin Trafficking Charges Filed Against Massachusetts Man

The defense of this case will rely heavily on a motion to suppress the search of the defendant and the seizure of the drugs the police found as a result. Police are not permitted to act on a hunch that a drug deal was just consummated. They must have reasonable articulable facts that warrant the intrusion. Their actions must meet the Constitutional protections afforded the defendant. Searches like this one are often suppressed. The result of suppression is typically a dismissal of the case.

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Shortly after 12:00 a.m. last Wednesday morning Gabriel Diaz was arrested by the Haverhill, Massachusetts Police Drug Unit. An informant told them that a van would be driving in the High Street area and that it would contain drugs. Using this information the police made the stop of the vehicle. They determined that Diaz did not have a driver’s license. This being an arrestable offense they detained Diaz and searched his car. While doing so they found a cocaine diluting agent, inositol and a scale. Believing that more drugs were present they called in a K-9 unit. The dog sniffed out a hiding compartment in the seat. Inside the police located a loaded nine millimeter handgun, sixty four grams of rock cocaine, nineteen grams of heroin and some cash. Diaz has been charged with trafficking cocaine, trafficking heroin, possession of a firearm, possession of ammunition and more. Charges are now pending in the Haverhill District Court. The case will ultimately be prosecuted in the Essex County Superior Court in Newburyport, Salem or Lawrence.

Drug and Gun Charges Filed Against Lawrence Man Arrested in Haverhill

Here are some things to think about with this case. Anytime police use informants as a basis for stopping a vehicle you can be sure that the defense attorney will move to suppress the stop and search. The police must establish that the information is reliable and the information he supplies must be sufficiently corroborated. Challenging the credibility of his information is a great way to get the search suppressed, the drugs thrown out and the case dismissed. You might also want to think about Diaz’s relationship to the vehicle. Was it his? If not, what evidence is there that he had knowledge about the “secret” compartment in the vehicle. Another question that comes to mind is where was the scale and inositol found? Was it located in plain view such that Diaz must have known it was there or was it secreted in another part of the car.

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On July 8, 2009 Cambridge, Massachusetts Police arrested Manuel Pimentel. He was charged with trafficking cocaine and a school zone violation. According to reports Pimentel was caught in a surveillance effort that originated after complaints for drug activity were reported in a specific part of Cambridge. Here is what happened. Shortly after 6:00 p.m. Pimentel drove into the surveillance area in a minivan. He was seen making a phone call. He then started looking around for someone. A plain clothed detective approached him and identified himself. Pimentel reached towards the center console. Officers then forcibly removed the defendant from the minivan. In the process they located cocaine on the passenger seat in a container. Assorted drug paraphernalia was seized as well.

Cambridge Massachusetts Police Bust Man For Trafficking Cocaine, School Zone Violation

So how is the defendant going to fights this case? A motion to suppress the search would be a nice start. The Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments to the United States Constitution and Article 14 of the Massachusetts Declaration of Rights prohibit police officers from subjecting individuals to warrantless and unreasonable searches and seizures without probable cause. There are exceptions to the warrant requirement however case law suggest that that does not apply here. In a recent case with facts similar to this one suppression of the evidence resulted. That case, Commonwealth v. Klement, 2007 WL 1079993, 1 (2007) reported that the stop was based on a hunch where a man flagged down a minivan. The minivan slowed and pulled up to him and the man went to the minivan’s passenger side window, leaned in and appeared to speak to the occupants. The police stopped and searched based on a hunch. The United States Supreme Court and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court have both held “hunches” do not provide a legal basis for searches and seizures. Klement held that the officer was acting on a hunch.

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Dimitrios Paicopoulos is twenty seven years old. He is from Newton, Massachusetts. Just last week Mr. Paicopoulos found himself in some trouble. A narcotics task force arrested him at his home. They conducted a search of his home, presumably pursuant to a search warrant. They found over ten thousand dollars cash, some narcotics packaging materials and over seven hundred eighty milligram Oxycontin pills. According to reports this investigation started after numerous neighbors complained about what they believed to be drug activity in their neighborhood. Bail for Mr. Paicopoulos has been set at one hundred thousand dollars in the Newton District Court. The defendant now faces drug trafficking charges.

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Oxycontin Bust Results In Seizure Of over 700 Pills, Trafficking Charges For Massachusetts Man

So what actually happened here? Well, if neighbors truly complained about the suspected drug activity in their neighborhood the law enforcement investigation that commenced likely did so with a surveillance of the home. Police officers might have observed unusual traffic into the property such as a vast array of frequent visitors entering and leaving the premises after very short visits. The police probably stopped one of the visitors and located drugs on that person. That person then told the police that he or she had just purchased certain drugs from the defendant. The police would then learn how the defendant would be contacted for such drug activity. They would next enlist an undercover officer, one of the purchasers who they had just stopped or a confidential informant to get a better perspective on the quantity of drugs that Paicopoulos could supply. Once controlled buys proved successful a warrant was obtained for the arrest of the defendant and a search of his home.

There are many possible defenses to this crime such as attacking the legality of the search warrant or putting the district attorney to the constitutional task of proving that the drugs seized belonged to the defendant and not someone else who resided in the home. Cases like this are often won with challenges to the constitutionality of the search through motions to suppress. A motion to dismiss based on an Insufficiency of the evidence can be a method of attacking as well.

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Last year, on June 28, 2008 Boston, Massachusetts resident Michael Wilder was at a party in Ashland, Massachusetts. The alleged victim was there at the same time. Apparently she was not feeling well and went outside. It is at that time that the woman claims that Wilder assaulted her. The victim reported the incident that day and Wilder was arrested by members of the Ashland Police Department and charged with Rape and Assault and Battery. Charges initially issued in the Framingham District Court and bail was set in the amount of ten thousand dollars. Now that Wilder has been indicted the case will be prosecuted in the Middlesex Superior Court in Woburn. According to reports Wilder has an open drug case in Waltham as well.

Boston Man To Face Rape Charges Stemming From Incident At A Party One Year Ago

In looking at this case here are some things that a Massachusetts Rape Defense Lawyer might be looking at. What information can other people who were at the party provide? Did the victim come back into the party after the alleged and if so what was her demeanor? Is there any physical evidence, i.e. DNA, pubic hair or saliva corroborating the victim’s complaints? How long after the act was the complaint made? Why did it take over one year to indict the case? During the discovery process and in the course of trial preparation these questions will likely be answered.

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In Melendez-Diaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. – (June 25, 2009), the United States Supreme Court held that in a prosecution for a drug offense the introduction of certificates of analysis from Massachusetts drug crime laboratories violated a defendant’s constitutional right to confront witnesses against him at a trial. The Supreme Court recognized that the Sixth Amendment to the United States Constitution, provides that “[i]n all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right . . . to be confronted with the witnesses against him.” The Court has been narrowing the exceptions that state courts have carved from the Constitution to make prosecutions easier and more convenient for the government. Melendez-Diaz relied on the holding in Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 51 (2004) in which the Court reaffirmed the basic tenet of the constitution that a defendant has a right to confront those “who ‘bear testimony’” against him. Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36, 51 (2004).

Melendez-Diaz, affirmed Crawford’s holding that a witness’s testimony against a defendant is thus inadmissible unless the witness appears at trial or, if the witness is unavailable, the defendant had a prior opportunity for cross-examination. In Melendez-Diaz, the Court discussed that the Crawford opinion described the class of testimonial statements covered by the Confrontation Clause as follows: “Various formulations of this core class of testimonial statements exist: ex parte in-court testimony or its functional equivalent—that is, material such as affidavits, custodial examinations, prior testimony that the defendant was unable to cross-examine, or similar pretrial statements that declarants would reasonably expect to be used prosecutorially; extrajudicial statements . . . contained in formalized testimonial materials, such as affidavits, depositions, prior testimony, or confessions; statements that were made under circumstances which would lead an objective witness reasonably to believe that the statement would be available for use at a later trial.” Id., at 51–52. The Court held that relative to a Massachusetts drug “certificate,” which the court concluded was the functional equivalent of an affidavit, there is little doubt that the document fell within the “core class of testimonial statements.”

This landmark decision will have the effect of forcing the government to meet its burden in all Massachusetts drug cases. Based on the language in the opinion, it also appears Massachusetts criminal defense attorneys should object during the prosectuion of gun offenses to the admission of ballistic certificates when the District Attorney moves to introduce them without a live witness. The reasoning in Melendez-Diaz requires the exclusion of the certificate as rank hearsay and a violation of the defendant’s rights to confront witnesses against him or her.

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Just the other day Boston, Massachusetts police arrested Amando Avila, a thirty four man from Newton, Massachusetts. The charges, trafficking more than two hundred grams of heroin. It is alleged that Avila tried to sell two kilograms of pure heroin to an undercover police officer. According to reports Avila’s overall role in heroin trafficking is unknown at this time. He will however stand charged with trafficking and a school zone violation in Suffolk County. The case will no doubt be indicted by a grand jury and prosecuted in the Suffolk County Superior Court.

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Boston Massachusetts Police Make Heroin Arrest, Man Charged With Trafficking, School Zone Violation

Trafficking heroin over 200 grams in Massachusetts is a felony punishable by a minimum mandatory 15 year state prison sentence. The school zone adds another minimum mandatory 2 years to the sentence. If convicted of these charges Avila will have to serve 17 years in a Massachusetts state prison. Here are some of the problems he faces in terms of defending this case. The quantity of heroin is enormous by Massachusetts standards. Two kilo heroin cases are not common in this state. The purity is a major issue. The Boston Police claim that the street value of this seizure is over two hundred thousand dollars. The greater the purity the more likely the substance will be diluted prior to distribution so that the profits of the drug dealers increase. The final street product of the heroin seized would be substantial. It would end up serving a great number of heroin users by the time it was ultimately cut up and sold. Hand to hand sales to undercover officers are very difficult to defend. When these cases are won they are usually done so through motions to suppress. At trial, the only defenses to cases such as this are duress or entrapment. Avila’s lawyers have lots of work ahead of them.

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