| Joel
Tapia Got 188 Months Then Wrote to Press,
Now Co Defendant VOSR With Call In Line
By Matthew
Russell Lee, Patreon,
Periscope
SDNY COURTHOUSE,
Dec 1 – In the jury trial of
US v. Joel Tapia before U.S.
District Court for the
Southern District of New York
Judge Kimba M. Wood on June
19, 2019 the government showed
pages from the notebook of a
drug intermediary.
By June 24
after playing WhatsApp audio
and showing a Boost Mobile
account with a billing address
at their (T-Mobile for now)
headquarters in Lenexa,
Kansas, the government rested.
Tapia's lawyer Calvin H.
Scholar reserved his right to
make motions.
Only on
July 2, 2019 was this verdict
entered into the docket: "JURY
VERDICT as to Joel Tapia (5)
Guilty on Count 1sss; Not
Guilty on Count 2sss,3sss."
The U.S. Attorney's Office did
not issue any press release.
In December 2021,
to her credit, Judge Woods has
a public listen-only call-in
line for a co-defendant's
Violation of Supervised
Release proceeding: "ORDER as
to Jason Llanes: The Court
will hold a remote violation
of supervised release
conference on Thursday,
December 9, 2021, at 12:30
p.m. Member of the press and
public who wish to join the
conference may dial
917-933-2166 and enter
Conference ID 161426712, with
their telephones on mute.
Consistent with the standing
orders of this court and local
rules, no recording or
rebroadcasting of the
proceeding is permitted. SO
ORDERED. (Status Conference
set for 12/9/2021 at 12:30 PM
before Judge Kimba M. Wood)
(Signed by Judge Kimba M. Wood
on 12/1/2021) (lnl)."
These
call-in lines increase
transparency and, where
applicable, general
deterrence, and ought to be
maintain or restored (for
example in US v. Ghislaine
Maxwell.).
On July 7,
2021, this: "JUDGMENT IN A
CRIMINAL CASE as to Joel Tapia
(5). The defendant was found
guilty on Count(s) 1sss after
a plea of not guilty. All open
counts are Dismissed.
IMPRISONMENT: 188 months.
SUPERVISED RELEASE: 5 years.
The court makes the following
recommendations to the Bureau
of Prisons: That the defendant
be incarcerated at Fort Dix,
or a facility as close to New
York City as possible. The
defendant is remanded to the
custody of the United States
Marshal. Assessment: $100.00
due immediately. (Signed by
Judge Kimba M. Wood on
7/7/21)."
Joel Tapia
sent a May 18, 2021 letter,
not visible in the docket; he
mailed it and a cover letter
to Inner City Press on June 5,
photo here.
On August 12,
this: "MEMO ENDORSEMENT as to
Joel Tapia on re: [713] I am
writing today to ask that you
allow me access, via a court
order, to all of the sealed
documents on the district
courts docket, and that you
kindly direct your staff to
provide me with a copy with
these documents by sending
them to me via U.S.
Mail...ENDORSEMENT...Ms.
Drake's request for access to
sealed documents in United
States v. Joel Tapia is
granted. The Government has
objected tothe unsealing of
all sealed documents in this
case, but has stated that they
have no objection to Ms. Drake
(and no one else)viewing these
documents. The Court grants
Ms. Drake's request to the
extent that she may view all
the sealed documents in this
case, but she may do so only
on condition that she not
divulge their contents to
anyone else, not even the
Defendant, absent a Court
Order. If Ms. Drake seeks
further unsealing, she shall
ascertain the Government's
position before requesting
Court action. The Court will
not provide courtesy copies of
the sealed documents. Ms.
Drake may contact the Records
Management Unit for further
guidance and may inquire
whether the Government is able
to provide courtesy copies of
the documents at issue."
On June 25,
2019 Assistant US Attorney
Olga Zverovich in her closing
emphasized to the jury how
Joel Tapia tried to keep a
"clean" personal phone and a
separate TracPhone for
narcotics. She played audio of
Tapia yelling angrily when he
got a drug call on his
personal line.
Tapia's lawyer Calvin
Scholar, meanwhile, submitted
a detailed request to admit
into evidence the full
contents of a hard drive of
surveillance footage of 1428
Fteley Avenue in the Bronx
that law enforcement seized
from Tapia's auto body shop.
The request was accompanied by
a 13 page exhaustive list of
the many times Tapia's auto
body shop was mentioned in the
trial and in the proffer
sessions that preceded it. But
how to know when the jury
comes back?
On June 20
the June 19 witness continued
on the stand, testifying how
after he and his co-defendants
(the word seems to work in
Spanish, or at least
Spanglish) were arrested and
all in the MCC, some on
different floors, they were
able to speak together about
how to get eight kilos of
heroin out of a bathroom wall
in The Bronx.
The
government's agents, it seems,
had broken some of the
bathroom walls under a search
warrant, of the type never put
in PACER in the SDNY. A
co-defendant's mother said the
damage and fix up meant that
there was hot water in the
bathroom at last. But the
drugs weren't found.
To get the
drugs, the co-defendants all
went to Saturday church in the
MCC. They spoke though on
different floors though vents.
They smoked K-2 and took
another drug called Chinita.
All of
this was elicited by the
questioning of the Assistant
US Attorney, whose office is
right next to the MCC. The
drugs were recovered from the
wall; the witness said he
mostly smoked K-2 with his
co-defendants because he
didn't want them to know he
was already meeting with the
government. But now of course
they do. We'll have more on
this trial.
The case is US v. Guillen et al.,
17-cr-512 (Wood)
***
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