Jury Doody...part 2

Ok, so when I left off, the mule was in FBI custody and had agreed to let the agents search her luggage and to cooperate fully with them. The two agents and the mule boarded another Southwest flight (with fake cocaine), and eventually, made it to Pennsylvania. Once there, the mule called the person we shall refer to as "the driver", to alert him that she had landed and was ready to be picked up. The driver picked the mule up, took her luggage, and put it in the trunk. At this point, the FBI agents were following the driver and the mule; they had to drive back to a town in Ohio, which was going to take about an hour. Any conversation between the driver and the mule were NOT recorded.

After driving back into Ohio, the driver and the mule finally arrive at the dealer's house. The driver takes the mule's luggage into the dealer's house, and about 5 minutes later the DEA busts in a pretty much arrests everyone. The FBI take the mule into the garage; during this time, the defendant is attempting to contact the mule and the dealer, all to no avail, since they are both in custody. At the dealer's house, the DEA seizes nearly $188,000, scales, and other drug paraphernalia.

Once the raid at the dealer's house is done, the FBI escort the mule back to the airport in Pennsylvania, and back onto a plane which eventually lands back in Oakland. At the exact moment she is supposed to land, the defendant calls her, and although she landed 25 minutes early, she doesn't answer because the FBI agents she is with want to attach a recording device to her phone.

Once the recording device is attached, the mule calls (actually chirps on a push-to-talk phone) the defendant back; he answers and is clearly pissed about having no contact with anyone involved for the past 12-14 hours. She explains that the dealer's house was raided and they got all the cocaine and all the money, and let her go only because the driver had been carrying the luggage and she was just a guest, and had distanced herself. He apparently buys this story and when she tells him she just wants to go to Reno to see her kids, he says that she needs to meet him before she does anything.

Once the mule arrives back at her brother's mobile home, she chirps the defendant to let him know she is there, and about 10 minutes later, two FBI agents see the defendant arrive in a silver Mercedes SUV. The conversation that takes place at the mobile home is mostly about how he is annoyed that he lost $177,000, but is glad that he at least didn't send 7 kilos, which was the original plan, and that he has 3 more kilos in play here in California, and can try to make up some of the money that way. He assures the mule that they can't touch her now that she is back in California, and that he wasn't at the scene, so he is immune also.

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Cut to October...
The FBI and DEA execute a search warrant on the home owned by the defendant's estranged wife. In the home, underneath the washing machine, they find more than $40,000. Under the wife's bed, they find another $8,000. The wife claims in court that she likes to keep half of her liquid assets in cash in her home because she doesn't trust banks. Keep in mind that, at the time, this same woman was making approximately $50,000 a year, and she had almost that much in her house. I personally, found this whole thing really odd, but whatever.

The FBI finally caught up with the defendant on October 8, and there were seriously SO many cell phones entered into evidence. In my mind, he was guilty, and I am glad the jury felt the same.