Government opposition to motion to suppress — United States v. Jackson (C.D. Cal.) (C.D. Cal.)

Record facts

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT · No. 2:23-cr-00210-DSF · Doc. 34 · 2024-04-11 · Docket on CourtListener

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E. MARTIN ESTRADA 
United States Attorney 
MACK E. JENKINS  
Assistant United States Attorney 
Chief, Criminal Division 
ANDREW BROWN (Cal. Bar No. 172009) 
Assistant United States Attorney 
Major Frauds Section 
1100 United States Courthouse 
312 North Spring Street 
Los Angeles, California 90012 
Telephone: (213) 894-0102 
Facsimile: (213) 894-6269 
E-mail:  
andrew.brown@usdoj.gov 
Attorneys for Plaintiff 
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 
 
 
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT 
 
FOR THE CENTRAL DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA 
 
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, 
 
Plaintiff, 
 
v. 
 
BOBBY JOE JACKSON JR., 
 
Defendant. 
 
No. 2:23-CR-210-DSF 
GOVERNMENT’S OPPOSITION TO 
DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO SUPPRESS; 
EXHIBIT 
Hearing:  May 13, 2024, 8:30am 
 
 
 
 
 
Case 2:23-cr-00210-DSF   Document 34   Filed 04/11/24   Page 1 of 21   Page ID #:176

 
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TABLE OF CONTENTS 
DESCRIPTION 
PAGE 
TABLE OF AUTHORITIES............................................... 3 
I. 
INTRODUCTION..................................................4 
II. 
FACTS AND BACKGROUND OF THIS CASE.............................4 
III. FACTS AND BACKGROUND OF THE CASE AND INVESTIGATIONS 
INVOLVING THE INVENTORY SEARCH................................6 
IV. 
THE AUTHORITIES ON WHICH DEFENDANT RELIES ARE NO LONGER 
THE LAW, AND DO NOT SUPPORT HIS POSITION IN ANY EVENT........10 
A. 
MCDONALD AND ITS PROGENY ARE NO LONGER THE LAW..........11 
B. 
EVEN UNDER MCDONALD, DEFENDANT LACKS STANDING...........13 
V. 
DEFENDANT HAS FAILED TO CARRY HIS BURDEN TO ESTABLISH 
STANDING.....................................................15 
VI. 
ANY TAINT FROM THE INVENTORY OF THE MAGEES’ SAFETY DEPOSIT 
BOXES IS ATTENUATED..........................................18 
VII. THE AFFIDAVIT FOR THE SEARCH WARRANT DEMONSTRATED PROBABLE 
CAUSE EVEN EXCLUDING THE PURPORTEDLY TAINTED EVIDENCE........19 
A. 
SUPPRESSION IS ALSO NOT AVAILABLE BECAUSE OF DEFENDANT’S 
SEARCH CONDITION........................................20 
CONCLUSION........................................................21 
 
 
 
 
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TABLE OF AUTHORITIES 
DESCRIPTION 
PAGE(s) 
Alderman v. United States, 
394 U.S. 165, 89 S.Ct. 961, 22 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969) ....... 12, 13, 15 
 
Gillespie v. United States, 
368 F.2d 1 (8th Cir. 1966) ...................................... 14 
 
McDonald v. United States, 
69 S.Ct. 191, 335 U.S. 451 (1948) ............................... 11 
 
Rakas v. Illinois, 
439 U.S. 128 ................................................ 15, 21 
 
Rawlings v. Kentucky, 
100 S.Ct. 2556, 448 U.S. 98 (1980) .............................. 17 
 
Rosencranz v. United States, 
334 F.2d 738 (1st Cir. 1964) .................................... 12 
 
Snitko v. United States, 
90 F.4th 1250 (9th Cir. 2024) .................................... 8 
 
Snitko v. United States, 
2022 WL 20016427 (C.D.Cal., 2022) ................................ 7 
 
United States v. Bozza, 
365 F.2d 206 (2nd Cir. 1966) ................................ 12, 13 
 
United States v. Graham, 
391 F.2d 439 (6th Cir. 1968) .................................... 12 
 
United States v. Kovac, 
795 F.2d 1509 (9th Cir. 1986) ................................... 16 
 
United States v. Padilla, 
113 S.Ct. 1936, 508 U.S. 77 (1993) .......................... 10, 15  
 
United States v. Sarkisian, 
197 F.3d 966 (9th Cir. 1999) .................................... 17 
 
United States v. Vasey, 
834 F.2d 782 (9th Cir. 1987) .................................... 19 
 
Utah v. Strieff, 
579 U.S. 232 (2016) ............................................. 18 
 
Wong Sun v. United States, 
83 S.Ct. 407, 371 U.S. 471 (1963) ........................... 12, 13
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I. 
INTRODUCTION 
Defendant Bobby Joe Jackson Jr. (“defendant”) asks this Court 
to suppress the evidence recovered from his residence during the 
execution of a federal search warrant.  Defendant alleges no defect 
in the search warrant targeting his property, but claims that an 
inventory search of his co-conspirators’ property years earlier was 
unlawful and indirectly led investigators to defendant.  Defendant’s 
motion must be denied because he has failed to carry his burden of 
demonstrating that his own Fourth Amendment rights were violated.  
Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 131 n. 1 (1978) (“The proponent of 
a motion to suppress has the burden of establishing that his own 
Fourth Amendment rights were violated by the challenged search or 
seizure.”) 
II. 
FACTS AND BACKGROUND OF THIS CASE 
Defendant has a long history of committing federal crimes, and 
of violating the terms of his supervised release.  In 2011, this 
Court sentenced defendant to 30 months in prison for bank fraud, to 
be followed by five years of supervised release.  (2:11-CR-535-DSF, 
dkt. 40.)  Defendant repeatedly violated the terms of his supervised 
release, which resulted in various prison sentences and the 
reimposition of supervised release.  On November 9, 2021, this Court 
sentenced defendant to four months in prison to be followed by 36 
months of supervised release after defendant admitted to Second 
Degree Burglary and Felon in Possession of a Firearm.  The Court 
also imposed search condition as part of defendant’s supervised 
release:  
  
The defendant shall submit to a search, at any time, with 
or without warrant, and by any law enforcement or 
Probation Officer, of the defendant's person and any 
property, house, residence, vehicle, papers, computer, 
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other electronic communication or data storage devices or 
media, and effects upon reasonable suspicion concerning a 
violation of a condition of supervision or unlawful 
conduct by the offender, and by any Probation Officer in 
the lawful discharge of the officer's supervision 
functions; 
(2:11-CR-535-DSF, dkt. 119, Pacer page 2.) 
Despite knowing of this search condition, the government chose 
to obtain a search warrant for defendant’s residence.  (Exh. A, LA 
22-MJ-2746-DUTY, search warrant affidavit paragraph 5: “In November 
of 2021, Judge Fischer included a search condition as one of the 
terms of JACKSON’s supervised release.”)  On July 15, 2021, the 
Honorable John E. McDermott, U.S. Magistrate Judge, issued the 
search warrant, which was executed on July 22, 2022. 
During the search, numerous stolen credit cards and social 
security cards were found, along with fake identification cards and 
driver licenses in names matching the stolen cards, but with photos 
of defendant. (Dkt. 1, Complaint Aff. ¶ 6, Pacer pages 5-6.)  
Defendant also confessed to the crime in a recorded interview: 
 
JACKSON . . . told us that he would buy stolen identities 
from McArthur Park. The identity profiles he bought would 
include fake driver licenses bearing his photo, along with 
social security numbers and fake credit cards and other 
PII. 
25. JACKSON said he would use the stolen identities to 
commit fraud. JACKSON stated that he has filed for at 
least 20 California Employment Development Program (EDD) 
claims using the stolen identities and received about 
$15,000 from each successful claim. JACKSON would go to 
bank ATM machines and would hire others to withdraw the 
fraudulent cash to avoid detection. Occasionally JACKSON 
would conduct the withdrawal himself. 
26. In my discussion with JACKSON, I went down the list of 
identities that EDD Investigator Romo previously provided 
me of fraudulent claims from addresses tied to JACKSON. 
JACKSON identified some of those names as identities he 
had purchased for his scheme. Others he said belonged to 
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his conspirators. JACKSON claimed he did not remember all 
of the names. 
27. JACKSON also said he used the stolen identities and 
identities of friends and family to fraudulently file for 
PPP or EIDL loans. . . .  JACKSON admitted that the 
documents he signed or produced to Small Business 
Administration were fraudulent and that he and the 
beneficiaries of the loans (his family members and 
friends) knew they were not entitled to the loans. 
 
 
. . . . 
 
30. JACKSON acknowledged lying to his probation officer 
about living in Compton when in fact he lived at the 
[search] Address. JACKSON also admitted that he did not 
disclose his income or his loan applications to probation. 
(Dkt. 1, Complaint Aff., Pacer pages 13-16.) 
 
On September 12, 2022, defendant was arrested on a bench 
warrant for violating the terms of his supervised release based on 
the conduct described above.  He later admitted the violations and 
on October 3, 2022, the Court sentenced him to 13 months in prison 
followed by almost 43 months of supervised release.  (Dkt. 135.)  
While defendant was serving his sentence for his latest violations 
of supervised release, the government brought the instant charges 
against him by complaint.  Trial is currently set for June 7, 2024. 
III. FACTS AND BACKGROUND OF THE CASE AND INVESTIGATIONS INVOLVING 
THE INVENTORY SEARCH 
 
The government investigated a private safety deposit box 
company called U.S. Private Vaults (“USPV”), which ultimately pled 
guilty to conspiring with its customers to launder money.  (2:21-cr-
00106-MCS, dkt. 114.)  USPV offered a unique service in California:  
the anonymous rental of safety deposit boxes.  While banks and other 
private vault companies offer similar services at much lower prices, 
none permit their customers to remain anonymous.  It is this 
anonymity that USPV advertised on its website to attract customers: 
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“Complete Privacy; Biometric Identification; No ID Required.”  
www.usprivatevaults.com.  By providing and promoting total 
anonymity, USPV catered to and attracted criminals, who sought to 
keep their identities and the source of their cash beyond the reach 
of law enforcement and the IRS. (Judge Klausner’s Snitko opinion, 
2:21-cv-04405-RGK-MAR, dkt. 140, page 2). 
 
USPV’s website stated, “Our business is one of very few where 
we don’t even want to know your name.  For your privacy and the 
security of your assets in our vault, the less we know the better.”  
(Id.) In a posting entitled, “Four Reasons to Store Your Gold At 
USPV,” USPV argued: “Banks require clients to provide their social 
security number and a photo identification as a condition for 
renting a safe deposit box. Your information is then filed in the 
bank’s central data system. This information can be easily accessed 
by government agencies (such as the IRS) or attorneys armed with 
court orders. If no one is aware you have a safe deposit box, the 
contents (your gold) are much safer.”  It went on to explain that, 
“As government chartered institutions, banks are now required to 
file ‘suspicious activity reports.’ . . . . U.S. Private Vaults is 
not subject to federal banking laws and would only cooperate with 
the government under court order.”  www.usprivatevaults.com.   
To further the investigation and prosecution of USPV, the 
government obtained both a federal search warrant for its premises, 
and a seizure warrant for its equipment, including its nests of 
safety deposit boxes.  Snitko v. United States, 2022 WL 20016427, at 
*3 (C.D.Cal., 2022).  The FBI inventoried the contents of the safety 
deposit boxes that were in the nests that it had seized.  When there 
was evidence of criminality in particular boxes, the FBI sought and 
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obtained search warrants for those individual boxes, too.  This 
includes those boxes that were later claimed by Mitchell and Michael 
Magee, who are associates of defendant and are the focus of 
defendant’s current suppression motion.  (LA 21-MJ-2003-DUTY, and LA 
21-MJ-2053-DUTY.)  When there was no evidence of criminality in the 
seized boxes, the FBI did not seek search warrants for them. 
 
A group of boxholders for whom there was no evidence of 
criminality, and for whose boxes no individual search warrants had 
been sought, began a civil class-action lawsuit against the FBI 
seeking to have the inventory records of their boxes destroyed. 
Snitko v. United States, 90 F.4th 1250, 1252 (9th Cir. 2024) 
(describing the Snitko plaintiffs as “non-criminal Plaintiffs”).   
After losing in the district court, these plaintiffs prevailed in 
the Ninth Circuit, which held that the FBI’s supplemental 
instructions on inventorying the safety deposit boxes made the 
inventory exception to the search warrant requirement inapplicable: 
The district court, which recognized a difference between 
the Supplemental Instructions and the FBI's “standardized” 
ones, seemed to believe that the inventory search doctrine 
was nonetheless applicable because the agents merely 
followed the Supplemental Instructions “in addition” to 
the FBI's standardized ones. But once the government 
begins adding a set of “customized” instructions to a 
“standardized” inventory policy—particularly the type of 
custom instructions presented by this case—the entire 
search stops being conducted pursuant to a “standardized” 
policy, regardless of whether the customized instructions 
conflict with the standardized ones. Here, the fact that 
the Supplemental Instructions were created specifically 
for the USPV search takes this case out of the realm of a 
standardized “inventory” procedure. 
Snitko, 90 F.4th at 1262.   
 
After finding over $300,000 in cash in Michael Magee’s box 
4303, and over $600,000 in Mitchell Magee’s box 504, the government 
began investigating them.  Nothing in either box linked the Magees 
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to defendant, or in any way suggested defendant’s involvement with 
those boxes.  As described above, the government obtained search 
warrants for both boxes.  (LA 21-MJ-2003-DUTY, box 504; LA 21-MJ-
2053-DUTY, box 4303.)  Subsequently, the government also obtained 
search warrants for the residences of both Michael and Mitchell 
Magee, among other locations associated with them.  (LA 21-MJ-3196-
DUTY, LA 21-MJ-3198-DUTY.)  It was only after executing these 
residential search warrants that the government found evidence that 
defendant was in a conspiracy with the Magee brothers.  (Exh. A, 
pages 9-10, paragraphs (j) and (k).) 
Defendant makes multiple irrelevant arguments relying upon the 
Ninth Circuit’s decision in Snitko, which required the sequestration 
or destruction of inventory documents as to class members in that 
case which, as noted above, the Ninth Circuit wrote was brought by 
“non-criminal Plaintiffs.”  However, the core issue to be addressed 
in defendant’s suppression motion is whether defendant has met his 
burden of showing he has standing to assert a Fourth Amendment 
violation resulting from the government’s use of information 
obtained from the inventory search of boxes held by the Magees (who 
have extensive histories of criminality and against whom multiple 
criminal search warrants were obtained).1   
 
1 The Ninth Circuit ruled that Snitko class member records 
should be sequestered or destroyed.  But the issue defendant is 
raising is based upon the Ninth Circuit finding a Fourth Amendment 
violation relative to the inventory as a whole, and does not depend 
upon whether the Magees are class members or not, or whether records 
are sequestered, destroyed, or otherwise maintained.  In reversing 
the district court’s order in favor of the government in Snitko, the 
Ninth Circuit remanded the case and instructed the district court to 
enter an order requiring the “FBI to sequester or destroy the 
records of its inventory search pertaining to class members . . . 
including copies of the records kept on the Sentinel database.”  
Snitko, 90 F.4th at 1266 (citations and internal quotation marks 
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As to the core issue, defendant does not allege that he rented 
a safety deposit box at USPV, or even that any of his belongings 
were in someone else’s box.  (Jackson Decl.; Local Criminal Rule 12-
1.1:  “A motion to suppress shall be supported by a declaration on 
behalf of the defendant, setting forth all facts then known upon 
which it is contended the motion should be granted.”)  Accordingly, 
it is unnecessary for the Court to decide whether the government’s 
having obtained search warrants for the safety deposit boxes of the 
Magees would alter the Ninth Circuit’s holding that an inventory 
search without the benefit of such individualized search warrants 
was improper:  defendant lacks standing to contest the inventory 
search of the Magees’ safety deposit boxes. 
IV. 
THE AUTHORITIES ON WHICH DEFENDANT RELIES ARE NO LONGER THE 
LAW, AND DO NOT SUPPORT HIS POSITION IN ANY EVENT 
In order to construct an argument for standing, defendant 
reaches back to a short line of cases from 1948 that has since been 
limited to their facts.  More to the point, as discussed in the next 
section below, those cases are diametrically opposed to the Supreme 
Court’s current jurisprudence, which holds that “a defendant can 
urge the suppression of evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth 
Amendment only if that defendant demonstrates that his Fourth 
Amendment rights were violated by the challenged search or seizure.” 
United States v. Padilla, 113 S.Ct. 1936, 1938–39, 508 U.S. 77, 81–
82 (1993) (emphasis in original).  Regardless, even the outdated 
cases relied upon by defendant are insufficient for defendant to 
establish standing. 
 
omitted).  The remand is plainly limited to class members (which 
class is discussed in Snitko at 90 F.4th at 1259 and in the district 
court’s certification ruling at Dkt. 78 at page 5), but defendant 
offers no argument showing that the Magees are class members.   
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A. 
MCDONALD AND ITS PROGENY ARE NO LONGER THE LAW 
The key case on which defendant relies is McDonald v. United 
States, 69 S.Ct. 191, 335 U.S. 451 (1948), in which a divided 
Supreme Court issued two concurrences and a dissent in addition to 
the opinion quoted by defendant—which was joined by only two 
justices.  The concurrence, which garnered the support of three 
justices, was concerned chiefly with the danger posed by the police 
officer’s misconduct.  He “forced open the window of the landlady's 
bedroom and climbed in [wearing] plain clothes but showed his badge 
to the frightened woman, brushed her aside and then unlocked doors 
and admitted two other officers.”  Id., 69 S.Ct. 191, 194, 335 U.S. 
451, 457–58.  Having broken into the residence, the officers were 
able to observe the landlady’s tenants running an illegal lottery 
game.  The concurrence reasonably feared that having police in plain 
clothes break into homes could result in a shootout based on the 
mistaken belief that the officers were burglars: 
Many home-owners in this crime-beset city doubtless are 
armed. When a woman sees a strange man, in plain clothes, 
prying up her bedroom window and climbing in, her natural 
impulse would be to shoot. A plea of justifiable homicide 
might result awkwardly for enforcement officers. But an 
officer seeing a gun being drawn on him might shoot first. 
Id., 69 S.Ct. 191, 196, 335 U.S. 451, 460–61. 
 
Defendant is correct that the two-justice majority opinion in 
McDonald seemed to endorse a kind of derivative or co-conspirator 
standing theory, whereby evidence inadmissible to McDonald, who 
rented the room the police raided without a warrant, was also 
inadmissible as to Washington, who was present during the raid, but 
neither stayed in the room nor rented it: 
[W]e assume, without deciding, that Washington, who was a 
guest of McDonald, had no right of privacy that was broken 
when the officers searched McDonald's room without a 
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warrant, we think that the denial of McDonald's motion was 
error that was prejudicial to Washington as well. In this 
case . . . the unlawfully seized materials were the basis 
of evidence used against the codefendant. If the property 
had been returned to McDonald, it would not have been 
available for use at the trial. We can only speculate as 
to whether other evidence which might have been used 
against Washington would have been equally probative. 
Id., 69 S.Ct. 191, 193–94, 335 U.S. 451, 456 (citations omitted). 
While the Supreme Court has not expressly overruled McDonald, 
it has limited McDonald to its facts. In Alderman v. United States, 
394 U.S. 165, 89 S.Ct. 961, 22 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969), for example, the 
Court clarified that coconspirators and codefendants are entitled to 
“no special standing,” id. at 172, 89 S.Ct. 961, and stated that 
McDonald is “not authority to the contrary,” id. at 173 n. 7, 89 
S.Ct. 961.  Appellate courts called McDonald into question even 
before the Supreme Court did so in Alderman:  e.g., United States v. 
Graham, 391 F.2d 439, 445 (6th Cir. 1968) (“the Supreme Court may 
itself have had later doubts as to the scope of McDonald”); 
Rosencranz v. United States, 334 F.2d 738, 741 (1st Cir. 1964) 
(Aldrich, J., concurring) (“The Supreme Court may itself have had 
later doubts as to the scope of McDonald, as evidenced by the fact 
that although the briefs show it was cited by the parties both in 
Jones v. United States, and in Wong Sun v. United States, the court 
made no mention of it”) (citations omitted). 
Even cases cited by defendant show that McDonald is limited to 
its facts.  Defendant relies on Wong Sun v. United States, 83 S.Ct. 
407, 419, 371 U.S. 471, 491–92 (1963), arguing that it stands for 
the proposition that the illegally obtained statements of Wong Sun’s 
co-conspirators could not be used against Wong Sun even though 
obtaining them did not infringe on Wong Sun’s rights.  (Dkt. 33, 
Pacer page 15.)  But defendant has misread that case.  Wong Sun’s 
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co-conspirators did not testify against him, so their statements 
could be introduced only if they were not hearsay.  But the Court 
explained that no co-conspirator exception to the hearsay rule 
applied: 
[A]n out-of-court declaration made after arrest may not be 
used at trial against one of the declarant's partners in 
crime. While such a statement is admissible against the 
others where it is in furtherance of the criminal 
undertaking all such responsibility is at an end when the 
conspiracy ends. 
Id., 83 S.Ct. at 418–19, 371 U.S. at 490 (citations and quotations 
omitted).  Indeed, Wong Sun held that only someone whose own rights 
were violated could seek suppression of the resulting evidence: 
Our holding . . . that this ounce of heroin was 
inadmissible against Toy does not compel a like result 
with respect to Wong Sun. The exclusion of the narcotics 
as to Toy was required solely by their tainted 
relationship to information unlawfully obtained from Toy, 
and not by any official impropriety connected with their 
surrender by Yee. The seizure of this heroin invaded no 
right of privacy of person or premises which would entitle 
Wong Sun to object to its use at his trial.  
Id., 83 S.Ct. at 419, 371 U.S. at 491–92.  Cf. United States v. 
Bozza, 365 F.2d 206, 223 (2nd Cir. 1966) (Friendly, J.) (holding that 
Wong Sun is inconsistent with McDonald:  “Wong Sun . . . uph[eld] 
the admission against Wong of the narcotics seized from Yee as a 
result of the illegal arrest of Toy, [which] despite the parties' 
citation of McDonald, is likewise inconsistent with a rule that if 
evidence is subject to suppression at the instance of one defendant, 
it must be open to challenge by all”). 
B. 
EVEN UNDER MCDONALD, DEFENDANT LACKS STANDING 
Even if McDonald had not been called into question by the 
Supreme Court in Alderman and Wong Sun, to say nothing of the modern 
Supreme Court cases discussed in the next section, it would not aid 
defendant in his suppression motion.  McDonald concerned two 
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defendants tried jointly, at least one of whose Fourth Amendment 
rights had been violated.  The Court explained that if the motion to 
suppress had been granted as to McDonald, the evidence seized from 
his residence would have been returned to him, and therefore not 
have been available to the government to introduce at trial against 
his co-conspirator, Washington:  “the unlawfully seized materials 
were the basis of evidence used against the codefendant 
[Washington]. If the property had been returned to McDonald, it 
would not have been available for use at the trial.”  69 S.Ct. at 
193–94, 335 U.S. at 456. 
But that is nothing like the case here.  First, there is no 
joint trial at all; the Magees have not even been charged, only 
defendant.  Second, the government never intended to use the seized 
evidence from the inventory search of the Magee’s safety deposit 
boxes (i.e., about $900,000 in cash) against defendant.  Indeed, as 
far as the record shows, defendant was not even aware of the safety 
deposit boxes.   
Courts have made clear that McDonald only applies in the 
context of joint trials.  Graham, 391 F.2d 439, 446 (“a joint trial 
involving several defendants [is] the situation to which McDonald 
and its progeny is limited”); Gillespie v. United States, 368 F.2d 
1, 6 (8th Cir. 1966) (the “holding of [McDonald and its progeny] does 
not appear to have gone farther than to a situation of joint 
trial.”)  Indeed, for defendant to have standing to contest the 
inventory search of the Magees’ safety deposit boxes would require 
an extension of McDonald to cover any situation in which a co-
conspirator had standing.  In fact, the Ninth Circuit created such a 
derivative standing rule for co-conspirators for a time, but that 
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line of cases was expressly reversed by the Supreme Court.  In 
United States v. Padilla, a unanimous Supreme Court summarily 
rejected the Ninth Circuit's “coconspirator exception” to requiring 
defendants to show standing personally before hearing a motion to 
suppress: 
The Ninth Circuit appears to stand alone in embracing the 
“coconspirator exception.” We granted certiorari to 
resolve the conflict, and now reverse. It has long been 
the rule that a defendant can urge the suppression of 
evidence obtained in violation of the Fourth Amendment 
only if that defendant demonstrates that his Fourth 
Amendment rights were violated by the challenged search or 
seizure. Alderman v. United States, 394 U.S. 165, 171–172, 
89 S.Ct. 961, 965–966, 22 L.Ed.2d 176 (1969); Rakas v. 
Illinois, 439 U.S. at 131, n. 1, 133–134, 99 S.Ct. at 425–
426, n. 1, 425–426. 
United States v. Padilla, 113 S.Ct. 1936, 1938–39, 508 U.S. 77, 81–
82 (1993) (emphasis in original) (some citations omitted).  The 
Court explained that it had “applied this principle to the case of 
coconspirators in Alderman”: 
The established principle is that suppression of the 
product of a Fourth Amendment violation can be 
successfully urged only by those whose rights were 
violated by the search itself, not by those who are 
aggrieved solely by the introduction of damaging evidence. 
Co-conspirators and codefendants have been accorded no 
special standing. 
Id. (quoting Alderman.)   
V. 
DEFENDANT HAS FAILED TO CARRY HIS BURDEN TO ESTABLISH STANDING 
“The proponent of a motion to suppress has the burden of 
establishing that his own Fourth Amendment rights were violated by 
the challenged search or seizure.”  Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 
131 n. 1, (1978).  See also, Rawlings v. Kentucky, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 
2561, 448 U.S. 98, 104 (1980) (“Petitioner, of course, bears the 
burden of proving not only that the search . . . was illegal, but 
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also that he had a legitimate expectation of privacy in” the 
location or object searched.)  As the Ninth Circuit has explained: 
 
In order to contest the legality of a search or seizure, 
the defendant must establish that he or she had a 
legitimate expectation of privacy in the place searched or 
in the property seized.  The defendant must have exhibited 
an actual, subjective expectation of privacy and, more 
importantly, the expectation must be one that society is 
prepared to accept as reasonable and therefore, 
legitimate.  The defendant has the burden of establishing 
that, under the totality of the circumstances, the search 
or seizure violated his legitimate expectation of privacy 
in a particular place. 
United States v. Kovac, 795 F.2d 1509, 1510 (9th Cir. 1986). 
For over half a century, the Supreme Court has only 
permitted defendants whose own Fourth Amendment rights were 
violated to seek suppression.  Perhaps the published case that 
comes closest to the instant one is Padilla.  In that case, a 
courier driving a Cadillac was stopped by the police and 
consented to a search of the vehicle, revealing over 500lbs of 
cocaine.  The courier agreed to continue transporting the 
cocaine under the supervision of the police, enabling them to 
later arrest three members of the Padilla family who were 
supposed to receive the cocaine, as well as a U.S. Customs 
agent and his wife, who actually owned the Cadillac.  United 
States. v. Padilla, 113 S.Ct. 1936, 1937, 508 U.S. 77, 79 
(1993).  Xavier Padilla (“Padilla”) moved to suppress the 
cocaine discovered during the police stop of the Cadillac even 
though he neither owned nor drove the vehicle.  Under the Ninth 
Circuit’s unique “co-conspirator exception” to the standing 
requirement, he initially prevailed because then a 
“coconspirator's participation in an operation or arrangement 
that indicates joint control and supervision of the place 
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searched establishes standing.”  Id., 113 S.Ct. at 1938, 508 
U.S. at 80.  But the Supreme Court unanimously rejected the 
“co-conspirator exception,” which defendant implicitly asks 
this Court to reinstate, as inconsistent with Supreme Court 
precedent dating back to Alderman:  “It has long been the rule 
that a defendant can urge the suppression of evidence obtained 
in violation of the Fourth Amendment only if that defendant 
demonstrates that his Fourth Amendment rights were violated by 
the challenged search or seizure.”  Id., 113 S.Ct. at 1939, 508 
U.S. at 81 (emphasis in original).   
Indeed, even if defendant had access to the Magees’ safety 
deposit boxes—and he did not—that would still be insufficient 
to permit him to challenge the inventory search of their boxes.  
See, United States v. Sarkisian, 197 F.3d 966, 986–87 (9th Cir. 
1999): 
We hold that Ivanchikov and Mikayelyan lack Fourth 
Amendment standing to challenge the search of the storage 
room. It is true that Ivanchikov and Mikayelyan were 
listed on the rental agreement as people who possessed the 
right to access the storage room, and that the storage 
room was locked. Still, we believe that this connection 
alone is insufficient to establish a reasonable 
expectation of privacy in the room. Underlying our 
analysis is the recognition that the defendants' 
expectation of privacy in a commercial storage area is 
lower than that in a residential area.  
See also Rawlings v. Kentucky, 100 S.Ct. 2556, 2561–62, 448 U.S. 98, 
105–06 (1980) (rejecting petitioner’s suppression motion because he 
failed to demonstrate that “he had a legitimate expectation of 
privacy in [Cox’s] purse”, into which he had placed his drugs, where 
he did not contend that he had “any right to exclude other persons 
from access to Cox's purse”). 
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VI. 
ANY TAINT FROM THE INVENTORY OF THE MAGEES’ SAFETY DEPOSIT 
BOXES IS ATTENUATED 
Assuming for the sake of argument that defendant had carried 
his burden of establishing standing, no suppression of any evidence 
would be appropriate in this case.  In Utah v. Strieff, 579 U.S. 
232, 237–38 (2016) the Court explained the attenuation doctrine:  
“Evidence is admissible when the connection between unconstitutional 
police conduct and the evidence is remote or has been interrupted by 
some intervening circumstance, so that ‘the interest protected by 
the constitutional guarantee that has been violated would not be 
served by suppression of the evidence obtained.’”  Three factors 
guide the attenuation analysis: (1) “the ‘temporal proximity’ 
between the unconstitutional conduct and the discovery of [the] 
evidence”; (2) “the presence of intervening circumstances”; and (3) 
“the purpose and flagrancy of the official misconduct.” Id. at 239.  
Here all three factors militate against any suppression.  First, 
there was an extraordinarily long time between the inventory of the 
Magees’ safety deposit boxes in March of 2021 and the search of 
defendant’s residence in July of 2023.  Second, there were many 
intervening circumstances, including a fraud investigation that 
lasted more than two years and involved search warrants on the 
safety deposit boxes and residences of the Magees, as well as record 
checks and a grand jury investigation that revealed that the Magees 
were engaged in unemployment fraud and that defendant separately 
engaged in a Paycheck Protection Program fraud.  And third, the 
government misconduct was not flagrant:  agents obtained search and 
seizure warrants for the equipment at USPV, disclosing that they 
would follow their written inventory policies for the safety deposit 
boxes that they would necessarily take into their possession.  The 
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Ninth Circuit held that their error was in having supplemental 
instructions designed to address the many boxes and other usual 
circumstances of the vault, which meant that it was no longer a 
standardized procedure that came within the inventory search 
exception to the search warrant requirement. 
VII. THE AFFIDAVIT FOR THE SEARCH WARRANT DEMONSTRATED PROBABLE 
CAUSE EVEN EXCLUDING THE PURPORTEDLY TAINTED EVIDENCE 
Assuming also for the sake of argument that defendant had 
standing to challenge the inventory search of the safety deposit 
boxes of the Magee brothers, and the Court found that its 
impropriety was not attenuated, it would not help him: 
The mere inclusion of tainted evidence in an affidavit 
does not, by itself, taint the warrant or the evidence 
seized pursuant to the warrant. A reviewing court should 
excise the tainted evidence and determine whether the 
remaining, untainted evidence would provide a neutral 
magistrate with probable cause to issue a warrant. 
United States v. Vasey, 834 F.2d 782, 788 (9th Cir. 1987) (citations 
omitted). 
 
Here, excising the purportedly tainted evidence from the search 
warrant affidavit nonetheless leaves ample evidence to support the 
issuance of a search warrant.  Indeed, the only evidence that should 
be excised in this scenario is the background assertion that a stash 
of cash was found in the safety deposit boxes of the Magees.  (Exh 
A, search warrant ¶ 6.)2  But even if the Court excised not only the 
evidence relating to the challenged inventory search, but all 
evidence relating to the Magees and the searches of their 
 
2 Defendant’s Exhibit A is actually not the search warrant 
affidavit, although it is largely identical to it.  Rather 
defendant’s Exhibit A is the affidavit in support of a tracker 
warrant for defendant’s phone.  The actual search warrant affidavit 
for defendant’s residence is attached to this pleading. 
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residences, there would still be much more than probable cause to 
issue the search warrant for defendant’s residence.  Just 
information derived from victims and records accessible to law 
enforcement show that defendant was engaged in a Paycheck Protection 
Program conspiracy with his family members.  For example, the search 
warrant affidavit reveals that defendant sought a PPP loan in his 
true name for a fictitious business when he was actually in prison 
using as his address the residence for which the search warrant was 
obtained.  (Exh. A, search warrant affidavit ¶¶ 11-12.)  Similarly, 
it shows that defendant and his uncle filed PPP applications using 
the exact same reported gross income and requested loan amounts, a 
hallmark of cut-and-paste fraudulent applications.  (Id. at ¶¶ 16, 
17.)  Other indications of defendant’s PPP fraud include that his 
fictitious income from his fictitious business was not reported to 
his probation officer, who he also lied to about where he lived, 
presumably so that she would not take advantage of defendant’s 
search condition at the address for which the search warrant was 
obtained and where defendant really lived.  (Id. ¶ 18.)  Moreover, 
defendant emailed his conspirators from prison about having arranged 
to have their PPP loans forgiven.  (Id. ¶¶ 9-10.)   
A. 
SUPPRESSION IS ALSO NOT AVAILABLE BECAUSE OF DEFENDANT’S 
SEARCH CONDITION 
 
Assuming for the sake of argument that (1) defendant had 
standing to challenge the inventory search and (2) that the excised 
affidavit lacked probable cause to justify the issuance of the 
search warrant, suppression would still not be available:  defendant 
was on supervised release at the time of the search of his residence 
and subject to a search based on “reasonable suspicion concerning a 
violation of a condition of supervision or unlawful conduct by the 
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offender.”  (2:11-CR-535-DSF, dkt. 119, Pacer page 2.)  For the 
reasons described above, there was far more than reasonable 
suspicion to believe that defendant had violated a condition of 
supervision just based on his false statements to his probation 
officer. 
CONCLUSION 
The Court should deny defendant’s suppression motion because he 
has failed to carry his “burden of establishing that his own Fourth 
Amendment rights were violated by the challenged search or seizure.”    
Rakas v. Illinois, 439 U.S. 128, 131 n. 1, (1978). 
 
Case 2:23-cr-00210-DSF   Document 34   Filed 04/11/24   Page 21 of 21   Page ID #:196

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