United States Court of Appeals For the First Circuit No. 18-1085 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, Appellee, v. JUAN ELIAS GONZALEZ-ARIAS, Defendant, Appellant. APPEAL FROM THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF MASSACHUSETTS [Hon. Leo T. Sorokin, U.S. District Judge] Before Torruella, Thompson, and Kayatta, Circuit Judges. Robert C. Andrews for appellant. Cynthia A. Young, Assistant United States Attorney, with whom Andrew E. Lelling, United States Attorney, was on brief, for appellee. December 20, 2019 THOMPSON, Circuit Judge. Until the Drug Enforcement Administration (the DEA) blew the lid off it, Juan Elias Gonzalez- Arias ran a thriving drug business out of his apartment — 264 East Haverhill Street, Unit 18, Lawrence, Massachusetts. From those modest digs, he ordered kilograms of heroin from foreign sources, processed it, and dealt it to buyers around Massachusetts. But in July 2015, federal agents swarmed the apartment, search warrant in hand, and arrested him. Inside, they found a stolen gun, $30,088 in cash, and over a kilo of heroin, along with other narcotics and tools of the trade (including drug ledgers, scales, and a hydraulic kilo press). Gonzalez-Arias was indicted and pled guilty to drug trafficking charges, including conspiracy to distribute one kilogram or more of heroin, which carried a ten-year mandatory minimum.1 The district judge sentenced him to 136 months in prison. On appeal, Gonzalez-Arias offers several arguments — that the judge should have suppressed the evidence from his apartment, let him withdraw his guilty plea, appointed him a new lawyer for sentencing, and set a lower guideline sentencing range. We'll tackle each claim in turn — and all told, spotting no reversible error, we affirm. 1 See 21 U.S.C. §§ 841(b)(1)(A), 846. Gonzalez-Arias was also charged with two counts of distributing heroin (for each of two undercover buys), and one count of possessing heroin with intent to distribute it. 21 U.S.C. § 841(a)(1). - 2 - MOTION TO SUPPRESS Background In June 2016, when he (finally) settled on a lawyer (private attorney Scott Gleason),2 Gonzalez-Arias's first order of business was to move to suppress the cache of evidence seized from his apartment. In greenlighting the search, the U.S. magistrate judge relied on an affidavit signed by DEA Special Agent Garth Hamelin. In it, Hamelin recounted a year-long investigation (involving wiretaps, video surveillance, and undercover drug buys) and he explained why his team had reason to believe they'd find evidence of a crime in Gonzalez-Arias's flat. In pressing a suppression motion, Gonzalez-Arias claimed that the facts in the affidavit didn't show probable cause for the search, so (as he told it), the magistrate judge shouldn't have issued the warrant, which triggered an unconstitutional search of his apartment. The judge disagreed and denied the motion to suppress. Gonzalez-Arias appeals that ruling to us, making the same Fourth Amendment claim. 2 By that time, Gonzalez-Arias had already gone through several lawyers. First, then-public defender William Fick represented Gonzalez-Arias at his first appearance. Next, Gonzalez-Arias retained Steven DiLibero, who replaced Fick. Then, in November 2015, John ...
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