USA v. Alexander

IN THE UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF ALASKA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff,
v.
JEROD ROBERT ALEXANDER,
Defendant. Case No. 3:21-cr-00048-SLG-MMS
SUPPLMENTAL ORDER RE MOTION TO INVALIDATE SEARCH WARRANT
BASED ON MISLEADING INFORMATION REGARDING THE CONFIDENTIAL
INFORMANT
Before the Court at Docket 83 is Defendant’s Motion to Invalidate Search Warrant
Based on Misleading Information Regarding the Confidential Informant. The Government
responded with a motion to strike the filing as untimely at Docket 85. In a text order issued
on May 25, 2023, the Court denied the motion to strike and denied the motion to invalidate
on the merits. This supplemental order is intended to explain the rationale for the Court’s
ruling.
The motion to suppress is substantially similar to the motion brought by Mr.
Alexander’s previous counsel, which this Court denied in an order at Docket 59. 	In both,
Mr. Alexander challenges the credibility of the CI. In the more recent motion, he asserts that
the fact that the CI was charged with proving false information that implicated another in an
offense “should eliminate one from ever being a CI because it makes every report highly
suspect.”1 This assertion is without merit. The search warrant application stated that the CI
1 Docket 83 at 1.
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Case No. 3:21-cr-00048-SLG-MMS, USA v. Alexander
Supplemental Order re Motion to Invalidate Search Warrant Based on Misleading Information
Regarding the Confidential Informant
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had a conviction for providing false identifying information, among several other convictions.
And a criminal history involving dishonesty is only fatal to an informant’s credibility when
there is no other “countervailing evidence to bolster the informant’s credibility or the reliability
of the tip.”2
Here, there was considerable evidence to bolster the credibility of the informant. Law
enforcement participated in the controlled buy in March 2021, not by going inside the
residence, but first by directing the CI to contact Mr. Alexander to buy drugs, and when the
CI did successfully arranges to buy drugs from Mr. Alexander, the undercover agent then
travelled with the CI to the residence that Mr. Alexander had told the CI to meet him at.3
That the undercover agent did not go inside the residence does not negate the evidence
that the undercover agent had acquired that bolstered the CI’s credibility: The CI was able
to reach Mr. Alexander, the CI and law enfrocment went to the residence Mr. Alexander had
identified, and the CI was able to purchase drugs at that residence. 	That the undercover
agent did not actually see Mr. Alexander selling the drugs to the CI inside the residence
does not negate probable cause. Nor does the search warrant application assert or in any
way imply that the undercover agent went inside the residence.4 To the contrary, it states
2 United States v. Reeves, 210 F. 3d 1041, 1045 (9th Cir. 2000) (distinguishing United States v. Hall,
113. F. 3d 157 (9 th Cir. 1997) because of the presence in Reeves of “countervailing evidence which
diminshe[d] the adverse effect of the [informant’s] prior criminal history”).
3 Docket 36-1 at 11, ¶¶ 11, 12.
4 Mr. Alexander points to paragraph 12 of the warrant application, in which the agent states that when
the CI and the undercover agent arrived at the Potter Drive apartment, the CI “called ALEXANDER
to let him know they were waiting at the door.” Docket 36-1 at 11. The Government explains how
the use of “they” protects the gender identity of the CI. Read in context, it is clear from the application
that only the CI went to the door and called Mr. Alexander to tell him the CI had arrived. Clearly, a CI
wouldn’t inform a narcotics dealer that the CI had an undercover agent with her at the door to the
dealer’s apartment.
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Case No. 3:21-cr-00048-SLG-MMS, USA v. Alexander
Supplemental Order re Motion to Invalidate Search Warrant Based on Misleading Information
Regarding the Confidential Informant
Page 3 of 3
that the CI entered the apartment that Mr. Alexander had directed her to go to, then the CI
left the apartment and turned over the substance the CI had purchased in the apartment to
law enforcement, and that the CI then briefed law enforcement on how the transaction inside
the apartment had taken place.5
In sum, the special agent did not provide misleading or false information
regarding the CI in the second search warrant application, and based on that
application, the magistrate judge had probable cause to grant the second search
warrant application for the 88 th Avenue apartment.
DATED this 9th day of June, 2023 at Anchorage, Alaska.
/s/ Sharon L. Gleason
UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE
5 Docket 36-1 at 12, ¶¶ 13, 14.
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