United States of America v. Sharmarke Omar Mohamed

United States Court of Appeals
For the Eighth Circuit
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No. 25-1250
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United States of America
Plaintiff - Appellee
v.
Sharmarke Omar Mohamed
Defendant - Appellant
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Appeal from United States District Court
for the Southern District of Iowa - Central
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Submitted: March 16, 2026
Filed: June 10, 2026
[Unpublished]
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Before SHEPHERD, ERICKSON, and GRASZ, Circuit Judges.
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PER CURIAM.
Following a bench trial, Sharmarke Omar Mohamed was convicted of
possession with intent to distribute a controlled substance, in violation of 21 U.S.C.
§ 841(a)(1), (b)(1)(A). He appeals from the district court’s1 judgment raising two
1 The Honorable Rebecca Goodgame Ebinger, United States District Judge for
the Southern District of Iowa.

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issues: (1) the denial of his motion to suppress evidence on the ground that the
magistrate judge was without jurisdiction to issue a warrant for Mohamed’s phone-
location data; and (2) the denial of his motion to dismiss the indictment on Speedy
Trial Act grounds, 18 U.S.C. §§ 3161-3174. We affirm.
During an investigation by the Des Moines Police Department into a
conspiracy involved in the distribution of counterfeit Oxycodone pills, a confidential
source informed the police that the conspiracy had obtained a new source for pills.
The source was identified as Mohamed, and over a six-week period, Mohamed sold
over a thousand pills to the confidential source. During the controlled buys, the
police discovered that Mohamed was driving a Volkswagen Jetta.
On January 3, Mohamed informed the confidential source that he was going
out of state to obtain more pills. Officers followed Mohamed’s Jetta until it appeared
he was leaving Iowa and heading into Minnesota. Because Mohamed had previously
been on probation, law enforcement had a cell phone number for him. Armed with
this information, the police obtained a warrant on January 5, 2024, to gather location
data for the phone pursuant to Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41 and Section
2703 of the Stored Communications Act. On January 11, the investigators obtained
a GPS warrant for the Jetta, and a tracker was affixed to the vehicle on the next day.
While tracking Mohamed’s car and phone on January 18, 2024, investigators
observed that the Jetta had stopped at the Minneapolis-Saint Paul International
Airport and that the phone and car had separated. While the car stayed in Minnesota,
the phone was transported back to a Des Moines residence where the officers
observed a black BMW rental car with Minnesota plates. Later that evening, the
phone left Des Moines and was electronically tracked through Iowa, Kansas,
Oklahoma, Texas, and New Mexico, apparently en route to Arizona. The
investigators obtained a warrant to search the BMW based on their belief that
Mohamed had traveled to Arizona to pick up more counterfeit pills containing
fentanyl.

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After being in Phoenix for less than 24 hours, Mohamed’s phone began to
track back to Iowa. When the BMW crossed into Iowa, the investigators observed
that it was being driven by Mohamed. Law enforcement stopped the vehicle and
searched it pursuant to the warrant. During the search, investigators found a duffel
bag containing approximately 30,000 fentanyl pills. Mohamed was provided with
his Miranda warnings and subsequently admitted to traveling to Arizona to purchase
approximately 25,000 fentanyl pills.
Mohamed was indicted in February but the path to trial was complicated.
After Mohamed’s attorney moved to continue, the court set the case for a jury trial
on July 8, 2024. A superseding indictment was filed on April 16, 2024, which added
a co-defendant and restarted the Speedy Trial Act clock. Mohamed’s relationship
with his CJA appointed counsel was tortuous and eventually Mohamed was given
leave to proceed pro se. During the course of the pretrial proceedings following the
superseding indictment, Mohamed’s counsel made two additional motions to
continue that were granted after the magistrate judge found that it served the ends of
justice. Mohamed himself made an additional successful continuance motion that
the court found was supported by ends of justice.
The bench trial commenced as scheduled on September 30, 2024, and
Mohamed was convicted for being in possession of approximately 30,000 fentanyl
pills with intent to distribute. He was subsequently sentenced to a 204-month term
of imprisonment.
We review the denial of a motion to suppress applying a clear error standard
to factual findings and a de novo standard to the court’s legal conclusions. United
States v. Dickerman, 954 F.3d 1060, 1065 (8th Cir. 2020). We review Speedy Trial
Act rulings reviewing the factual findings for clear error and the court’s ultimate
conclusion for an abuse of discretion. United States v. Porchay, 651 F.3d 930, 935
(8th Cir. 2011). A judge’s finding that the ends of justice favor a continuance is a
factual finding that is reviewed for clear error. United States v. Grady, 88 F.4th
1246, 1255 (8th Cir. 2023).

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Mohamed first argues that the magistrate judge lacked authority to issue a
warrant for his phone-location data because he was outside the district when the
warrant issued, and Federal Rule of Criminal Procedure 41(b)(2) limits the
magistrate’s jurisdiction to issue a warrant for “a person or property outside the
district” unless “the person or property is located within the district when the warrant
is issued.”
But the geographical limitations of Rule 41(b) do not apply to warrants issued
under the Stored Communications Act, 18 U.S.C. §§ 2701-2713. The Act provides
its own jurisdictional and geographic requirements. The warrant must be issued by
a court of competent jurisdiction, which includes a magistrate judge of “any district
court of the United States” that “has jurisdiction over the offense being
investigated.” 18 U.S.C. § 2711(3)(A)(i). Mohamed does not challenge that the
Southern District of Iowa was the jurisdiction with authority over his offense, nor
could he. Mohamed sold fentanyl pills in the district, and the police investigation
concluded with “a planned traffic stop on January 21st, 2024, in the Southern District
of Iowa.”
Section 2703(a) of the Stored Communications Act also states that a
government entity may obtain this electronic information “only pursuant to a warrant
issued using the procedures” provided “in the Federal Rules of Criminal Procedure,”
but Rule 41(b) is not considered a procedural rule under the circumstances. Our
sister circuits have considered the relationship between Rule 41(b) and the Stored
Communications Act and have concluded that Rule 41(b) is a substantive provision.
United States v. Berkos, 543 F.3d 392, 397-98 (7th Cir. 2008); see also United States
v. Loera, 24 F.4th 144, 158 (2d Cir. 2022) (collecting cases). We agree. Rule 41(b)
is not incorporated into § 2703(a) as a procedural rule because it “does not address
the specific method or particular way of issuing a warrant.” United States v. Ackies,
918 F.3d 190, 202 (1st Cir. 2019). Section 2703(a) authorized the magistrate judge
to issue the warrant for Mohamed’s phone-location data, not Rule 41(b).

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Even if this were not the case, the good-faith exception applies where a
defendant alleges a violation of Rule 41(b). See United States v. Horton, 863 F.3d
1041, 1052 (8th Cir. 2017); United States v. Thorne, 169 F.4th 1117, 1124-25 (D.C.
Cir. 2026) (collecting cases). In United States v. Leon, 468 U.S. 897, 921 (1984),
the Supreme Court recognized the folly of “[p]enalizing the officer for the
magistrate’s error, rather than his own” noting that there was no logical deterrence
in penalizing police for errors committed by magistrate judges. Here, the officers
reasonably relied on a facially sufficient warrant and the claim that the officers acted
deliberately and recklessly is untenable when at least four circuit courts have ruled
that warrants issued under the Stored Communications Act are exempt from Rule
41(b)’s limitations.
Mohamed raises for the first time on appeal that the location-data warrant
lacks probable cause. Because he did not raise this issue before the district court and
offers no explanation why he failed to do so, we decline to address this argument.
See United States v. Lebeau, 867 F.3d 960, 973 (8th Cir. 2017) (The defendant “did
not raise this issue below, and has not offered any reason for his failure to do so. As
a result, this issue is not properly before us.”). The district court did not err in
denying Mohamed’s motion to suppress.
Mohamed also argues that the district court erred when it failed to dismiss the
charges on the grounds that his Speedy Trial Act rights were violated. Each of the
periods excluded from the Speedy Trial Act calculation were based on either
Mohamed’s or his former counsel’s motions for continuance. In each case, the
district court found that the time was excluded on the basis that it served the ends of
justice. We have reviewed the circumstances surrounding each motion and find no
error, clear or otherwise, in the finding that the continuances served the ends of
justice. When those days are excluded, the case proceeded to the bench trial within
the seventy-day time allowed by the Speedy Trial Act.
Mohamed also claims that his Speedy Trial Act rights were violated because
the delay did not benefit him. Whether a defendant gains an advantage from his

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attorney’s requested continuances is not a consideration in calculating whether a
Speedy Trial Act violation has occurred. Fewer than seventy non-excludable days
passed between Mohamed’s indictment and trial. The district court did not abuse its
discretion in reaching its ultimate Speedy Trial Act ruling and denying Mohamed’s
motion to dismiss.
For these reasons, we affirm the district court’s judgment.
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