United States v. Almonte-Baez

SELYA, Circuit Judge.

Success sometimes depends on taking full advantage of fortuitous occurrences. In this case, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), while engaged in an investigation of a suspected drug-trafficking operation, stumbled across a second (more substantial) drug-trafficking operation. Much of the evidence concerning this second operation was unearthed following a warrantless entry by DEA agents into an apartment that, as matters turned out, served as a stash house for the second drug-trafficking operation. In the ensuing prosecution of a participant in the second…