Nghia Tran Statement in US Vs Edward Sullivan

Case4:09-cr-00167-DLJ Document42 Filed10/18/10 Page1 of 5
1 MELINDA HAAG (CABN 132612)

United States Attorney
2
J. DOUGLAS WILSON (DCBN 412811)
3 Acting Criminal Chief
4 ANDREW S. HUANG (CABN 193730)
Assistant United States Attorney
5 1301 Clay Street, Suite 340S
Oakland, CA 94612
6 Telephone: (510) 637-3680
Fax: (510) 637-3724
7 E-Mail: [email protected]
8 ALECIA RIEWERTS WOLAK (NYBN 4012241)
Trial Attorney
9 Criminal Division, Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section
U.S. Department of Justice
10
1400 New York Avenue, NW, Suite 600
11 Washington, DC 20530
Telephone: (202) 353-3749
12 Fax: (202) 514-1793
E-Mail: [email protected]
13
Attorneys for the United States of America
14
15 UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
16 NORTHERN DISTRICT OF CALIFORNIA
17 OAKLAND DIVISION
18 UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, ) No.CR 09-00167 DLJ
)
19 Plaintiff, ) DECLARATION OF PAROLE AGENT
) NGHIA TRAN IN SUPPORT OF THE
20 v. ) UNITED STATES’S OPPOSITION TO
) THE DEFENDANT’S MOTION TO
21 EDWARD LEE SULLIVAN, ) SUPPRESS
a/k/a “Three Stacks, )
22 ) Date: October 29, 2010
Defendant. ) Time: 9:00 a.m.
23 )
24
25 I, NGHIA TRAN, hereby declare as follows:
26 1. I am a Parole Agent with the California Department of Corrections and
27 Rehabilitation (“CDCR”), Division of Adult Parole Operations. I have been employed in
28 this capacity since December 2006.
NO. CR 09-00167
DECL. PAROLE AGENT TRAN 1
1 2. From on or about January 10, 2008 to on or about May 6, 2008, I was the
2 agent of record (“AOR”) for the defendant in the above-captioned case, Edward Lee
3 Sullivan. As the AOR, my responsibilities included supervising the defendant, obtaining
4 information about the defendant from other parole agents and other law enforcement
5 personnel, and maintaining the defendant’s parole file. To the best of my knowledge, this
6 Declaration is based upon these sources of information, my training and experience, and
7 my personal observations.
8 3. The defendant is a child sex offender who was paroled from custody on or
9 about November 4, 2007. He was convicted in California state court of unlawful sex with
10 a minor, prostitution of a minor under 16 years of age, and pandering of a minor under 16
11 years of age.
12 4. Due to the defendant’s crimes of conviction, the CDCR designated him a
13 “High Control Parolee” and he was subject to Jessica’s Law, which, among other things,
14 placed restrictions on where the defendant could live.
15 5. The defendant was subject to specific conditions of parole. These
16 conditions are set forth in a standard form Notice and Conditions of Parole and an
17 addendum “Special Conditions of Parole.” The defendant was required to review the
18 standard form Notice and Conditions of Parole prior to being released from custody and
19 he was required to review and acknowledge both documents upon first reporting to the
20 CDCR parole office after his release from custody. True and correct copies of these
21 documents, which bear the defendant’s initials and signature, are attached to this
22 Declaration as Attachments 1 and 2, respectively.
23 6. The defendant’s parole file indicates that before I became the defendant’s
24 AOR his compliance with his conditions of parole was unsatisfactory. Specifically, in
25 December 2007, the defendant’s parole status was revoked and the defendant was
26 incarcerated. At the time, the defendant was a transient and therefore, under Jessica’s
27 Law, was required to call his AOR once a day. His parole status was revoked because he
28 failed to comply with this requirement. He was released from custody on or about
N O . CR 09-00167
D ECL . P ARO LE A GEN T T RAN 2
1 January 9, 2008 and reported to me as his AOR on or about January 10, 2010.
2 7. On March 24, 2008, the mother of a 14-year old girl contacted Parole Agent
3 III Sandra Wooden, my unit supervisor, and accused the defendant of, among other
4 things, the kidnapping, rape, and pimping of her daughter. The mother also indicated that
5 Berkeley Police Department (“BPD”) had a report concerning those allegations. That
6 same day, CDCR parole agents went to the Bay Breeze Inn in Oakland, California, which
7 was the defendant’s last known Residence of Record (“ROR”), to arrest him based on this
8 information, but learned from the hotel manager that the defendant had moved out of the
9 Bay Breeze Inn on March 17, 2008. The Board of Parole Hearings issued a
10 Miscellaneous Decision, which functions as a parole arrest warrant, on March 25, 2008
11 for the arrest of the defendant. See Attachment 3 (Miscellaneous Decision).
12 8. The defendant never reported to me that he had contact with the Oakland
13 Police Department on March 17, 2008. He also never reported to me that he moved out
14 of his ROR, the Bay Breeze Inn, on March 17, 2008. Under his conditions of parole, he
15 was required to promptly convey both items of information to me. The defendant
16 reported to me on March 21, 2008, but never mentioned his move or his contact with law
17 enforcement.
18 9. Based on information from my CDR colleagues, I called the defendant on
19 March 25, 2008, and made arrangements to meet the defendant at the parking lot of the
20 Bay Breeze Inn. That day, CDCR parole agents arrested the defendant in the parking lot
21 of the Bay Breeze Inn.
22 10. Incident to the defendant’s parole arrest, on March 25, 2008, CDCR parole
23 agents, including me, conducted a parole search of the defendant’s vehicle and recovered
24 several items, including a laptop computer, a digital camera, a book about pimping, and a
25 cellular telephone. Given the allegations that were made against the defendant and his
26 prior criminal history, I seized these items because they were and/or could contain
27 evidence in any parole revocation proceedings involving the defendant.
28
N O . CR 09-00167
1 11. To the best of my knowledge, prior to the defendant’s parole arrest and
2 seizure of evidence, CDCR had no contact with any other law enforcement agencies
3 regarding the allegations made by the mother of the 14-year old girl.
4 12. To prepare the Charge Sheet/Revocation Tracking/Scheduling Request and
5 Report to Board of Prison Terms (“Violation Report”), I contacted BPD after the
6 defendant’s parole arrest and seizure of evidence and obtained the BPD report as part of
7 my parole investigation. The Violation Report set forth eight (8) charges for the Board of
8 Prison Terms to consider in revoking the defendant’s parole status. A copy of the
9 Violation Report is attached to this Declaration as Attachment 4.
10 13. At the time I submitted the Violation Report, I did not know that the items
11 seized from the defendant contained child pornography. The basis of Charge 8,
12 possession of sexually oriented material, concerned pornographic pictures on the
13 defendant’s cellular telephone that did not appear to depict children.
14 14. While parole charges and criminal charges may involve common facts,
15 parole proceedings are conducted independent of any criminal proceedings involving a
16 parolee. In my experience, CDCR frequently pursues parole revocation even in instances
17 where criminal charges were not filed or filed, but subsequently dropped.
18 15. I understand that evidence, including digital evidence, obtained from the
19 parole search and seizure of the defendant was transferred to BPD. CDCR does not have
20 internal capacity to forensically analyze digital evidence. Consequently, CDCR
21 frequently relies upon outside law enforcement agencies to analyze evidence recovered by
22 parole agents. Although custody of evidence may be transferred to outside agencies,
23 CDCR still considers the evidence as potentially pertinent to parole proceedings and,
24 therefore, maintains an interest in the results of the analyses performed by outside
25 agencies.
26 16. The practice described in paragraph 15 is not unique to digital evidence.
27 For example, CDCR does not have internal capacity to analyze controlled substances.
28 Therefore, as a matter of practice, CDCR relies upon outside law enforcement agencies to
N O . CR 09-00167
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
Case4:09-cr-00167-DLJ Document42-1 Filed10/18/10 Page1 of 2
ATTACHMENT 1
ELS-66
ATTACHMENT 2
ELS-67
ELS-68
ELS-69
ELS-70
ELS-71
ATTACHMENT 3
ELS-64
ATTACHMENT 4
ELS-224
ELS-225
ELS-226
ELS-227

Nghia Tran Statement in US Vs Edward Sullivan

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Nghia Tran Statement in US Vs Edward Sullivan

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

Nghia Tran Statement in US Vs Edward Sullivan

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

Case4:09-cr-00167-DLJ Document42 Filed10/18/10 Page1 of 5

1 MELINDA HAAG (CABN 132612)

You might also like