[Resolved] United States of Argonath vs. Cofiliano_Gvardia

[Salmonella]

From: Vice City Police Department Headquarters
VCPD Headquarters, 231 Washington Beach Road, Vice City, Florida
To: Honourable Criminal Court Judge
143 Downtown State Street, The Court House, Vice City, Florida
Topic: United of Argonath V. Cofiliano Gvardia 

UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT

FOR THE VICE CITY COURT OF FLORIDA

United States of Argonath V. Cofiliano Gvardia

I. Opening Statement

The defendant was found to be tenant in a warehouse used for storing illegal goods, it was found that his locker also contained some illegal weaponry.

II. Case Breakdown

Criminal acts committed by Cofiliano Gvardia
We, the FBI, declare the criminal violations committed by the defendant to be listed herein:

Defendant was found to be in possession of the following illegal goods;
An M60 machine gun, accompanied by 216 7.62x51mm NATO ammunition.

III. Evidence

Exhibit one
Note: the evidence leading to the raid is still classified. It will not be shown to public unless the Judge decides it is needed, as it could compromise FBI operations.

Warehouse used by the tenant.

Owner: [VU]Monty_Singh
Name: Truckers Union Depot
ID: 272

Exhibit two

Warehouse tenant's storage



Exhibit three
SWAT&FBI Raid on the warehouse operation intel - confidential - shown for Judge only.

http://arpd.argonathrpg.com/forum/index.php?topic=37319.msg334805#new

Specifics of warrant issued by FBI

Federal warrant #1 - [VU]Monty_Singh
Filed on 25/07/2016
Approved by Judge Stormeus on 29/07/2016
Executed on 29/07/2016

Full raid outcome:


IV. Charges & Demands

Charges

One count - Illegal weaponry possession.

Demands

Defendant to serve 5 years (15 minutes) in federal prison.
Defendant to pay a fine of 20,000$ for large-scale possession of illegal weaponry, instead of reporting it to proper authorities.
The money is to be forcefully deducted from the defendant's bank account as he is banished from the state of Vice City and therefore has no access to his finances, should he have wished to fulfill the demands.

V. Settlement Offer

If the defendant pleads guilty to all charges in court then the VCPD & FBI is willing to lower its demand to $10,000 financial penalty and 1.5 years (5 minutes) in federal prison.

Signed,

F.B.I Director Hynek Lydell Pershing

VCPD Captain / SWAT Commander Joseph Becker

VCPD Sergeant / SWAT Operative Salvatore Monella

VCPD Senior Officer / SWAT Operative Podorozhny Crezlikov

F.B.I Special Agent William Curtis

[Salmonella]

Defendant has been notified.

Mr. Gvardia,

Please reference the enclosure here to a court case involving you and the United States of Argonath. This is your formal notice of Default and pending lawsuit with the the United States of Argonath in the state of Vice City.

Enclosure: http://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=117631

Signed,

F.B.I Director Hynek Lydell Pershing

VCPD Captain / SWAT Commander Joseph Becker

VCPD Sergeant / SWAT Operative Salvatore Monella

VCPD Senior Officer / SWAT Operative Podorozhny Crezlikov

F.B.I Special Agent William Curtis

[stormeus]

Regarding the following cases:

• State v. Cofiliano_Gvardia
• State v. Stiff Singh
• State v. Shady Singh (a.k.a. Stanley Mitchell)
• State v. Solis
• State v. HatDag

Section IV, Ordinance I of the interim constitution states:

In all prosecutions, a citizen has the right to a fair, speedy, and public trial in the state of the criminal/civil act they are being prosecuted for

In order for citizens to retain the right to a fair trial, it is imperative that they and their legal counsel are able to review all evidence of any crimes against them. In this case and all the cases named above, the Court's review of the evidence submitted is insufficient to justify the charges listed against them.

Although the Court recognizes the evidence that has been submitted to it for consideration, these cases will not be able to proceed until the defendants are given access to any relevant against them.

— Stormeus
Chief Justice

[Marcell]

Give me five minutes your honor, I'll bring the evidence over. ((editing all posts))

VCPD Captain
Joseph Burke

[Marcell]

I don't see how the evidence gathered for raid permission is needed for those individuals, illegal weapons were found in their storage, plain and simple. Due to the fact the warehouse was discovered to be used for criminal activities, ALL contents were raided, now owners of illegal weaponry/substances are expected to take responsibility for their crimes. Anyway:
Evidence:

Spoiler for Hiden:

Exhibit I

Usage of the Warehouse in order to host M14 rifles for smuggling voyages. Photos taken on July 13, 2016:

Photographic album

Exhibit II

Presence of M60 LMGs ( deemed illegal ) and possibly Molotov Cocktails and C4 packs inside the Warehouse. Taped on July 14, 2016:

https://www.youtube.com/embed/c1uI4XAiy2s
Exhibit III

Claims of presence of Soviet RPG-7s inside the Warehouse.

Photographic album

VCPD Captain
Joseph Burke

[stormeus]

I don't see how the evidence gathered for raid permission is needed for those individuals, illegal weapons were found in their storage, plain and simple. Due to the fact the warehouse was discovered to be used for criminal activities, ALL contents were raided, now owners of illegal weaponry/substances are expected to take responsibility for their crimes.

To use this case as an example, the evidence submitted simply demonstrated the following:

• A property owned by Monty Singh contained illegal substances and weaponry.
• As a result of the raid, large amounts of illegal substances and weaponry were seized.

However, the public evidence, as it stood before, did not demonstrate that Mr. Gvardia was associated with the use of Mr. Singh's warehouse, nor that he was storing the illegal materials there. To make a judgment with that being the only publicly available evidence would be a violation of citizens' constitutional rights.

Likewise, in Monty Singh's case, the evidence did not yet show probable cause that he had actually allowed other people to use the property. While the possession charges would've been open to prosecution, the evidence available to the defendant did not show any connection to any partners, which would've forced the Court to make a summary judgment against the State.

The Court recognizes that redactions may be necessary in matters of public safety and national security. However, the evidence that is available to the defendant must show some direct relationship between the defendants being brought against them.

— Stormeus
Chief Justice

[Marcell]

To use this case as an example, the evidence submitted simply demonstrated the following:

• A property owned by Monty Singh contained illegal substances and weaponry.
• As a result of the raid, large amounts of illegal substances and weaponry were seized.

However, the public evidence, as it stood before, did not demonstrate that Mr. Gvardia was associated with the use of Mr. Singh's warehouse, nor that he was storing the illegal materials there. To make a judgment with that being the only publicly available evidence would be a violation of citizens' constitutional rights.

Likewise, in Monty Singh's case, the evidence did not yet show probable cause that he had actually allowed other people to use the property. While the possession charges would've been open to prosecution, the evidence available to the defendant did not show any connection to any partners, which would've forced the Court to make a summary judgment against the State.

The Court recognizes that redactions may be necessary in matters of public safety and national security. However, the evidence that is available to the defendant must show some direct relationship between the defendants being brought against them.

— Stormeus
Chief Justice

Like I said we were simply instructed to raid the warehouse and if illegal goods were found all contents were to be confiscated - I'll go out of roleplay and just say the script works by all the tenants being named - roleplay wise we'd probably find some book with names of all the tenants, and to whom each warehouse locker belonged to (just like the script mentions it - and just like it would take place irl, such matters are probably logged) plus finger prints around said storages. I will wait for Klaus/Kessu to confirm this because we just did what we had to do (confiscating all items due to fact that illegal items were found) and the fact that each tenant is named in the script gave us the right to press charges against them. If Klaus/Kessu however decide they want something different, then owner of the warehouse will be responsible for ALL of the found illegal goods unless he'll decide to testify against the warehouse users to get a lighter punishment. One could argue that the script handing out tenants' names is not enough, but if that was the case then anyone could say he's not wanted despite his name showing up on /wanted, and so on.

[Hype]

This is the full list of tenants, if it's not convincing enough ( names shown as they were when they were given warehouse access )

[Klaus]

It all depends on how you envision the warehouse to be. From what I can tell, Stormeus sees the warehouse as one big room holding a lot of different crates with no way of telling what stuff belongs to who. Though to Marcell, because of being able to see each Tenants storage, he sees it as seperate lockers or whatever with labeled ownership and private keys. Marcell's idea does seem to fit more only because a warehouse owner cannot actually access his tenants storage, and that tenants storages are only accessible to them alone. Therefore the warehouse owner must be giving out keys to his tenants, which matches Marcell's description of the warehouse owner logging this information as it appears on the script (/tenants).

This needs to be discussed throughly and as this is the first court case concerning this it's open to debate.

[Kessu]

In my opinion, properties work like stormeus implied in his post, with the fact that there's no real proof they stored it there, that's because the storage is just one huge pile of weapons where each and every dude with keys can take stuff from and add stuff in.

But warehouses were specifically meant to work differently where you rent out a specific spot for a person to store their shit in.

I'd say there's a distinctive difference between storing to a property as a group or storing to a warehouse as an individual, since in warehouses nobody but you have access to your own slot.

[stormeus]

The defendant in this case filed the following argument with the court:

-I'm banned anyway, and I don't really give much rats about VC:MP court case, and I think I wont be showing up for that case, tho I would like to point few things out:

1. The evidance are gather'd in a illegal way, and this alone should be enough to dismiss the case.
Why its illegal?

They had a warrant approved by you(as a judge) to do the search only on the property that belongs to the Axxo

They claim that locker belongs to me yet they do not have proofs on, but even if they can prove that the locker belongs to me, the solo fact that the part time ownership on the locker is my private property, means they busted on someone else private property without an approved warrant by the judge.

The fact my private property is inside someone elses private property, in this case Axxos doesn't mean they have a right to bust in my private property.-This applies in both Common and Civil laws.
(Like if you have a safe deposit box inside a bank, and that bank gets raided for something the bank owner is accused of, the cops would need special warrants in order to bust in your safe deposit boxes, even tho they have 'reasons to beilive')

So its either the entire compound together with the lockers are part of Axxo's ownership, or, the locker is in my ownership(as they claim), and if that's the case, they are lacking an approved warrant by the judge.

In these situations, not even an authorisation by the Judge after they commited the illegal collecting of evidance, makes those evidance legal, and they are dismissed in court.

Hence, any proofs found inside of it, are invalid in courts, and should be dismisssed.

-Also they've failed when it comes to formal rules of law documents such as:yet he's
So he's falsly representing himself as a side in this court case. Him as the Sergeant or SWAT operative, only works on operational tasks, not on court cases in the name of FBI.


-Also:

Did you noticed they took 1100 Deagles from that locker, yet they didn't put it in the accusation part?
That means they think those deagles are not against the law, so they commited THEFT during their search, since they unauthorized to take someone's private property, if they do not consider it evidance.



-Last but not least, we did not see any /me takes a pictures of lockers, or any Roleplay proofs that they actually took pictures of those lockers and their items, so they did a weak form of evidence, and this alone is again, enough for the case to be dropped by you.

I'm guessing the guys just went on spamming the search warrant command, without thinking about the concequences, but this case has so many flaws, and issuses made by them, that they really went over their heads.


Looking forward to your answer.

The Court dismisses point #1 regarding the search warrant and submits this (redacted) copy of the warrant:

Argonath Federal Court
for the
State of Florida, Vice City

In the matter of the Search of
illegal weaponry and equipment
stored at premises controlled by suspected smugglers

SEARCH AND SEIZURE WARRANT

To: ████████████████████████████

I find the evidence provided probable cause to search and seize any property resulting from violations of Section II, Ordinance III of the Constitution of Vice City, as well as any materials being used to facilitate such violations, pursuant to the following restrictions:

YOU ARE COMMANDED to execute this warrant on or before August 10, 2016.

The following persons or properties are to be searched and seized in accordance with this warrant:

• The Old Warehouse in Vice City

This warrant is to remain sealed from admissible court records until August 11, 2016. UNSEALED DUE TO EXECUTION OF WARRANT

— Stormeus
Chief Justice[/font]

The warrant shows that a search was to be conducted of the entire premises, and not just of one individual's belongings.

The Court dismisses point #2 regarding the validity of the case due to the identity of the person submitting it. Despite having been filed by a SWAT operative, the FBI has authorized the case to proceed with the operative serving as legal counsel.

With point #3 regarding the omission of 1100 desert eagle bullets from the filing, the Court asks the prosecution to explain the inconsistency.

With point #4 regarding roleplay procedure, the Court asks the prosecution to submit an argument regarding the admission of evidence for further ruling.

In my opinion, properties work like stormeus implied in his post, with the fact that there's no real proof they stored it there, that's because the storage is just one huge pile of weapons where each and every dude with keys can take stuff from and add stuff in.

But warehouses were specifically meant to work differently where you rent out a specific spot for a person to store their shit in.

I'd say there's a distinctive difference between storing to a property as a group or storing to a warehouse as an individual, since in warehouses nobody but you have access to your own slot.

The question is whether the evidence submitted properly demonstrates that the seizure of evidence from that warehouse slot is tied to the tenant. I simply see a police record showing that some amount of ammunition was seized from some arbitrary slot in that warehouse. The evidence does not show the slot that it was seized from, nor does it show that the accused occupied that slot.

It's the responsibility of the State to show that the evidence was seized specifically from slot #4 of the warehouse, which Mr. Gvardia occupied at the time.

[stormeus]

The defendant has filed the following with the Court:

I got a interesting PM:

Hi Cofi,

There is a breakthrough finding in the case. Apparently Sal has forged the logs of him confiscating M60 from your locker.
You never had any M60 in the first place, so that logs Sal posted(216 M60 raided along with 1100 Deagle) is definitely fake.

Proof:
Marcell's Screenshot of Storage owned by Shady Singh
Shady Singh's M60 storage: 7214

Marcell's Screenshot of Storage owned by Monty Singh


Monty Singh's M60 storage: 400

Screenshot of the entire confiscated weapons from the warehouse raid. It is clear that the entire warehouse had 7614 M60s.
Shady and Monty's M60 storage combined makes up the entire VCPD Evidence room storage, 7214 + 400 = 7614.


The 216 M60 raided from Cofi's locker by Salmonella does not add up.
The below log of Salmonella confiscating M60s is certainly fake.

Forging evidance is one of the biggest criminal acts you can do. The fact a representative of a SWAT/FBI did it, makes things just worse.


I want not only for this case to be dismiseed, yet I want a public apology from Salmonella, and the entire FBI/SWAT task unit, and punishment to be braught on Salmonella, by being fired from all Government's institutions, including VCPD, SWAT,FBI, for at least 20 years(7 days).

If this doesn't happen, I request a fee from the Task Unit(FBI/SWAT/VCPD), for public damage to my reputation, and the stress me and my Family went trough because of all of this, in a mount not less then 20,000$.

The Court asks that the plaintiffs explain this incongruency as well as the highlighted concerns from the previous filing.

[Cofiliano]

Hi, in addition to Judge's reply





I've got 3 photoshop experts that confirms that 1 pixel is missing right there.


ps-

I want not only for this case to be dismiseed, yet I want a public apology from Salmonella, and the entire FBI/SWAT task unit, and punishment to be braught on Salmonella, by being fired from all Government's institutions, including VCPD, SWAT,FBI, for at least 20 years(7 days) without being able to reach high ranks again.[/s]

If this doesn't happen, I request a fee from the Task Unit(FBI/SWAT/VCPD), for public damage to my reputation, and the stress me and my Family went trough because of all of this, in a amount not less then 200,000$.

I also expect from the judge, to press criminal chargers vs Salmonella, for forging evidance, which is an outstanding criminal act made by a offical high rank'd representative of the Government, and should not get away with it, without facing justice.

I also want my legally bought deagles to be returned and given to Monty Sing.

[Salmonella]

[1] Regarding point 3, in which the Court asks us to explain the inconsistency: We assume that be inconsistency, you are refering to the absence of the Desert Eagle with 1100 accomodating bullets in our charges. This can be cleared up easily, because there's simply nothing to charge Mr. Gvardia on here as we've found this gun not to have been illegal upon closer inspection. The raid team was however instructed to take any and all weaponry and other stored items, should we have found illegal weapons upon first inspection. It is logical that in a raid such as this, time is of the essence and it is impossible for our operatives to ascertain whether or not certain weapons are, or are not illegal in such a short timespan. Because of this, the decision was made to take everything and subject it to further investigation after the raid itself.

[2] Regarding point 4 of the Court's previous filing, we recognize that the Court does not consider the currently submitted evidence to be sufficient in proving the weapons belonged to Mr. Gvardia. Because of this, we have already started a large-scale investigation, seeking the help of our forensic experts at the Federal Investigation Bureau, to determine whether or not the M60 machine gun has traces of Mr. Gvardia's DNA or fingerprints on it. We are delighted to hear Mr. Gvardia recognizes and claims ownership of the Desert Eagle and its 1100 bullets that were also found in Locker 4, assigned to Mr. Gvardia. This will certainly help our forensic experts in determining whether or not one of the three M60 machine guns we've found, has the same traces of Mr. Gvardia on it as said Desert Eagle must have.

This investigation will be thorough and will be conducted by the Federal Investigation Bureau, meaning it may take a few days, especially given the temporary absence of FBI Director Hynek Lydell Pershing. We ask the Court to bear with us as we try to get to the bottom of this and perhaps even put the case on hold until possible new evidence sees the light of day.

[3] For now, we will however address the Court's inquiry about the incongruency in the currently submitted evidence. We assume that the Court refers to the fact that the previously submitted evidence room storage count does not seem to add up with other counts, such as Mr. Gvardia's, Mr. Singh's and the other Mr. Singh's counts, made at the time of the raid. Your honour, we were just as flabbergasted as you might have been about this, so we've decided to re-count all the evidence in the evidence room.

As seen in previous evidence submissions, we've concluded that an M60 with 216 rounds was found in Mr. Gvardia's locker, 400 in Mr. Monty Singh's locker (of which he has acknowledged ownership) and an M60 with 7214 rounds in Mr. Shady Singh's locker in the warehouse. This would add up to a total of 7830 rounds and three M60 machine guns. So, as said, we have checked our evidence room once again, and in all the 3 crates dedicated to these three gentlemen, we've found these same amount of weapons and accommodating munition. This raises the question of why exactly the amount we found in Mr. Gvardia's locker was missing from the total evidence room count. The answer to that your honour, is that we simply do not know. We assume that in executing our previous count, we have simply overlooked the M60 machine gun and its rounds in Mr. Gvardia's evidence crate, in all haste. We apologize for the untidiness and wish to submit the results from our newly conducted count, which -does- add up with all the other counts.

The prosecution now presents the newly reviewed total count of the VCPD evidence room:

[4] The prosecution wishes to address Mr. Gvardia's statement, by saying we are absolutely riddled. We do not see where these demands stem from, nor do we see why Mr. Gvardia is accusing Sergeant Monella of anything at all, let alone crime. Nothing in any presented evidence, whether presented by us or Mr. Gvardia shows anything that could possibly reveal any truth in the slandering and accusations of Mr. Gvardia. We ask the judge to dismiss all of the demands for being completely baseless and not being backed up by any (roleplay) evidence.

I've got 3 photoshop experts that confirms that 1 pixel is missing right there.

OOC: I'm glad you managed to get 3 photoshop experts, I guess they were hired from Craigslist and I like the work they've done. You however don't need a photoshop expert, let alone three, to point out the simple fact that a chatlog is one pixel apart from another. It's true, the picture is edited not to include radio chatter.

[stormeus]

The raid team was however instructed to take any and all weaponry and other stored items, should we have found illegal weapons upon first inspection. It is logical that in a raid such as this, time is of the essence and it is impossible for our operatives to ascertain whether or not certain weapons are, or are not illegal in such a short timespan. Because of this, the decision was made to take everything and subject it to further investigation after the raid itself.

This point raises issues with the manner in which evidence was collected, not only in this case but all others resulting from this raid. Referring back to the warrant, it states:

I find the evidence provided probable cause to search and seize any property resulting from violations of Section II, Ordinance III of the Constitution of Vice City, as well as any materials being used to facilitate such violations, pursuant to the following restrictions:

The seizure of all possessions regardless of their legal status or use is an overreach that threatens the liberties of suspects in criminal cases and make them second-class citizens.

Any outright illegal weapons will remain admissible, but the State must demonstrate that the other seized assets were probably and reasonably being used as a means to facilitate the crimes the defendants are being charged for, for every other asset seized. Being that the only charges filed are for possession, the scope of this evidence would be limited to demonstrating that the Desert Eagle was being used to acquire the M60.