## Facts

- A United States Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force (FTF) staked out Edgar Adam Matos’s apartment while looking for Matos’s cousin, Anthony Matos, who was wanted for murder.
- When Matos exited the apartment building, two FTF officers—Detective Heege and Deputy Tait—claimed Matos dropped or threw two bags of cocaine onto the ground in their plain view.
- Based on that claim, Heege and Tait arrested Matos outside the building.
- After the arrest, and before Miranda warnings were given, the government contended Matos made spontaneous incriminating statements.
- The government also contended Matos consented to a search of his apartment and told officers where additional cocaine was located.
- Officers searched the apartment and recovered more cocaine.
- Matos was charged with possession of cocaine with intent to distribute.
- Matos moved to suppress the cocaine and his statements, arguing they were obtained through an unconstitutional arrest lacking probable cause.
- After an initial suppression hearing, the court found Heege and Tait not credible on the key points that purportedly supplied probable cause (the alleged discarding of cocaine) and voluntariness (the claimed statements and cooperation), and the court suppressed the physical evidence and statements.
- The government moved to void or reconsider the suppression order and requested a supplemental hearing.
- At the supplemental hearing, additional FTF officers testified that they saw the cocaine bags on the ground outside, but no one besides Heege and Tait testified that they saw Matos toss or drop the bags.
- Additional testimony suggested Matos’s arrest functioned as a way to gain access to the apartment to look for the fugitive cousin, who was the operation’s true target.

## Issues

1. Whether the government showed a basis to reconsider or vacate the prior suppression order after presenting additional testimony at a supplemental suppression hearing.
2. Whether, on the full record, the government proved probable cause for Matos’s warrantless arrest based on the alleged plain-view observation that Matos discarded cocaine.
3. Whether Matos’s unwarned post-arrest statements, his alleged consent, and the cocaine recovered from the apartment should remain suppressed as products of an unlawful arrest.

## Decision

- The court denied the government’s motion for reconsideration and left the prior suppression order in place.
- The court concluded that the supplemental testimony did not cure the evidentiary gap identified in the first hearing: only the previously discredited officers claimed to have seen Matos discard the cocaine.
- The court reaffirmed its finding that the government failed to establish probable cause for the arrest.
- Because the arrest was unsupported by probable cause, the court kept suppressed the cocaine recovered outside, the additional cocaine recovered from the apartment, and Matos’s statements tied to the arrest and ensuing search.

## Legal Principles

- A warrantless arrest must be supported by probable cause based on facts known to the officers at the time of the seizure; at suppression, the government bears the burden to justify a warrantless arrest.
- Credibility findings at suppression are for the district court, and probable cause cannot rest on testimony the court finds unreliable on the fact that supposedly supplies the lawful basis for the arrest.
- Evidence obtained as a result of an unlawful arrest—including statements made in custody and evidence found through consent given after the arrest—may be excluded as fruit of the illegal seizure unless the government shows a recognized exception.
- Reconsideration of a suppression ruling is discretionary and generally requires materially new evidence or a showing that the prior decision was clearly wrong; adding witnesses who do not corroborate the critical asserted fact may be insufficient to change the result.

## Conclusion

In United States of America v. Edgar Adam Matos, the Eastern District of New York denied the government’s effort to undo a prior suppression order because the expanded record still did not credibly establish that officers had probable cause to arrest Matos outside his apartment; with the arrest unlawful, the cocaine and Matos’s post-arrest statements and cooperation remained suppressed.


United States of America v. Edgar Adam Matos, 2009 WL 2883054 (2009)