Ruling could free convicted trafficker

High Court’s decision on warrantless tracking affects Butler case.

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11:06 PM Sunday, January 29, 2012

By Denise G. Callahan

Staff Writer

The unanimous opinion from the Supreme Court ruling warrantless GPS tracking of criminal suspects is unconstitutional could impact the outcome of a convicted drug trafficker’s case in Butler County.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled last Monday that law enforcement must obtain a search warrant before they use GPS devises to keep tabs on criminal suspects.

Aron Rich, 38, of Los Angeles, Calif., was convicted by a Butler County jury last week of complicity to traffic in cocaine, trafficking in cocaine and possession of cocaine.

Part of the evidence used to convict him involved a GPS tracker.

His attorney believes the high court ruling could help on appeal.

Part of the judicial proceedings in Butler County included a suppression hearing on a number of evidentiary issues, including the GPS devise police placed on the rental car Rich was driving.

Judge Craig Hedric ruled since the car was a rental, Rich had no expectation of privacy. Rich’s former attorney cited the then pending U.S. Supreme Court case in trying to convince Hedric to suppress the GPS evidence.

The Supreme Court ruling places great emphasis on a defendant’s expectation of privacy, Rich’s attorney Martin Pinales says he thinks that’s important.

“It is clear that Aron was driving with an expectation of privacy,” Pinales said. “If you read the opinions it seems to hinge around that expectation of privacy. It’s going to be a very interesting case.”

Every case is different Pinales said, but even though his case has a nuance not contemplated by the Supreme Court, the ruling might still make a difference.

In the Rich case police rented the vehicle, placed the tracker on it and then gave it to a confidential informant who rode with co-defendants in the case to and from the Dayton airport and eventually turned it over to Rich.

Rich met up with his co-defendants at a Walmart in West Chester Twp., picked up the cocaine at a storage locker and was busted with $1.2 million worth of cocaine, along with Daniel Rubio-Rodriguez of Hamilton and Santiago Ayon Sanchez of California.

Rubio-Rodriguez and Santiago Ayon Sanchez pleaded guilty and were sentenced to seven and eight years in prison respectively. Their attorneys chose not to comment on the Supreme Court’s ruling, but Pinales said he believes they could not benefit from this ruling.

“You can’t go back, they had the same opportunity we did to complain about it which we did, in a motion to suppress,” he said.

Butler County Prosecutor Mike Gmoser would not comment on an open case but said he took swift action after the Supreme Court decision was rendered.

“We put out an alert yesterday that the Supreme Court has issued a strongly worded opinion that GPS surveillance without a warrant is going to be treated as a trespass and rendered the opinion the cases are subject to the possibility of having evidentiary problems,” he said.

In Warren County both Prosecutor David Fornshell and Drug Task Force commander John Burke said they saw this ruling coming and have no cases that might be subject to reversal due to this decision.

“We felt like this was coming and we have been obtaining search warrants for those routinely for some time,” Burke said. “We are ahead of the curve.”

Staff writer Doug Page contributed to this story.

Ruling continued on C2

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