United States v. Ronald J. Pimentel

Pimentel was convicted on two counts of wiretapping pursuant to 18 U.S.C. §§ 2511 and 2512. We conclude that none of the several issues he raises on appeal have merit and we affirm.

I

Pimentel was an employee of Roper Investigations, a private investigation firm. Pimentel’s co-defendant at trial was John Kenneth Roper, the president of Roper Investigations. Blue Star Meat Company of San Leandro, California, hired Roper Investigations to investigate suspicions that certain Blue Star employees were involved in kickback schemes. Pimentel and another Roper employee, David Webb, installed a monitoring device and tape recorder on the business phones of Blue Star in order to monitor the conversations of employees. The employees were unaware of the monitoring of their phone calls, and never consented to such monitoring. There was apparently no discussion between Blue Star and any Roper employee concerning the legality of the installation of the monitoring devices. Several months after the installation of the equipment, Pimentel informed the president of Blue Star that there was a problem with some of the equipment, and that there might be an investigation. Subsequently, the equipment…