Aviles

Rafael Cornejo, Salvador Aviles, Miguel Angel Barreneehea and Carlos A. Perez appeal them convictions and sentences for offenses involving the distribution of cocaine. Their principal challenges go to the wiretap evidence against them and to the government’s compliance with the Speedy Trial Act.

The Wiretaps. The Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Force (the Task Force) brought together federal and local agencies under the leadership of Special Agent Don A. Alen of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (the FBI). In May 1991, the Task Force began an investigation of Corne-jo, who was a suspected drug dealer, a felon already convicted of income tax evasion, and an associate of known drug dealers. The Task Force employed surveillance of Corne-jo’s home in Lafayette, California. Due to the location of the house off a narrow street without shoulders, surveillance was difficult. The Task Force learned from a prisoner awaiting sentence that Cornejo and his half-brother Aviles intended to purchase cocaine from Oscar Danilo Blandon-Reyes in September 1991. The purchase was for $300,000 and executed by shipments of a total of 81 kilograms of cocaine from North Hollywood *934 to San…