Defendant flew into Liberal, KS from Las Cruces, NM without a flight plan with a plane rented in CT. The FAA was mildly suspicious of the flight, since a plane with cocaine had come in six months earlier. The pilot left the plane with the FBO’s aircraft service and asked that it be put in a hanger for the night. He paid for the hanger rental in cash, which was unusual. The police were called and came and a dog sniff was done on the plane, with the dog alerting. The police considered calling a locksmith but the hanger operator had a bucket of loose keys, and one opened the plane. Inside was a locked suitcase which was opened, containing about 28 kilos of cocaine. The government showed that the dog was well-trained, and there were no true false alerts, and the defendant did not rebut it. Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the hanger. Before the trip, the defendant wrote to his landlord in CT saying he unexpectedly moved to AZ, and he was not coming back to the property, and the landlord could keep the furniture but save the clothing, electronics, and papers. The locks had been changed, and the landlord had to have the locks drilled out to get in. Inside, the landlord found cash and called the police. A further search found cocaine. Defendant had no reasonable expectation of privacy in the house because he told the landlord he abandoned it. United States v. Ruiz, 2010 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 102088 (D. Kan. September 17, 2010).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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