Cooper's lawyer withdraws court filing (see DOCUMENTS)

PANAMA CITY — Defense attorney Jim Appleman filed a motion Thursday saying federal authorities jumped the gun on a search of the house shared by Dr. Michael Reed and his girlfriend Amy Cooper.

On Friday, however, Appleman withdrew the motion after prosecutor Gayle Littleton supplied him with the right search warrant.

Reed, 55, and Cooper, 35, shared a home at 1233 W. Water Oak Bend in Panama City Beach that was being watched by state and federal investigators as a part of a drug investigation.

Investigators believed that Reed, a wealthy and established area surgeon, was storing cocaine at his residence for his and Cooper’s personal use as well as to disseminate to co-defendant Hector Melara to sell. Melara and Reed, according to court records, were splitting the proceeds from the drug sales and planning the importation of cocaine from Belize.

Both men were arrested, along with five co-defendants, on May 27. Reed and Melara pleaded guilty to their roles in a conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine in the area and face sentencing in federal court later this year.

Cooper is charged with using a telephone to facilitate the crime of drug trafficking. She’s included in the case against Reed, but is not charged in the conspiracy. Cooper is scheduled for trial Oct. 5 and faces up to four years in prison if convicted as charged.

Appleman said in motions filed Thursday that U.S. District Judge Richard Smoak had signed an “anticipatory” search warrant of Reed’s house on May 24 that could be executed as soon as officers observed a “triggering event.” In this case, Appleman wrote, the triggering event was when officers saw Melara and Reed meeting at the residence.

According to court records, on May 27 Melara delivered a kilogram to Reed’s residence but Reed already had gone to work and a person identified as “Individual B,” whom Appleman has said is probably Cooper, accepted the drugs in his absence. There is nothing in Thursday’s filings that show whether Melara was observed delivering the drugs to Individual B.

At 10 a.m. that day, Appleman wrote, Bay County Sheriff’s Capt. Ricky Ramie met Cooper in the residence’s driveway. Ramie presented the search warrant and federal authorities searched the residence.

“At the time of the execution of the search warrant,” Appleman wrote, “none of the ‘Triggering Events’ had occurred.”

Appleman asked Smoak to suppress as evidence all items seized from the house in accordance with the search warrant.

He also asked the judge to suppress Cooper’s statements to investigators after her arrest. Appleman wrote that Ramie read Cooper her Miranda rights, essentially her right to remain silent and have an attorney present, at the time of her arrest and Cooper immediately asked to speak to an attorney.

“Requests by the defendant to speak with her attorney were ignored and not acknowledged by law enforcement,” he wrote. “Law enforcement continued to question the defendant who began making incriminating statements. At no time did the defendant voluntarily waive her right to an attorney.”

Appleman included in his motions portions of the investigative file that show ongoing wiretaps of Melara’s phone, as well as his distributor Dario Espinosa’s phone. The affidavit for the anticipatory search warrant notes 30-day wiretaps that were approved on April 16, May 7 and May 19.

The affidavit described conversations between Melara and Reed on April 23, in which the two are trying to find time to make a drug exchange. At 5:10 p.m. on that date, Reed called Melara and said he was heading home.

“What I’m going to do is, Amy is going to just deal with the kid at the swim meet, so I’m going to go home,” Reed said, according to the affidavit. “So you can come out, maybe in about thirty minutes. And then nobody will be around.”

Investigators then followed Melara to Reed’s residence and watched the two men meet in the driveway before going inside. The affidavit begins to describe a second encounter May 5, but it’s not included in its entirety in the court file.

Prosecutor Gayle Littleton submitted an e-mail to the court Friday, saying after she read Appleman’s motion she realized he didn’t have the most recent anticipatory search warrant Smoak had issued prior to Cooper’s arrest. Littleton said in the e-mail that Smoak signed a second warrant that went into effect when Melara delivered the drugs to Cooper.