Joe Jenkins' attorney: Toss phone evidence in Chattanooga cocaine case

photo Juanzell Jenkins

In May 2012, Joe Jenkins talked on the phone with his brother, Juanzell. They didn't know the police were listening.

They talked about motorcycles. Juanzell said he didn't like to ride in the rain, that it made him nervous. Then the conversation turned toward a man in Atlanta named Clifford Simpson, a man police have identified as a cocaine supplier who was ready to sell them some of the drug.

Prosecutors say that Joe Jenkins told his brother he might have another source.

"If you can see something out of it," Juanzell replied, "holler at him again."

"If it's gonna be a day or two, but I don't want to miss the bus," Joe said, referring to the potential deal with Simpson.

"Believe me. You ain't gonna miss the bus," Juanzell replied.

From 2009 to 2013, investigators say they tracked Juanzell Jenkins, told informants to buy drugs from him, and listened to his phone calls. Those techniques uncovered a trail of cocaine throughout Chattanooga.

Police say Juanzell Jenkins bought the drug wholesale from dealers in Atlanta, then turned around and sold it to other local dealers, who themselves turned around and sold it to drug users. The undercover investigation led to the arrest of 34 men -- Juanzell's brother among them.

In U.S. District Court on Thursday afternoon, more than two years after Joe and Juanzell talked about motorcycles and the rain and missing the bus, Joe Jenkins' attorney argued that the police should never have recorded that conversation. If the case goes to trial, Leslie Cory said, prosecutors should not be able to use that recording or others involving Joe Jenkins.

Cory said investigators shouldn't have used a wiretap to track Juanzell Jenkins' phone because they didn't need it. She said they already knew Juanzell, who is still awaiting trial, was a drug dealer because police followed him around town and recorded conversations of him selling drugs to informants.

"Confidential sources worked, didn't they?" Cory asked James Hixson, a Chattanooga police officer who has worked with a Drug Enforcement Administration task force for more than a decade.

"Yes, ma'am," Hixson said Thursday.

"Surveillance worked," Cory added.

"Yes. ... All these techniques worked in the arrest of Juanzell. The goal of the investigation was not only Juanzell. It was Juanzell, his sources of supply and his co-conspirators."

But if the wiretap was necessary, Cory said, the police still should not have listened to the calls involving Joe Jenkins. She said the recorded conversations that police are using against Joe Jenkins are not necessarily drug purchases.

She said Joe Jenkins' comment about "missing the bus" with Clifford Simpson may not have actually been about cocaine.

"Is it not possible that a casual reader would think this entire conversation is about riding a motorcycle?" she asked Hixson.

"No," he replied. "I don't think so."

Thursday's pretrial hearing did not conclude Cory's motion to suppress all wiretap evidence against Joe Jenkins.

When the hearing continues today, Cory and Assistant U.S. Attorney Christopher Poole, the lead prosecutor in the case, will make arguments in front of U.S. Magistrate Judge Bill Carter.

Contact Staff Writer Tyler Jett at tjett@timesfreepress.com or at 423-757-6476.

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