2.Marcia Rodriguez — Direct/Cross
95 linesJUDGE WHEELER: Good morning. Good to see you. All right. Please be seated. And, again, good morning to everyone, and thank you for your timeliness. And we are doing our best to remain timely for you here in the courtroom. We're ready to continue with the testimony at this time, and so the State may call its next witness.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: The State calls Marcia Rodriguez.
JUDGE WHEELER: Marcia Rodriguez, please.
Good morning. If you'd come up to the witness stand, please.
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Yes, sir.
BAILIFF: Before you have a seat, we're going to swear you in. Okay? Please raise your right hand. Respond to the clerk.
whereupon, MARCIA RODRIGUEZ was called as a witness, having been first duly sworn, was examined and testified as follows:
JUDGE WHEELER: Please have a seat.
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Yes, sir.
DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MS. CAPPLEMAN:
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Please state your name and spell your name.
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Good morning. My name is Marcia Rodriguez, and it's spelled M-A-R-C-I-A, R-O-D-R-I-G-U-E-Z.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: where were you employed back in 2014?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: I worked for the Tallahassee Police Department.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: How long did you work for TPD?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: I worked with them for about 27 -- a little over 27 years.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: And what's your current status?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: I am retired, but now I'm back as a reserve officer working for the Tallahassee Police Department.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: And back in 2014, what type of duties did you have at TPD?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: I was assigned to our Special Investigations Division as a digital forensic investigator.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: what does a digital forensic investigator do?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: So, when investigators or officers need assistance with trying to obtain evidence off digital devices -- cellphones, computers, tablets, those types of things -- they would bring those items to us that work in that position to assist them in trying to collect the evidence off of it.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: And as part of your duties back in 2014, did you download a device that was purported to be owned by Wendi Adelson?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Yes, ma'am.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: And what type of device was that?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: It was an Apple iPhone 4.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: what type of downloading do you do?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: So, we would use -- the tool that we use to extract the evidence off of the phones is Cellebrite. It's a tool that allows us to plug up the phone and pull out the electronic data and print it out or pull it out into whatever type of format we needed it.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: And so the downloading process creates an extraction report?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Yes. Yes, ma'am.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: But does not change the content of the phone itself?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Oh, no, not at all.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: I'm going to approach and show you what I've marked as 55 through 58. Do you recognize State's 55 through 58?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Those are -- so, when we do an extraction on a phone, we can create a report from it, and these are pieces from that report. They're samplings. It's not the entire report. It's just pages from that printed report.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: And are they fair and accurate portions of the Cellebrite report from wendi Adelson's cellphone?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Yes, ma'am.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: That you downloaded?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Yes, sir.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Judge, at this time I'd ask to move into evidence State's 55 through 58.
JUDGE WHEELER: Any objection?
MR. DECOSTE: If we may take a look at it again?
JUDGE WHEELER: Sure.
(Pause in proceedings.)
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Were those admitted, Your Honor?
JUDGE WHEELER: Excuse me?
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Were those items --
JUDGE WHEELER: Not yet. I'm still waiting if there's any objection.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Okay.
MR. DECOSTE: No objection, Your Honor.
JUDGE WHEELER: All right. I'll admit as State's 55 through 58.
(State's Exhibit 55-58 received in evidence.)
MS. CAPPLEMAN: No further questions.
JUDGE WHEELER: Cross-examination?
MR. DECOSTE: Your Honor, if we could go sidebar on something.
JUDGE WHEELER: Sure.
(Sidebar conference as follows:)
MR. DECOSTE: Good morning, Judge. Ms. Cappleman and I had spoken about, there's an item of evidence that we're introducing through this witness. I know that she's going on vacation, and she was very concerned about being called next week. It's not something that was brought up in the government's direct examination, though.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Yeah. I don't object to them inquiring about the authenticity of the exhibit we discussed before.
MR. DECOSTE: So, if we lay the foundation for that --
MS. CAPPLEMAN: If you want to -- I'm stipulating to the authenticity. But if you want to do that with this witness for the jury's sake, you may.
JUDGE WHEELER: All right. what is it?
MR. DECOSTE: So, it's a download of Sigfredo Garcia's phone. It's referred to as a ZRT report. She received the phone, did the download, and then there's communications within there between Sigfredo Garcia and Luis Rivera right after the --
JUDGE WHEELER: Did you have a printout of that or --
MR. DECOSTE: I have a -- so it's a very long document. I have electronically the full document, and then I have a printout of the smaller portion.
JUDGE WHEELER: So, you don't have any objection to them authenticating that or getting into that particular document on cross?
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Right, I do not. I do have concerns that this witness has not seen the papers, and I advise that you would not be showing her papers. That was my understanding of your plan.
MR. DECOSTE: I think it would be safer than to recall the witness. 1I'11 communicate with her when it works out to call her in our case in chief. I wouldn't want anything confusing in front of the jury. It was a last-minute decision.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: well, I don't want to interfere with her vacation. Maybe we should just take a recess and give her an opportunity to look at the items, if that's what you're wanting to do, is show her the items.
MR. DECOSTE: I would defer to the Court on whatever you think.
JUDGE WHEELER: Well, why don't you -- we'll go to the next witness. I'm going to ask her to remain outside, and somebody can go out there, present her with those items, and then the State will recall her, and we'll go to her cross-examination.
MR. DECOSTE: So, we'll hold off on cross if that's --
JUDGE WHEELER: we'll hold off on the cross. Froma procedural standpoint --
MS. KAWASS: You just want the authenticity to be established so that you can use it later?
MR. DECOSTE: Correct.
JUDGE WHEELER: Is she going to recognize these? I mean, she did the work, right?
MR. DECOSTE: Yeah.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: She definitely will say that she completed the download of Sigfredo Garcia's phone. I'm just a little concerned that if you show her a few pages, she may need to do something to verify that that was, in fact, part of the download. That's what I had to do with her on my exhibits.
MR. DECOSTE: Humbly, I don't think procedurally there's anything wrong if we hold off on the cross. My cross will be a couple of minutes. And if the government and I stipulate to it -- and then we'll review it with her over the break, and I think she'll be happy because she -- it won't interfere with the trip that she's had scheduled for a long time.
JUDGE WHEELER: All right. I'm trying to think of how to put it so it's not awkward in front of the jury.
MS. CAPPLEMAN: Are you just feeling like if we took ten minutes right now, it'd be too awkward since we just started?
JUDGE WHEELER: Yeah, I don't want to do that either.
MR. DECOSTE: Perhaps, Your Honor, just to tell the jury that the witness is going to review some documents and then come back for cross.
JUDGE WHEELER: All right. That's what I'll do. Okay. And come back for cross-examination after the break.
MR. DECOSTE: Yes.
JUDGE WHEELER: Okay. All right. That's what I'll do.
(Sidebar conference concluded.)
JUDGE WHEELER: All right. Ms. Rodriguez, we're going to ask you to review some documents before your cross-examination.
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Yes, sir.
JUDGE WHEELER: And once you review those documents, I think you'll see why. So, we're going to continue your cross-examination after the break so that you have an opportunity to speak with counsel and take a look at some documents so that when we bring you back up, things will go a little bit smoother.
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Yes, sir.
JUDGE WHEELER: Okay? And also so you don't have to be called at a later time.
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Perfect.
JUDGE WHEELER: Okay?
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Yes, sir.
JUDGE WHEELER: So, I'm going to excuse you at this point. You're still subject to the subpoena, and we will see you back for your cross-examination after the break. And the attorneys will be talking to you outside; so if you could just go remain out there, and they'll see you soon.
MARCIA RODRIGUEZ: Yes, sir.