PUBLISHED
UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS
FOR THE FOURTH CIRCUIT
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA,
Plaintiff-Appellee,
v.
No. 07-4230
MARK E. PHILLIPS, a/k/a Mark L.
Aaron,
Defendant-Appellant.
Appeal from the United States District Court
for the District of Maryland, at Baltimore.
J. Frederick Motz, District Judge.
(1:05-cr-00165-JFM)
Argued: September 25, 2009
Decided: November 24, 2009
Before WILKINSON and DUNCAN, Circuit Judges,
and Damon J. KEITH, Senior Circuit Judge of the United
States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit,
sitting by designation.
Affirmed by published opinion. Judge Wilkinson wrote the
opinion, in which Judge Duncan and Senior Judge Keith
joined.
COUNSEL
ARGUED: James Wyda, Federal Public Defender, Baltimore,
Maryland, for Appellant. Joyce Kallam McDonald, OFFICE
2 UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS
OF THE UNITED STATES ATTORNEY, Baltimore, Mary-
land, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Denise C. Barrett, Assistant
Federal Public Defender, OFFICE OF THE FEDERAL PUB-
LIC DEFENDER, Baltimore, Maryland, for Appellant. Rod J.
Rosenstein, United States Attorney, Baltimore, Maryland, for
Appellee.
OPINION
WILKINSON, Circuit Judge:
Appellant Mark Phillips was convicted, after a jury trial in
the District of Maryland, of securities fraud, mail fraud, wire
fraud, and access device fraud. He now appeals his convic-
tion, arguing that the district court erred under the Fourth
Amendment in denying his motion to suppress evidence
seized pursuant to a search warrant. According to Phillips, the
agents executing the search warrant exceeded the warrant’s
scope by seizing items not expressly named therein.
After careful consideration, we reject Phillips’s claim. We
hold that the warrant’s inclusive language was reasonably
read by the agents to encompass the seized evidence and that
the agents’ seizures were therefore permissible. Accordingly,
we affirm the judgment.
I.
A.
In early 2003, the United States Postal Inspection Service
began a fraud investigation of appellant Mark Phillips. The
investigation revealed that over a period of approximately
three years, Phillips had fraudulently applied for several credit
cards, using his father’s identity and declaring a false income.
Phillips then used those fraudulent credit cards to make
UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS 3
expensive purchases. Among other items, Phillips bought sev-
eral pieces of stereo, exercise, and computer equipment, col-
lectible coins, a pool table, a telescope, and a samurai sword.
Ultimately, Phillips accumulated hundreds of thousands of
dollars of credit card bills and either did not attempt to pay
those bills or attempted to pay with bad checks.
Investigators at the U.S. Postal Inspection Service also
uncovered other fraud perpetrated by Phillips. For example,
Phillips possessed two driver’s licenses, each with his own
photograph, address, and date of birth, but each with a differ-
ent name: Mark Le Roy Aaron and Mark Edwards Phillips.
Additionally, investigators learned that Phillips had opened an
account for frequent gamblers at an Atlantic City casino using
his father’s social security number and had made over
$28,000 in cash withdrawals on that account. A criminal
search history revealed that Phillips had previously been
arrested on state charges of theft by deception and issuing bad
checks.
During the course of the investigation, postal inspection
agents also became aware that Phillips was the "CEO and
Founder" of a business called Phydea, which provided online
financial stock reports. Some of Phillips’s fraudulent pur-
chases helped to fund Phydea. For example, he used a fraudu-
lent credit card to pay Interland Web Hosting for the hosting
and maintenance of his business’s website, Phydea.com, and
he used a fraudulent card to purchase advertisements for Phy-
dea, which appeared in Investor’s Business Daily. Also, Phil-
lips frequently used Phydea’s corporate name in connection
with his credit card fraud. For instance, Phillips bought enter-
tainment equipment with a fraudulent VISA card using the
internet address Phydea.com; Phillips made a purchase on
eBay using the e-mail address phydea@earthlink.com; Phil-
lips fraudulently applied for an American Express card using
the e-mail address CEO@PHYDEA.com; and when applying
for the same American Express card, Phillips misstated his
income as $1 million and misstated Phydea’s annual revenue
4 UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS
as $10 million. Unbeknownst to the postal inspectors at the
time, however, Phillips was using Phydea in connection with
more than just credit card fraud; he was also using it and a
related investment vehicle, Phydea Equity Fund, as part of an
elaborate securities fraud scheme.
In July 2003, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service sought a
search warrant for Phillips’s Maryland residence. The magis-
trate judge approved the search warrant, finding probable
cause for violations of access device fraud (18 U.S.C.
§ 1029), fraud in connection with identification documents
(18 U.S.C. § 1028), and bank fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1344).
The search warrant and incorporated affidavit authorized
the seizure of a wide range of items and documents. Specifi-
cally, Part I of Attachment A described items and services
purchased using fraudulent credit cards. It contained a number
of specific examples, "including but not limited to"
"[p]ayments to Interland Web Hosting for the hosting of a
webpage titled PHYDEA.com." Part II of Attachment A listed
"[i]tems that relate to or constitute evidence, fruits, or instru-
mentalities of violations of 18 U.S.C. §§§ 1028, 1029 or
1344, as described in the Affidavit." Like Part I, Part II listed
numerous examples "including but not limited to" the follow-
ing relevant categories:
Category A: Mail, books, records, receipts, notes,
ledgers and other papers . . . relating to fraudulent
conduct and financial crimes, including but not lim-
ited to those documents and records relating to pay-
ments to Interland Web Hosting for the hosting of a
webpage titled PHYDEA.com.
Category C: Books, records, receipts, bank state-
ments and bank records . . . relating to fraudulent
conduct and financial crimes.
UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS 5
Category D: Checks, pass books, bank checks and
any other items evidencing the obtaining, secreting,
transfer, concealment and/or expenditure of money.
Category J: [C]redit cards, in any form and credit
card account numbers, payment device and/or
account numbers of any kind.
The affidavit also set forth additional details relating to Phil-
lips’s case and the evidence of his fraud.
Prior to executing the search warrant, Inspector Judy Star-
liper, the head of the investigation, thoroughly briefed all
agents on the facts of Phillips’s case. Her operations plan
summarized the investigation and informed the agents that
Phillips "has a webpage called PHYDEA.com and uses the
same e-mail address to make his purchases." Each agent was
provided a copy of Attachment A listing the items to be
seized. During this briefing, another agent, Inspector David
Reardon, informed the team that he had received a complaint
from an aggrieved investor in Phydea Equity Fund, an entity
related to Phydea, and therefore requested that the agents alert
him if they saw anything relating to Phydea or Phydea Equity
Fund during the search.
Immediately following the briefing, the U.S. Postal Inspec-
tion Service team executed the search warrant. During the
search, Inspector Reardon himself identified several docu-
ments relating to Phydea and Phydea Equity Fund. He noted
that these documents contained personal identifying informa-
tion "which was in many regards what Inspector Starliper was
looking for in an identity fraud situation" and potentially
related to many of the fraudulent credit card purchases made
using Phydea’s name. To err on the side of caution, Inspector
Reardon brought the documents to the attention of his superi-
ors, and Inspector Starliper telephoned the United States
Attorney’s office to seek guidance on whether the Phydea and
Phydea Equity Fund documents were seizable. After reading
6 UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS
the warrant and accompanying affidavit, the Assistant United
States Attorney concluded that the warrant authorized their
seizure.
In executing the warrant, the agents seized a number of
documents and records that not only helped confirm the
investigators’ suspicions of credit card fraud but also revealed
to the investigators for the first time the full extent of Phil-
lips’s securities law violations involving Phydea and Phydea
Equity Fund. Among these seized documents and records are
several categories of evidence that Phillips now contests: doc-
uments and records relating to Phydea, including invoices for
the Phydea advertisements appearing in Investor’s Business
Daily; documents and records relating to Phydea Equity Fund,
including the files of individual investors; and some of Phil-
lips’s own financial records, including his bank statements.
B.
In April 2005, the United States charged Phillips with
thirty-five counts of securities fraud (15 U.S.C. § 78j(b)), mail
fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1314), wire fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1343), and
access device fraud (18 U.S.C. § 1029(a)(2)). A federal grand
jury indicted Phillips on all counts. Prior to trial, Phillips filed
a motion to suppress the evidence seized pursuant to the
search warrant. He argued that the contested seizures fell out-
side the scope of the warrant, because the warrant did not
explicitly mention those items.
Following a four-day evidentiary hearing, in which the dis-
trict court heard testimony from a number of witnesses, the
district court denied Phillips’s motion to suppress. In reaching
its decision, the district court made the following findings.
First, it found that the seizure of Phydea-related documents
was proper, because those documents were seized "in connec-
tion with the credit card investigation." In so finding, the
court noted that Phillips had used several fraudulent credit
cards to make purchases in connection with Phydea and that
UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS 7
Phillips had misstated Phydea’s income on a fraudulent credit
card application. Second, the district court held that the agents
were justified in seizing documentation relating to Phydea
Equity Fund, because at the time of the search, it was unnec-
essary to draw fine distinctions between the two entities of
Phydea and Phydea Equity Fund. Third, the district court con-
cluded that Phillips’s personal financial records were seizable,
because they were relevant to demonstrating his income,
which he misstated on a fraudulent credit application. Signifi-
cantly, the district court concluded that the seizing agents at
all times throughout the search acted in "good faith" and
"acted responsibly, reasonably and sensibly."
Following the district court’s denial of Phillips’s motion to
suppress, the seized evidence was admitted, and Phillips was
tried by a jury. Ultimately, Phillips was convicted on all
counts and sentenced to 121 months in prison. Phillips now
appeals his conviction, arguing that the district court erred in
denying his motion to suppress.
II.
In reviewing the denial of a motion to suppress, we review
the district court’s legal conclusions de novo and its factual
findings for clear error. United States v. Neely, 564 F.3d 346,
349 (4th Cir. 2009).
A.
Phillips makes a variety of claims, some of which appear
to merge and overlap. Phillips contends that the postal inspec-
tors’ seizures exceeded the scope of the search warrant. The
gist of his argument is that the warrant authorized the seizure
of items on the basis of probable cause for criminal charges
relating to credit card fraud and identity fraud. Therefore,
Phillips claims, the seizure of items relating to securities fraud
was not authorized by the terms of the warrant. This argument
fails for reasons of both law and fact.
8 UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS
A search conducted pursuant to a warrant is limited in
scope by the terms of the warrant’s authorization. Walter v.
United States, 447 U.S. 649, 656 (1980) (plurality); see also
United States v. Squillacote, 221 F.3d 542, 555 (4th Cir.
2000). However, a search warrant is not a "constitutional
strait jacket." United States v. Dornhofer, 859 F.2d 1195,
1198 (4th Cir. 1988) (citation and internal quotations omit-
ted). In interpreting search warrants, we must heed the
Supreme Court’s reminders to employ a "commonsense and
realistic" approach, United States v. Ventresca, 380 U.S. 102,
108 (1965), and avoid "‘hypertechnical’ scrutiny . . . lest
police officers be encouraged to forgo the warrant application
process altogether." United States v. Robinson, 275 F.3d 371,
380 (4th Cir. 2001) (citing Illinois v. Gates, 462 U.S. 213, 236
(1983)). These fundamental legal principles apply not only to
determining the validity of a warrant but also to assessing its
scope. United States v. Srivastava, 540 F.3d 277, 290, n.16
(4th Cir. 2008).
Mindful of these considerations, we are confident that the
contested seizures in this case fell comfortably within the
warrant’s scope. Even those seized documents forming the
cornerstone of Phillips’s securities law violations were autho-
rized by the language of the warrant, which is broad and per-
missive. Part I of Attachment A, for example, contains an
extensive list of fraudulently purchased items, including,
among other things, "[a] 1901-S Morgan Silver Dollar," "[a]
Celestron Nexstar 8 GPS telescope," "[a] Canon GL2 3 Chip
Camcorder," "[a] pool table," and "[a] CD/Record Player."
Part I does not stop there, however. It includes not only the
items themselves but also "evidence of appliances, devices,
furniture, equipment, property, items generally, and services
that represent purchases using credit cards obtained by fraud
and/or proceeds of other forms of fraud or financial crimes."
(emphasis added). Because Phillips purchased Phydea adver-
tisements in Investor’s Business Daily with a fraudulent credit
card, the invoices relating to the purchase of that advertising
service thus fall within the scope of Part I as "evidence of . . .
UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS 9
services that represent purchases using credit cards obtained
by fraud."
The language used in Part II of Attachment A is even more
comprehensive, describing "[i]tems that relate to or constitute
evidence, fruits, or instrumentalities of violations of 18 U.S.C.
§§§ 1028, 1029 or 1344." Part II gives some specific exam-
ples of such evidence but cautions that those examples do not
constitute a complete listing, using the phrase "including but
not limited to." Moreover, the categories of evidence in Part
II are broadly inclusive, describing, among other types of doc-
uments, "[m]ail, books, records, receipts, notes, ledgers and
other papers," "computerized electronic records," "bank state-
ments and bank records," and "[c]hecks, pass books, bank
checks."
The remainder of the contested seizures falls within the
ambit of Part II’s inclusive language. For example, Phillips’s
personal financial records were seizable because they were
evidence that Phillips did, in fact, misrepresent his individual
income on a credit card application. Phillips claims that,
because he applied for the credit card in his father’s name, he
misstated only his father’s income, which could not be veri-
fied with his own financial records. However, officers could
not be expected to parse that sort of distinction on the spot,
especially since Phillips added himself as an authorized user
to the same credit card. Similarly, many Phydea and Phydea
Equity Fund documents fall within the broad language of Part
II, since these documents were relevant to proving that Phil-
lips misstated not only his personal income but also his com-
pany’s income on a credit card application. The individual
investor files, for example, were relevant to this inquiry,
because the amount that investors invested in Phydea or Phy-
dea Equity Fund was tied directly to the companies’ revenue
and expectations of revenue.
Further, because Phillips used his personal bank accounts
to write bad checks, and, moreover, wrote bad checks to
10 UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS
credit card companies, the agents were justified in seizing his
"bank statements and bank records." In cases of financial
fraud, "the financial records of a suspect may well be highly
probative of violations of a federal fraud statute." Srivastava,
540 F.3d at 292 (citation omitted). To be sure, not every item
that falls within the language of the warrant will prove proba-
tive in a future criminal prosecution, but that is not the point.
The language of the warrant is inclusive for this very reason,
namely that the evidentiary significance of each and every
item may not be instantly apparent.
Phillips, however, urges a reading of the warrant’s lan-
guage that defies the "commonsense and realistic" interpreta-
tion demanded of us. His position would require us to hold
that an item reasonably encompassed by the terms of the war-
rant somehow falls outside its scope because the item is pro-
bative of charges other than those initial charges set forth by
the warrant. In his case, Phillips argues that because the war-
rant was issued for various credit card offenses, the seized
items relevant to securities fraud as well should somehow be
suppressed. This is not the law. Courts have never held that
a search is overbroad merely because it results in additional
criminal charges. See, e.g., Andresen v. Maryland, 427 U.S.
463, 482-84 (1976). Often, a single piece of evidence will be
probative of multiple crimes, especially in cases like this one,
which involve intricate, interweaving, and extensive financial
fraud schemes.
Our recent opinion in United States v. Srivastava, 540 F.3d
277 (4th Cir. 2008), is instructive. There, we addressed a situ-
ation in which officers’ execution of a warrant issued for
medical billing fraud turned up evidence of tax fraud. Id. at
281-83. The defendant cardiologist contested the seizure of
personal tax records under a warrant issued to investigate his
business’s medical billing practices. Id. at 290. The court
found this argument unpersuasive in light of the significant
nexus between his personal and business operations. Id. Not-
ing that the defendant operated his business as a Subchapter
UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS 11
S corporation, thereby passing business income through to
himself as an individual for tax purposes, we explained: "In
such circumstances, it is difficult to realistically define a
bright line between ‘personal financial records’ and ‘business
records.’ . . . Rather, it is consistent with both common sense
and realism to deem the financial records relating to the medi-
cal practice as being nearly synonymous with the financial
records of [him] individually." Id.
Here, too, Phillips’s fraudulent schemes were interrelated
and the evidence of each intermingled. The various schemes
were mutually reinforcing: Phillips’s misrepresentations of his
own identity, among other things, enabled him to obtain
fraudulent credit cards; his credit card fraud underwrote his
securities fraud, facilitating the purchase of advertisements
intended to lure investors into his illegitimate business; and
the misstated "income" from that illegitimate business helped
him fraudulently obtain credit cards. Just as Phillips over-
stated the success of his companies to credit card companies
in credit card applications, so too he overstated the success of
his companies to investors in advertisements. On these facts,
it is unsurprising that items seized under the warrant sup-
ported multiple charges of fraud.
B.
Phillips next argues that the only items that fall within the
scope of a warrant are those that are explicitly named and pre-
cisely catalogued. For example, notwithstanding the "includ-
ing but not limited to" language, Phillips suggests that the
only Phydea documents that were seizable under the warrant
were those mentioned by name: "[p]ayments to Interland Web
Hosting for the hosting of a webpage titled PHYDEA.com."
For other items to be seizable, the warrant must have been
more particularized.
Contrary to Phillips’s contention, law enforcement officers
may seize an item pursuant to a warrant even if the warrant
12 UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS
does not expressly mention and painstakingly describe it. See
Dornhofer, 859 F.2d 1195, 1198 (4th Cir. 1988) (refusing to
hold "that only those items particularly described in [a war-
rant] may be seized without regard to the facts and circum-
stances of the particular case") (internal quotations and
citation omitted). A warrant need not — and in most cases,
cannot — scrupulously list and delineate each and every item
to be seized. Frequently, it is simply impossible for law
enforcement officers to know in advance exactly what busi-
ness records the defendant maintains or how the case against
him will unfold.
Indeed, especially in cases such as this one—involving
complex crime schemes, with interwoven frauds — courts
have routinely upheld the seizure of items described under a
warrant’s broad and inclusive language. See, e.g., United
States v. Jacob, 657 F.2d 49, 52 (4th Cir. 1981). For example,
in Andresen v. Maryland, the Supreme Court upheld the sei-
zure of an extensive array of documents under a warrant that
authorized the seizure of items "together with other fruits,
instrumentalities and evidence of crime at this [time]
unknown." 427 U.S. 463, 479 (1976). This circuit has simi-
larly allowed the seizure of a "broad range of things" on the
basis of language permitting officers to seize "fruits, evidence
and instrumentalities of false claims submissions" and items
"including, but not limited to" business records. Srivastava,
540 F.3d at 280, 289. The warrant in the case at bar bears
striking similarities to those upheld in the aforementioned pre-
cedent.
The rationale for these holdings is straightforward. In cases
of this sort, investigators must "follow the money" to gradu-
ally unravel the lengthy paper trail left by a defendant’s illegal
operations. See Srivastava, 540 F.3d at 291-92. As the
Supreme Court explained, complex fraud cases often require
investigators to assemble a "jigsaw puzzle" by piecing
together "many bits of evidence" that, "taken singly, would
show comparatively little." Andresen, 427 U.S. at 480-81, n.
UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS 13
10. For "in the context of a fraud investigation, the relevant
evidence will in many instances be fragmentary, discovered in
bits and pieces, and thus difficult to either identify or secure.
Standing alone, a particular document may appear innocuous
or entirely innocent, and yet be an important piece of the jig-
saw puzzle that investigators must assemble." Srivastava, 540
F.3d at 291. In choosing to uphold contested seizures pursuant
to inclusive language, courts have insisted that the "complex-
ity of an illegal scheme may not be used as a shield to avoid
detection." Andresen, 427 U.S. at 480-81, n.10; see also
Srivastava, 540 F.3d at 291.
We thus decline to allow Phillips to create a safe harbor
from the complexity of his schemes. His crimes were multiple
and intricate. Phillips perpetrated his crimes in-person, by
U.S. mail, by telephone, and on the Internet. He lied about his
name, income, and social security number; he used a fake
driver’s license; he ran up costly bills with fraudulent credit
cards that he never paid off; he funded a gambling habit with
a stolen identity; and he wrote countless bad checks. To
investigate and prosecute crimes of this nature, the govern-
ment may need a diverse and extensive set of documents at
its disposal. The language of the warrant anticipates that very
possibility. The warrant thus sufficiently authorized the sei-
zure of the contested evidence here, even if that evidence was
not specifically listed and meticulously described.*
*We reject as well Phillips’s related argument that at the time the agents
seized the Phydea-related records, the agents had no reason to connect
Phydea with Phillips’ alleged credit card and identity theft schemes. In
fact, Attachment A mentioned "Phydea" by name twice, the head postal
inspector’s operation plan explained that Phillips "ha[d] a webpage called
PHYDEA.com and use[d] this same email address to make his purchases,"
and the incorporated affidavit mentioned the name "Phydea" ten times,
including an explicit statement that Phillips used a fraudulent credit card
to "execute several transactions involving PHYDEA.com." As the district
court explained, "there was perfectly good reason for the Phydea records
to be seized in connection with the credit card investigation. And I find
that."
14 UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS
C.
Finally, Phillips argues that the agents executing the search
warrant acted unreasonably by failing to distinguish between
Phydea and Phydea Equity Fund at the time of the search.
Even assuming that the Phydea documents were properly
seized, Phillips contends, the Phydea Equity Fund documents
were not, because the affidavit set forth no facts connecting
these documents to Phillips’s alleged fraud and in fact never
even mentioned the name "Phydea Equity Fund." Thus, Phil-
lips asserts that the agents’ seizure of those documents was
unreasonable. We hold otherwise.
The touchstone of Fourth Amendment analysis is reason-
ableness, and the "relevant inquiry is whether the search and
seizures were reasonable under all the circumstances." United
States v. Squillacote, 221 F.3d 542, 557 (4th Cir. 2000) (cita-
tion and internal quotations omitted); see also United States
v. Owens, 848 F.2d 462 (4th Cir. 1988). In determining
whether officers executing a search warrant acted reasonably,
courts must examine only those "facts available to the officers
at the time." Maryland v. Garrison, 480 U.S. 79, 88 (1987).
Reasonableness does not, by definition, entail perfection.
Rather, the reasonableness inquiry acknowledges the ambigu-
ous and often dangerous circumstances confronting officers in
the process of executing search warrants and therefore affords
officers "some latitude for honest mistakes." Id. at 87; United
States v. Patterson, 278 F.3d 315, 317 (4th Cir. 2002); see
also Garrison, 480 U.S. at 87 (The Fourth Amendment
demands "sufficient probability, not certainty.") (citation and
internal quotations omitted).
The district court likewise found as a fact that the original search was
in no way a "subterfuge" for drumming up a securities fraud case out of
allegations of credit card fraud. As the district court stated, "I find as a fact
that absolutely did not occur."
UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS 15
In examining the information available to the agents at the
time of the search, we agree with the district court that "the
search was entirely reasonable and constitutional." Only with
the benefit of hindsight are we now able to definitively ascer-
tain a document’s ultimate significance. And we now know,
after a full jury trial and on appeal, that the Phydea Equity
Fund records were probative primarily of securities fraud
rather than the initial charges against Phillips. However, given
Phydea’s clear connections to Phillips’s alleged fraud, and
given Phydea Equity Fund’s obvious relationships to Phydea
(the least of which is its partially shared name), the agents
acted reasonably in their seizure of both Phydea and Phydea
Equity Fund documents.
In fact, this is what the district court found after conducting
a four-day evidentiary hearing, which included testimony
from all of the executing agents. The district court explained
why it was unnecessary for the agents to distinguish between
Phydea and Phydea Equity Fund:
Let me mention here the reason I think Phydea can
be referred to generically. This is not GM and
GMAC. . . . [The] fact of the matter is that he’s got
Phydea.com, Phydea, whatever the various Phydea’s
names are, one can reasonably infer that, for pur-
poses of the seizure, . . . distinctions between, . . . at
the stage of the search, . . . the different entities or
LLC’s or corporations did not have to be drawn.
So I think the agents acted entirely reasonably and
constitutionally in not making fine distinctions at
that stage between the Phydea entities.
To require agents to make fine-tuned distinctions between
the two entities, and whatever other permutations of company
structure might exist, is to hold them to too high a standard.
The agents in this case, like all law enforcement officers who
execute a search warrant, labored under limitations of time
16 UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS
and knowledge. Experienced counsel may spend weeks and
months sifting through voluminous documentary evidence in
an effort to reconstruct the modus operandi of a criminal oper-
ation. The agents lacked the time, the training in principles of
accounting and business structure, and the sense of context to
perform a comparable task. Nor would we want them to.
Demanding perfection "would substantially increase the time
required to conduct the search, thereby aggravating the intru-
siveness of the search." United States v. Wuagneux, 683 F.2d
1343, 1353 (11th Cir. 1982) (citation and internal quotations
omitted). A prompt exit from the premises accompanied by a
few excusable, "honest mistakes" is far preferable to officers’
encampment in a residence while they relentlessly scrutinize
each and every item they encounter. As the Second Circuit
noted in upholding the wholesale seizure of "fur coats . . . and
other finished fur products" in a fur store, "the task of identi-
fying and seizing the specific garments would have required
a legion of fur experts to perform the task in a reasonable
period." United States v. Scharfman, 448 F.2d 1352, 1353-54
& n.1 (2d Cir. 1971).
None of this is to suggest that the agents had free rein to
ransack and take what they liked. The search was for a pur-
pose which the agents were not free to exceed. But "general,
exploratory rummaging," Coolidge v. New Hampshire, 403
U.S. 443, 467 (1971), was not what happened here. As the
district court found, the agents "acted responsibly, reasonably
and sensibly." Their actions were, in the words of that court,
"the reverse of cavalier" and at all times "measured and
appropriate." To the extent that any mistakes were made, the
district court found that they were "absolutely good faith mis-
takes." The only documents taken were financial documents,
and indeed the agents left many financial documents behind.
Consequently, we hold that the seizure of the evidence in this
case, including that of the Phydea Equity Fund records, was
constitutionally sound.
UNITED STATES v. PHILLIPS 17
III.
For the foregoing reasons, the judgment of the district court
is
AFFIRMED.