Mock Trial

State of Oregon, Prosecution v. Cy Miles, Defendant

Based on the affidavit, What are the expected question and answer from prosecution and defence for Frankie Zapata

AFFIDAVIT OF FRANKIE ZAPATA 2 3 My name is Frankie Zapata. I'm currently a deputy with the Chinook County Sheriff's Office, 4 where I work as a forensic analyst for digital devices. I graduated from Western Oregon University in 5 1999 with a degree in Criminal Justice. Right after school, I signed up with the Sheriff's Office, where I 6 worked until 2010. I then joined the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (the "DEA," for short) as a Task 7 Force Officer. It was during my time with the DEA that I developed expertise in analyzing cell phones 8 and other types of electronic devices that might contain evidence of criminal wrongdoing. I attended about 9 a dozen DEA-organized trainings on how such devices operate and how to extract evidence from them, 10 including a 10-day course on digital evidence acquisition at the FLETC (which is short for the "Federal 11 Law Enforcement Training Center") in Glynco, Georgia. In 2016, I decided to return to the Chinook 12 County Sherriff's office, and since then, I've analyzed and testified about data that I extracted from cell 13 phones and other similar electronic devices in hundreds of criminal cases. Oftentimes, that type of 14 evidence can be critical in determining the outcome of a prosecution. Criminals use their phones for just 15 about everything, and the cell phone and app companies collect all kinds of information from their users. 16 Believe me, they know a lot more than just who you're calling; based on the data you provide when using 17 your phone, they often can know what room in the house you're in, who your friends are, and maybe even 18 what you're thinking about having for breakfast. 19 That said, the way the police handle cell phones has changed a lot over the last few years. It used 20 to be that you could just grab a phone out of someone's hands during an arrest and start browsing through 21 it. Back in 2014, though, the Supreme Court decided that cops need to get a warrant before doing that. If 22 you ask me, it wasn't a great decision. I mean, I get the general privacy concern, but do you really want 23 criminals getting away scot-free because they're able to delete cell phone data before the police have time 24 to get a warrant? I certainly don't. So, up until a few years ago, whenever I was involved in an arrest, I 25 would grab the suspect's phone if I thought there was a good reason to do so. 26 Sure enough, that eventually got me in trouble. Toward the end of 2017, I was riding along with 27 my colleague Quincy Harrison during a traffic stop. Quincy ran the driver's information and discovered 28 that he had a warrant out for his arrest. I had a hunch that the driver was up to something pretty bad, so, 29 while Quincy was processing his license, I grabbed his phone, began scrolling through his texts, and found 30 a series of messages proving that he was selling drugs to kids. Even though I knew that wasn't technically 31 "lawful," I thought I had done the right thingbut a judge ended up suppressing that evidence because of 32 the manner in which I had seized the phone, and the guy walked. After that, the Sheriff's Office told me I 33 wasn't allowed to assist our detectives and beat cops in the field, which I used to do pretty frequently. Now, they just hand me phones to analyze when they've already gotten authorization for a search. That 2 makes it easier, I guess, but I sure do miss the action I'd see out on the streets of Rowe. 3 Fortunately, however, this case got me back into the mix again. On the evening of October 26, 4 2019, basically every law enforcement officer in Chinook County got a call to report to the Digby Theater, 5 where, according to dispatch, some sort of major accident had occurred during a concert. What I saw on 6 the scene was horrible. People were scared and crying, and paramedics were doing what they could for a 7 couple of injured concertgoers. Right as I arrived, I also saw paramedics rushing a gravely injured fan out 8 of the theater. I later learned from my colleagues in the Sheriff's Office that her name was Janet Jopson, 9 that she had been trampled during a stampede in the theater, and that she had died in the hospital shortly 10 after I saw her. I still get a little emotional thinking about it. I decided right then and there that I would 11 find out who committed this crime and bring that person to justice as swiftly as I could. 12 My sergeant asked me to help interview the concertgoers outside the theater, and I was happy to 13 oblige. I first interviewed Jett Jones, a music journalist with the Rock & Rowe magazine who was present 14 at the scene and had attended the concert. Jett seemed agitated, but not fearful or worried in any way. Jett 15 started stammering about how there had been a bomb threat made during the concert, and that it was what 16 had caused the stampede. While I was talking to Jett, Jett kept looking down at Jett's phone. I asked Jett 17 why Jett was spending so much time looking at the phone, and Jett told me it was important to see how 18 many likes and reposts "the story" got. I asked what "the story" was, and Jett showed me the Facebook 19 post depicted in Exhibit 3. I asked Jett a few more questions after that about what happened, how the 20 crowd reacted, and whether Jett had seen anything suspicious in the theater, but I just couldn't get Jett to 21 focus. Every time Jett got a notification on Jett's phone, Jett's eyes would light up. I know that some 22 people who study social media talk about how it creates a "dopamine-driven feedback loop" in a typical 23 user's brain, but this was ridiculous. I didn't notice anything else that I found particularly suspicious during 24 my interview with Jett. 25 I next spoke with Cy Miles, who was also present at the scene and, as I had just learned from Jett, 26 was a member of the band that was playing when the stampede started. Cy was covered in sweat and 27 seemed very preoccupied. I asked if Cy had just run out of the theater. Cy told me no, and that Cy had 28 been standing by the theater's main exit when the stampede started. That all seemed odd to me, especially 29 given what I saw on Cy's hands. They looked a little bruised and sort of strangekind of like Cy had 30 wrapped a string really tightly around Cy's fingersso I asked what happened. Cy said that happened 31 while Cy was working on a fishing lure a few days prior. I didn't think that was true, because the bruises 32 looked pretty fresh to me. Now, they just hand me phones to analyze when they've already gotten authorization for a search. That 2 makes it easier, I guess, but I sure do miss the action I'd see out on the streets of Rowe. 3 Fortunately, however, this case got me back into the mix again. On the evening of October 26, 4 2019, basically every law enforcement officer in Chinook County got a call to report to the Digby Theater, 5 where, according to dispatch, some sort of major accident had occurred during a concert. What I saw on 6 the scene was horrible. People were scared and crying, and paramedics were doing what they could for a 7 couple of injured concertgoers. Right as I arrived, I also saw paramedics rushing a gravely injured fan out 8 of the theater. I later learned from my colleagues in the Sheriff's Office that her name was Janet Jopson, 9 that she had been trampled during a stampede in the theater, and that she had died in the hospital shortly 10 after I saw her. I still get a little emotional thinking about it. I decided right then and there that I would 11 find out who committed this crime and bring that person to justice as swiftly as I could. 12 My sergeant asked me to help interview the concertgoers outside the theater, and I was happy to 13 oblige. I first interviewed Jett Jones, a music journalist with the Rock & Rowe magazine who was present 14 at the scene and had attended the concert. Jett seemed agitated, but not fearful or worried in any way. Jett 15 started stammering about how there had been a bomb threat made during the concert, and that it was what 16 had caused the stampede. While I was talking to Jett, Jett kept looking down at Jett's phone. I asked Jett 17 why Jett was spending so much time looking at the phone, and Jett told me it was important to see how 18 many likes and reposts "the story" got. I asked what "the story" was, and Jett showed me the Facebook 19 post depicted in Exhibit 3. I asked Jett a few more questions after that about what happened, how the 20 crowd reacted, and whether Jett had seen anything suspicious in the theater, but I just couldn't get Jett to 21 focus. Every time Jett got a notification on Jett's phone, Jett's eyes would light up. I know that some 22 people who study social media talk about how it creates a "dopamine-driven feedback loop" in a typical 23 user's brain, but this was ridiculous. I didn't notice anything else that I found particularly suspicious during 24 my interview with Jett. 25 I next spoke with Cy Miles, who was also present at the scene and, as I had just learned from Jett, 26 was a member of the band that was playing when the stampede started. Cy was covered in sweat and 27 seemed very preoccupied. I asked if Cy had just run out of the theater. Cy told me no, and that Cy had 28 been standing by the theater's main exit when the stampede started. That all seemed odd to me, especially 29 given what I saw on Cy's hands. They looked a little bruised and sort of strangekind of like Cy had 30 wrapped a string really tightly around Cy's fingersso I asked what happened. Cy said that happened 31 while Cy was working on a fishing lure a few days prior. I didn't think that was true, because the bruises 32 looked pretty fresh to me. apparently because the WiFi setting on the phone had been turned off. I later called and asked Jett about 2 that, and Jett confirmed that Jett usually keeps the WiFi on the phone turned off because Jett's cell phone 3 plan provides unlimited cellular data. 4 I also was able to extract Cy's internet browsing history from Cy's phone. It showed that Cy (or 5 whoever was using the phone) looked up the following sorts of search terms repeatedly in the days leading 6 up to the concert: "concerts gone wrong"; "criminal penalties for threats"; and "Home Depot." Cy also 7 had downloaded the Facebook app to Cy's phone, but the data from the app had been deleted. 8 Unfortunately, I was unable to determine when that data was deleted or which Facebook accounts were 9 accessed from it. The phone only had 16 gigabytes of storage, so it's possible that Cy might have deleted 10 the app's data in order to clear out some extra storage space, but the whole thing still seemed awfully 11 suspicious to me. Jett's phone had downloaded the Facebook app, but the only Facebook account it ever 12 accessed via the app was Jett's personal account (i.e., the account with which Jett had reposted the original 13 "Cynical Songwriter" post). Jett's search history also revealed nothing suspicious. 14 Given the lack of Facebook data on Cy's phone, we went next to Facebook itself. Using a 15 subpoena, we asked Facebook to provide some basic information associated with the "Cynical 16 Songwriter" account. In response, Facebook provided us with the document shown in Exhibit 5, which, 17 as a Facebook representative told me, is the sort of record that Facebook keeps and regularly updates in 18 course of providing its services. I also regularly rely on these sorts of reports during investigations. The 19 document indicates that the "Cynical Songwriter" account was created on October 26, 2019 at 4:32 p.m. 20 from the Internet Protocol ("IP") address 172.16.254.1. The IP address proved to be critical to our 21 investigation. I'm simplifying things a bit, here, but an IP address serves essentially the same purpose for 22 an internet connection that a physical address does for a house or office building; basically, it's a unique 23 number that identifies a particular connection, and only one IP address at a time can be assigned to a 24 particular place. IP addresses are managed on a global level by the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority 25 (the "IANA"), and as a law enforcement officer, my colleagues and I routinely rely on databases managed 26 by the IANA in order to determine physical addresses and other information associated with particular IP 27 addresses. In my experience, the IANA's information has always been accurate and reliable. Using a 28 standard IANA database, I determined that the IP address 172.16.254.1 was assigned to the Digby 29 Theater's WiFi network at the time the "Cynical Songwriter" Facebook account was created. 30 Unfortunately, that was about all of the forensic evidence we were able to gather. The email 31 account used to set up the "Cynical Songwriter" account was b..o@russiamail.ru. That address 32 is associated with an email service that anyone in the United States (or anywhere else) can use, but its 33 servers are based in Russia, so I couldn't get any other information about it. I suppose I could have followed up with Facebook to see if they had any more information about the "Cynical Songwriter" 2 account; for instance, it might've been useful to know whether other Facebook accounts had been accessed 3 via the same IP address at the same time. That said, given that the IP address was assigned to an unsecured 4 public network, I didn't think that information would tell us much. I suppose I also could have looked 5 further into Jett Jones's phone or other devices, but, again, I didn't think that'd be useful. We already had 6 enough to prove that Cy Miles was the one responsible for causing the stampede, I figured, so we didn't 7 need anything else. 8 Based on the evidence above, it's my conclusion that Cy Miles set up the "Cynical Songwriter" 9 Facebook account on Cy's cell phone on the afternoon of October 26, 2019 while Cy was connected to 10 the Digby Theater's WiFi network. Cy then used that account to post the bomb threat shown in Exhibit 3, 11 which in turn caused the stampede that killed Janet Jopson. I'll never forget how terrible the scene was 12 after that stampede, and I hope Cy gets what's coming to Cy. 13 I hereby attest to having read the above statement and swear or affirm it to be my own. I also swear 14 or affirm to the truthfulness of its content. Before giving this statement, I was told it should contain all 15 relevant testimony, and I followed those instructions. I also understand that I can and must update this 16 affidavit if anything new occurs to me until the moment before I testify in this case.