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Fabio witness said lying { May 10 2003 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-scochoa20may10,0,6322788.story?coll=sfla-news-browardhttp://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-scochoa20may10,0,6322788.story?coll=sfla-news-broward
Witness admits lying about drug suspect's innocence
By Ann W. O'Neill
Staff Writer
May 10, 2003
Alejandro Bernal Madrigal, the cocaine "broker" who is the star witness against drug lord Fabio Ochoa Vasquez, said in testimony Friday that he was lying when he professed Ochoa's innocence in 1999 to officials in Colombia -- in statements to police and a judge and letters to the country's president.
"I did it to help him out so he would not be extradited," Bernal explained.
Bernal testified that his longtime friend is indeed guilty of trafficking in cocaine, and federal prosecutors in Miami are asking jurors to believe him. Bernal insists he's telling the truth now and regrets the ways of his drug-trafficking past.
"I made a mistake," Bernal, 43, said in a blanket apology covering two decades of multi-ton cocaine shipments from Colombia through Mexico and to the United States. That "mistake" helped him earn $10 million, tax-free.
Bernal was the original target of a joint U.S.-Colombian investigation dubbed Operation Millennium that culminated with his arrest in October 1999. Also caught up in the investigation were Ochoa and 41 others.
Now Ochoa, the 46-year-old prince of the defunct Medellin cocaine cartel, sits alone at the defense table. The other defendants, except for a handful still at large, have entered guilty pleas or, like Bernal, struck cooperation deals with the government.
Bernal pleaded guilty last month to engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise, a crime that carries a sentence ranging from 22 years to life in federal prison. Under a plea agreement, prosecutors have promised to request a sentence reduction if he testifies truthfully in court.
During Bernal's testimony Friday, U.S. District Judge K. Michael Moore gave jurors a legal instruction advising them to consider the words of a cooperating witness with extra caution because they have an added incentive to please the prosecution.
Under questioning, Bernal acknowledged past attempts to manipulate the criminal justice system in Colombia.
Following the 1997 treaty in which Colombia resumed extraditions of drug-trafficking suspects to the United States, Colombian police planted a room bug in Bernal's office and turned over 1,500 hours of taped conversations to the Drug Enforcement Administration. On Friday, federal prosecutors played surveillance videos showing Ochoa outside Bernal's office in 1998 and 1999.
Ochoa claimed to have left the drug business behind after spending nearly six years in a Colombian prison during the mid-1990s. Prosecutors charge that he and Bernal met and discussed multi-ton cocaine shipments about a dozen times after his release.
Prosecutors played short excerpts of a June 16, 1999, meeting Ochoa attended. They used Bernal to fill in the blanks, providing a drug-dealing context to banal-sounding remarks.
For example:
Ochoa and Bernal, known by the nickname "Mono," discuss an associate who, Ochoa says, gave him this message: "Man, tell Mono that when, well, he needs me for something ... an errand ... a chore, for me to take a look at something for him, to ... to keep me in mind."
According to Bernal, Ochoa meant: "For me to make use of him when I need him to run an errand for me, a drug-trafficking errand."
The Spanish word for errand, vuelta, has special meaning in the drug-trafficking world, Bernal added. It means "a drug route."
When Ochoa says, "Isn't that working?" Bernal said he was discussing an airstrip used by drug smugglers. He suggested that drug money from Mexico could be dropped there as in the early days of the Medellin cartel to avoid paying bribes and involving third parties.
Bernal faces cross-examination by defense attorney Roy Black when he returns to the stand on Monday.
Ann W. O'Neill can be reached at awoneill@sun-sentinel.com or 954-356-4531.
Copyright © 2003, South Florida Sun-Sentinel
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