Conspiracy Alleged in His Delivery to U.S. : Accused Drug Smuggler Sues Top Officials

Attorneys for accused drug smuggler Rene Martin Verdugo filed a civil lawsuit Tuesday accusing U.S. Atty. Gen. Edwin A. Meese III and other top Justice Department officials of conspiracy in the alleged abduction from Mexico last month of Verdugo, linked by federal investigators to the torture and slaying of U.S. drug agent Enrique S. Camarena.

The suit, filed in U.S. District Court in San Diego, seeks $110 million in damages for the deprivation of Verdugo’s civil rights.

Verdugo, 34, is being held without bail at the Metropolitan Correctional Center on marijuana smuggling charges. Federal officials say tape recordings show that the Mexican land developer was present during the torture of Camarena, who was kidnaped last February in Guadalajara and found dead there a month later.

Michael Pancer, one of Verdugo’s lawyers, also called Tuesday for federal and local investigations of possible criminal wrongdoing by American officials in connection with Verdugo’s departure from Mexico late last month.

Pancer said he would ask that a grand jury be convened in Imperial County, where Verdugo was arrested by U.S. authorities, and that a special prosecutor or other independent investigator be named to probe possible violations of federal law.

Justice Department spokesman Pat Korten defended the procedures employed in Verdugo’s arrest, but withheld comment on the lawsuit, saying government lawyers had not seen a copy of the suit by Tuesday evening. He termed the demand for investigations of Verdugo’s arrest “the pyrotechnics of a very crafty defense lawyer.”

Meanwhile, Verdugo’s family planned Tuesday to lodge a formal complaint with Mexican authorities over Verdugo’s treatment by U.S. and Mexican officials on his native soil. Howard Frank, another of Verdugo’s attorneys, said the family would ask Mexico to register a formal complaint with the U.S. government about the incident.

Verdugo claims he was accosted Jan. 24 by six masked men on the streets of San Felipe in Baja California. He says he was blindfolded, driven to the U.S. border at Calexico, and pushed through a hole in the fence into the hands of U.S. marshals.

The suit filed Tuesday alleges that the six men--four of whom until recently were officers of the Baja California State Judicial Police--were paid by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency and the U.S. Marshals Service to kidnap Verdugo. Pancer said he had obtained evidence that the six men were paid $50,000 before the alleged abduction and $50,000 after Verdugo’s delivery into the hands of U.S. authorities.

Besides Meese and the six Mexicans, defendants in the suit include Assistant Atty. Gen. Stephen S. Trott, head of the Justice Department’s criminal division; DEA Administrator John C. Lawn; Stanley Morris, director of the Marshals Service; Korten, the deputy director of public affairs for the Justice Department; U.S. Atty. Peter K. Nunez of San Diego, and U.S. Marshal James Laffoon.

Pancer said the alleged abduction of Verdugo could not have occurred without the “agreement and direction” of Meese, Trott and other top Justice Department officials.

A federal prosecutor confirmed in court last week that the Mexicans, who have been granted safekeeping in the United States, turned Verdugo over to U.S. marshals. Federal officials say that Verdugo could be held and tried in this country even if he was kidnaped, but they have denied that U.S. law enforcement agencies would take part in such illegalities in order to secure a fugitive’s arrest.