Agents’ Actions in Cocaine Bust Attacked

Attorneys representing nine South Americans charged in the state’s largest cocaine seizure argued Monday that the arresting agents acted erratically and raided homes with invalid search warrants.

Los Angeles attorney Robert L. Corbin also told North Municipal Court Judge Richard L. Weatherspoon that the narcotics agents had no reason to execute a search warrant at a residence in Placentia in which three of the defendants were arrested and $730,000 in cash confiscated.

“They failed to articulate (the emergency) of the seizures,” Corbin said.

The defense claims that search warrants were carried out late at night on April 4, less than 36 hours after drugs agents began surveillance of two of the suspects.

The agents in earlier testimony said that the defendants were arrested at five different locations on that night. At two of the locations, the agents seized a total of 1,700 pounds of cocaine with a street value of $500 million.

Another defense attorney, Stephan A. DeSales, told Weatherspoon that the narcotics agents had conducted short “helter-skelter surveillance” of the two suspects and provided sketchy information to a magistrate who signed the search warrants.

The defense also has asked Weatherspoon to bar the presentation in court of records of drug transactions seized in the raids because they are “irrelevant to the present case.” The attorneys claim that the prosecution has presented testimony about a cocaine conspiracy gathered only during the week of the arrests.

Since many of the records seized in the case date back to last year, the defense argued that those records should be inadmissible.

Weatherspoon will rule on the defense contentions today before hearing closing arguments in the 10-day preliminary hearing. The judge also will decide if there is sufficient evidence to set trial for all, or some, of the defendants.

Defense attorneys are predicting that perhaps two or three of the suspects may be released because of insufficient evidence. Assistant Dist. Atty. James Brooks also conceded that it was possible that two of the defendants would not reach trial because they were arrested at a residence in which no money or cocaine was seized.

Ten suspects originally were charged in the case. But last week, Weatherspoon ordered the release of Elkin Guarin, 28, because seven grams of a white powder found at the time of his arrest was not cocaine.