Convicted Embezzler Spent 6 Years in Managua : Data on Nicaragua Traded for Light Sentence

Convicted embezzler Vincent M. Carrano spent six years in Managua, Nicaragua, while a fugitive from California justice and provided significant information affecting national security after his arrest in March, federal prosecutors in Alabama said Friday.

The prosecutors refused, however, to elaborate on the nature of that information, which they cited last month in urging a federal judge to give Carrano a light sentence on his conviction for obstruction of justice in a tax evasion case.

United States marshals arrested Carrano March 7 in Panama City.

“For the next two months, Mr. Carrano made himself available to discuss and give information about matters that affect national security,” a federal prosecutor told an Alabama judge at a June 27 hearing, according to transcripts of the proceeding. After being briefed by Assistant U.S. Atty. Bill Barnett, U.S. District Judge Robert D. Probst ordered Carrano to serve three years in prison but suspended all but three months of the sentence.

Carrano disappeared in 1980 while appealing an embezzlement conviction in Orange County for which he was sentenced to eight years in prison. Carrano on Thursday was sent to a state corrections facility in Chino, where it will be decided where he will serve that sentence.

Frank Donaldson, U.S. attorney for the Northern District of Alabama, said Friday in a phone interview from Birmingham that Carrano had spent six years in Nicaragua. He declined to elaborate.

Donaldson refused to discuss the “national security” matters his assistant cited in making the appeal for a light sentence.

After his arrest in Panama, Carrano was taken to Miami, where he was held in a federal detention center.

According to records there, on April 2 an official in the office U.S. marshal’s office in Miami placed a note in Carrano’s file that said: “No interviews with this prisoner by anyone until further notice.” The official, James Simmons, declined to comment Friday.

Records show that on May 21, Carrano was taken to the headquarters of the U.S. Marshal’s Service in McLean, Va., for questioning. He returned to Miami the next day and was sent to Alabama for prosecution.

Carrano was accused of being involved in a scheme to help an Alabama businessman, Winfield (Bully) Moon Sr., defend himself against tax evasion charges.

Carrano pleaded guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice by mailing various fraudulent documents to be used in Moon’s defense, Donaldson said. The documents were sent from Managua last year, according to Donaldson.

Moon, now serving a six-year prison term, intended to use the fake documents to show that he had suffered large business losses in 1978, Donaldson said.

Barnett told Judge Probst that Carrano had cooperated on matters of national security without any promises in return, according to a transcript of the hearing.

“Our recommendations (for the light sentence) were made with that thought in mind, and to give him credit for those matters which did affect national security,” Barnett told the judge.

At the hearing, Carrano’s lawyer, David R. Arendall, said that Carrano was continuing to cooperate.

“It’s not only the past contributions by Mr. Carrano to items that affect national security that I think entered into the government’s suggested and offered sentence on this matter, but also the fact that there is a possibility that Mr. Carrano may be of future benefit in other ways for the national interest of this government,” Arendall said.