State’s Largest Seizure of Drug : 3 in Cocaine Case Freed; 4 Others May Plead Guilty

Three of seven South Americans charged in California’s biggest cocaine seizure were released from jail Friday, and defense attorneys said the remaining four suspects probably will plead guilty to conspiracy to sell the drug.

Superior Court Judge John J. Ryan released the three, all Colombian citizens, on their own recognizance but ordered them to return to court Sept. 5 for a hearing on motions to suppress evidence against all the suspects.

However, the cadre of defense attorneys said charges probably will be dropped against Fabio Ardila Dimate, 41; Florinda Suarez Prada, 25; and Onelia Rita Arboleda, 24.

“The reason the district attorney has agreed to free them is that there will be pleas of guilty from the remaining four,” defense attorney James Riddet told Ryan.

Juan Perez Sanchez, 29, of Ecuador; Clara Rubia Perez, 22, of Venezuela; and Uldarico Cabuya, 34, and Gonzalo Ruiz, 29, both of Colombia, remain in Orange County Jail on $4 million bail each.

The seven suspects were among 10 South Americans arrested April 4 in raids at five locations in Anaheim, Placentia and Fullerton. Los Angeles police narcotics agents that night confiscated $730,000 in cash and 1,784 pounds of cocaine with a street value of $500 million.

The raids came after Los Angeles narcotics agents received a tip about an alleged cocaine-smuggling ring in Orange County and placed two of the defendants under surveillance.

At a preliminary hearing three weeks after the raids, charges against three of those arrested were dropped.

Another defense attorney, Stephan A. DeSales, said that a tentative plea bargain has been reached with the district attorney’s office. But he said the defense will continue to challenge the legality of the search warrants issued for the raids, which the defense says were improperly prepared. Only if that legal maneuver fails at the Sept. 5 hearing, DeSales said, will the four defendants agree to the plea bargain.

Trial for the seven suspects is set for Sept. 15, but Deputy Dist. Atty. James Brooks and the seven defense attorneys indicated that the case will probably be settled Sept. 5.

Although Brooks would not reveal details of the tentative plea bargain, he said Perez Sanchez and Cabuya would receive stiffer sentences than Ruiz and Rubia Perez. Perez Sanchez and Cabuya--the two originally under surveillance--were identified as the key conspirators of the cocaine ring “on the evidence we’ve seen so far,” Brooks said.

The maximum sentence for conviction is 15 years in prison.