Reputed Drug Ring Kingpin Arraigned

Reputed billionaire narcotics trafficker Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, a key suspect in the murder of federal drug agent Enrique Camarena, was arraigned Thursday in Los Angeles on narcotics charges but refused to enter a plea, claiming that he had been kidnaped and tortured by U.S. authorities.

At the same time, sources close to the investigation of the 1985 murder of Camarena told The Times that authorities have found one of Matta’s hairs at the Guadalajara home of a Mexican drug lord where Camarena is believed to have been tortured and killed.

Matta, whose arrest in Honduras set off widespread anti-American rioting last year outside the U.S. Embassy in the Honduran capital of Tegucigalpa, alleged Thursday that he was taken into custody there by U.S. marshals, interrogated for nearly 24 hours and tortured repeatedly with a stun gun.

“We are declining to plea because we are saying they have absolutely no right to have him here,” Matta’s attorney, Martin Stolar, told a federal magistrate.

Assets Estimated

Two federal indictments in Los Angeles charge Matta, 44, with directing a multimillion-dollar narcotics-trafficking organization headquartered in Cali, Colombia, that moved thousands of kilograms of cocaine up through Mexico and into Arizona and Southern California. Though he claims assets of $5 million, Matta’s holdings are estimated by federal officials at $1 billion to $2 billion.

Matta, a wealthy Honduran businessman who reportedly was that country’s largest single employer before his arrest, has denied any connection to the cocaine-trafficking operation or to the death of Camarena, an agent with the federal Drug Enforcement Administration.

But sources close to the Camarena investigation said the Matta hair sample found at the Camarena murder site was matched with hair taken from Matta in his cell at a federal prison in Marion, Ill., the nation’s highest security federal prison.

The sources acknowledge that the discovery of Matta’s hair at the agent’s murder site does not prove that he was at the house the day Camarena and his pilot were killed. But similar evidence was used to help convict suspected drug-trafficker Rene Verdugo Urquidez, who was tried for the DEA agent’s murder, along with two other men in Los Angeles last year.

Matta arrived Thursday afternoon at the Los Angeles Federal Courthouse for arraignment on two drug indictments under extraordinarily high security. Spectators were required to pass through a metal detector and show identification before entering the courtroom. Armed guards stood in the stairwells and other areas of the courthouse.

U.S. authorities had attempted for years to extradite Matta, using earlier indictments in San Diego and Phoenix and a since-dismissed criminal complaint in New York. But they were hampered by a provision of the Honduran constitution that prohibits extradition of its citizens.

Then, on April 5, 1988, according to official news accounts, 160 police officers in helicopters swooped down at dawn on Matta’s house in Tegucigalpa, apprehended him and put him aboard a flight to the Dominican Republic. Joined by U.S. marshals there, Matta was flown to Puerto Rico and then to New York.

For days after, the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa was surrounded by an anti-American mob.

But Stolar, Matta’s attorney, said his client claims he was taken into custody by U.S. authorities, not Honduran officials.

“They beat him, they tortured him, they interrogated him for 24 hours,” Stolar told reporters.

Matta was so badly injured by the stun guns wielded by the marshals that prison officials in Marion photographed him when he arrived there, Stolar said.

“They did not want to be blamed for the man’s condition,” he said.

Stolar said he has given the photographs to a judge in Pensacola, Fla., where Matta once was sentenced for three years to a federal prison for illegally entering the United States with a false passport. Matta escaped from that prison, but since his recapture, he is finishing out that sentence in Marion.

Stolar said Matta is refusing to enter a plea to the Los Angeles indictments because he contends that the circumstances of his arrest violated his constitutional rights of due process.

“We do not want to give any sense of accepting the court’s jurisdiction, given the violations of the U.S. Constitution,” Stolar said.

Federal prosecutors declined to comment on Stolar’s allegations.

“While Stolar might have the preference of litigating his case before the press, I would think the more proper forum would be in open court,” Assistant U.S. Atty. Jimmy Gurule said. “At the appropriate time, I’m sure that issue will be raised, and it will be dealt with, and we’re confident that it will not be a bar to moving forward with the case.”

Despite Matta’s refusal, U.S. District Judge William J. Rea entered a not guilty plea on his behalf.

Times staff writer Ronald J. Ostrow in Washington contributed to this story.