Drug Attorney Seriously Hurt by Car Bomb

A bomb exploded in the car of a locally prominent criminal attorney as he left for work Friday, seriously wounding him, police said.

Gino P. Negretti, 71, aided by neighbors, narrowly escaped flames that engulfed the car moments after the blast in a residential section of Miami, police spokesman David Rivero said.

“He’s pretty well known as a defense attorney, and a lot of his clients are drug defendants,” Rivero said. “Obviously, that’s one of the angles that will be checked.”

The attorney started his late-model Cadillac and was making a U-turn in front of his home when the bomb exploded.

Negretti was rushed into surgery at Jackson Memorial Hospital, where doctors removed shrapnel from his arms and legs, Rivero said. The officer said that both of Negretti’s arms were broken but none of his vital organs appeared to have been hit. He was listed in stable condition.

The Puerto Rican-born attorney has been well known in Miami legal circles for decades. He has represented several defendants in prominent cases involving the city’s Cuban-American community.

Negretti defended anti-Castro activist Humberto Lopez Jr., who fled to the Dominican Republic while appealing a conviction for illegal possession of explosives.

In 1967, Negretti was one of the attorneys who represented six men convicted of an attempted invasion of part of Haiti in a plan to set up a base for anti-Castro actions against Cuba.