Drug-Free Noriega Bank Funds Sought : Fair trial: Judge asks prosecutors to find money that could be legally used to pay the strongman’s defense lawyers.

A federal judge Friday ordered government prosecutors to detail the contents and whereabouts of 27 seized bank accounts of Panamanian strongman Manuel A. Noriega, following a motion by Noriega’s defense lawyers to withdraw because they have not been paid.

Noriega, who is imprisoned on drug charges, “must have acquired some assets of his own in 20 years in the Panamanian army free of taint (of drug deals),” said U.S. District Judge William M. Hoeveler during a meeting in open court.

Prosecutors, who seized the accounts under U.S. law allowing such action if the money is believed to be the product of drug dealing, previously indicated the total value of the accounts is about $20 million.

According to Noriega defense attorney Frank Rubino, Noriega has been paid at least $11 million over the years by the U.S. government for his work as an informant. He received another $7 million from other governments, Rubino said.

Differentiating between what he called monies that are “the product of drug dealing,” and those “from other sources” is critical to the defendant’s right to a fair trial, Hoeveler said.

“We have got to recognize that our justice system is on display, and that (Noriega) is entitled to be represented to every extent possible by those he wants to defend him,” said Hoeveler.

Rubino, who represented Noriega for about 18 months before the U.S. invasion of Panama led to Noriega’s arrest and transport to the United States on drug charges Jan. 4, says Noriega is penniless. He said that earlier this year a friend of Noriega’s had given him “less than $100,000” for legal costs, “but that was quickly eaten up.”

Hoeveler called Noriega’s lawyers and prosecutors from the U.S. Attorney’s office together in an attempt to end a week of squabbling over money. On Thursday, three days after his motion to withdraw, Rubino subpoenaed the CIA, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the National Security Agency for records of money paid to Noriega.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Michael Sullivan said the government did not object to providing a list of the accounts, but he said all of them, except one, were in foreign banks.

“Foreign governments will have some interest (in the money) and their laws will prevail over those assets,” Sullivan said.

Sullivan said that defense attorneys’ reasons for requesting withdrawal are “simply untrue and disingenuous.

“Stripped of its misleading and unsupported allegations, counsel’s argument represents an attempt to require the government to pay defense counsel a higher fee,” said Sullivan’s motion, which added that “ . . . counsel’s desire for large fees is no legal or ethical justification for withdrawal.” Attached to the prosecutors’ eight-page motion was an affidavit from Cynthia R. Hawkins, an assistant U.S. attorney, who said that during a January hearing in Orlando on another case, she and Drug Enforcement Administration special agent David Willis heard Rubino say the retainer he had been paid to represent Noriega was “in the seven figures.”

Rubino dismissed that allegation as “foolishness.”

“What I said was that the attorneys’ fees alone are in the seven figures. But I haven’t received that,” he said.

Noriega, being held in a federal jail here, is scheduled to come to trial next Jan. 28.