Man Left Brain Dead by Drug-Laced Drink Moves

The family of a man who lapsed into a coma three weeks ago after gulping down a cocaine-laced Colombian soft drink has reversed their decision to disconnect his respirator after seeing movement in his arm and leg for the second consecutive day Wednesday.

Doctors say 25-year-old Maximo Rene Menendez is brain dead. But on Tuesday his mother, who was moments away from giving approval to have her son removed from a respirator, saw him move slightly.

“We should get an explanation for those movements before we cut him off,” said Philip M. Gerson, an attorney representing Menendez’s mother, Margarita Rabaza. “The idea that she came so close to pulling the plug is very upsetting to her.”

Meanwhile, the FBI has issued a nationwide alert for a Miami man involved in importing 1,000 cases of the soft drink, called Pony Malta de Bavaria, in what agents say was a new twist in an old game--smuggling cocaine into the U.S.

Hugo Alfredo Rios, a 36-year-old Colombian, operated a Miami importing company that apparently brought in the drink in bottles bearing counterfeit labels.

Rios, who was in the United States on an expired visa, disappeared soon after Menendez unsuspectingly drank from the bottle of tainted malta July 26. “We’d like to question him regarding this whole matter,” said FBI spokesman Paul Miller.

Miller said the FBI has tested more than 200 cases of the malta--a sweet, syrupy drink made from sugar cane--and found 45 contaminated bottles, each containing from 20 to 40 grams of cocaine. One gram is considered lethal.

Another 483 cases of the same shipment are in the custody of federal agents in Jersey City, N.J. That leaves some 225 cases--containing more than 8,000 bottles--missing and presumed dangerous, Miller said. It is unclear how the contaminated drinks found their way to the shelves of a Miami supermarket, where Menendez’s mother bought several bottles.

The Food and Drug Administration has ordered stores to stop selling Pony Malta. Menendez is the only known victim of the tainted drink.

Menendez, who in January joined his mother and stepfather in Miami after years of seeking permission to leave Cuba, suffered a heart attack immediately after downing the malta in his home. He was revived by paramedics, but fell into a coma soon after arriving at the hospital.