Ex-U.S. Prosecutor Faces Trial on Drug Charges
A former federal prosecutor arrested at his Pacific Palisades home last week agreed Tuesday to go to San Diego to face charges that he ran a cocaine-trafficking ring from 1983 to 1987, the man’s attorney said.
Juan P. Robertson, 44, who now works as a private attorney, has been indicted by a federal grand jury in San Diego on charges of cocaine distribution, racketeering and running a “continuing criminal enterprise.”
Robertson appeared before a federal magistrate Tuesday and waived his right to a hearing on his identity, according to his attorney, David Wood. Calling the prosecution’s case an “obscene piece of overreaching,” Wood said Robertson would stand trial in San Diego before facing another indictment in Phoenix on tax fraud charges.
Robertson, an assistant U.S. attorney in Los Angeles from 1976 to 1980, faces from 10 years to life in prison and millions of dollars in fines if convicted on the drug charges.
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