Bail in Drug Money Case Is Protested : Narcotics: Two suspects wait to enter pleas until their lawyers can read the grand jury transcript. One is held on a $500-million bond.

Defense attorneys on Friday protested the record $500-million bail holding a suspected Colombian drug money launderer in jail, but withheld his plea for a week so they can read the sealed Ventura County grand jury transcript.

Superior Court Judge Charles W. Campbell Jr. agreed to postpone the arraignment of 63-year-old Otoniel Urrego and his sister-in-law, Luz Urrego, 37, who were arrested March 18 at their homes in Miami and North Hollywood, respectively.

Luz Urrego stood with hands clasped behind her while Otoniel Urrego sat quietly in a wheelchair. Otoniel Urrego has been a paraplegic since contracting myelitis at age 16, according to his attorneys.

A sealed grand jury indictment issued on June 12, 1991, charges the Urregos and two as-yet unidentified people with conspiracy to sell cocaine and possessing money obtained from cocaine trafficking, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. James Grunert.

“I think it’s a bit ridiculous,” defense attorney Terrence A. Roden later said of the $500-million bail, the highest ever set in Ventura County and one of the highest in California history.

Roden said his client is a retired marine hardware importer.

“The indictment doesn’t say anything. My client had nothing to do with it,” Roden said.

Luz Urrego’s attorney also criticized her $1-million bail, saying the mother of three has worked as a key punch operator in the same place for many years and poses no risk of fleeing.

“We find this $1-million bail totally outrageous,” said attorney Daniel R. Gonzalez of Simi Valley.

On May 28, 1989, Simi Valley police arrested Otoniel and Luz Urrego, along with Floriberto Urrego and his wife, Martha, seizing $1 million from the family’s Sweetwood Street home and $1.5 million from a car that was being driven away from it. All four were released without being charged.

Court records show that Floriberto and Martha Urrego laid claim to the house and the cash, but later went back to their home in Barranquilla, Colombia, and forfeited the claim.

Luz Urrego filed papers in Ventura County Superior Court two weeks ago to reclaim the house, where she and her three daughters had lived before her 1989 arrest. The papers also asked for the return of a separate lot of cash, totaling $72,469.85, office equipment and communications gear taken during the seizure.

Court records show that on March 11, the court returned to Urrego the house and some personal items, but kept the cash and equipment, including five beepers, two cellular phones, a paper shredder, a radio scanner, binoculars, a fax machine, a forklift and a 200-pound scale.

The house was returned because there was no proof that it was bought with the proceeds of drug sales, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Ronald C. Janes, supervisor of the major crimes and narcotics unit.

Municipal Judge Herbert Curtis III ordered the rest of the equipment and cash, including the $2.5 million seized by Simi Valley police, forfeited to the county, saying it came from drug profits, court records show.

Gonzalez said that prosecutors returned the house because their case is weak.

“If you can’t prove you obtained it lawfully, you forfeit that property,” he said. “My client proved that she obtained that property lawfully.”