Countywide : Prosecutor Sums Up in Major Drug Trial

The prosecutor in the biggest money-laundering trial in Ventura County history urged jurors Wednesday to convict defendant Otoniel Urrego of coordinating the shipment of millions of dollars in drug money from Simi Valley to Colombia.

Even though Urrego never came near the Simi Valley office he had set up to send drug money from the Los Angeles area to Colombia, said Deputy Dist. Atty. James Grunert in his closing trial argument, he is as guilty of the illegal activities that occurred there as the people who packaged the cash.

Urrego, 64, whose home is near Miami, Fla., is charged with conspiracy to transport cocaine into the state for sale and possession of more than $100,000 in drug money. The possession charge is tied to the seizure of $2.5 million in cash when Urrego’s brother and two sisters-in-law were arrested in Simi Valley and Chatsworth in May, 1989.

Defense attorney Terrence A. Roden of Los Angeles is scheduled to make his closing arguments today.

Grunert told jurors that Urrego was the liaison between Colombia and several cells of operation set up near major U.S. metropolitan areas to funnel money to the Medellin drug cartel. In the two months that the Simi Valley cell was in operation, $25 million was sent to Colombia, according to ledgers confiscated in 1989.

No cocaine was found with the money, but Grunert told jurors that the highly structured, highly efficient drug cartel is organized that way to make it difficult for law enforcement to break apart the business.

“If you hit the dope you don’t get any money; if you hit the money, you don’t get any dope,” Grunert said. “That’s why you don’t see any cocaine in this case--we hit the money side of the operation.”

Speaking for four hours, Grunert reviewed a series of faxed memos informing Urrego of how much drug money was collected from four area “wholesalers” and when that money would be concealed in barrels of dry paint pigment and shipped to Dallas on the way to Colombia.

The prosecutor also reviewed Urrego’s alleged coordination of activities in cells operating in Chicago, New York and Denver. Once the Simi Valley operation was shut down, another cell was set up in Gardena, only to be closed in 1991 by Orange County narcotics officers, Grunert said.

Urrego is charged only with activities that occurred in Ventura County.