Indictment Charges S.F. Lawyer Laundered Money for Drug Ring

A prominent defense lawyer helped launder money and hide assets of a drug smuggling ring masterminded by a former client, according to a federal indictment unsealed Monday.

The indictment links attorney Patrick Hallinan, 59, to drug kingpin Ciro Wayne Mancuso, a former Lake Tahoe developer. Mancuso pleaded guilty in 1990 to heading a $250-million criminal network that imported tons of marijuana from Mexico, Morocco and Thailand with plans to distribute it on the West Coast.

Hallinan, named in 13 of the indictment’s 19 counts, was accused of helping the so-called Mancuso Organization launder money, hide assets and obstruct federal investigators who were trying to crack the smuggling ring.

Eleven others, including Reno attorney Jack S. Grellman, also were charged, bringing to roughly 50 the number of people accused of aiding Mancuso’s enterprise, said Assistant U.S. Atty. William Welch.

Hallinan, who has served as defense counsel to judges and former state schools chief Bill Honig, was freed on a $300,000 bond after a detention hearing before federal Magistrate Phyllis Hamilton.

His attorney, John Keker, claimed the government’s case was based primarily on the word of Mancuso. Keker said Hallinan had represented Mancuso during the early 1980s but severed ties.

Hallinan, who was arrested Friday, was nursing a cut lip suffered when he tripped while being led from his cell in shackles to a meeting with his brother, San Francisco Supervisor Terence Hallinan.

The supervisor said government officials were zealots for pursuing his brother as a criminal.