3 Ex-Justice Dept. Lawyers Indicted in Huge Drug Case

Three former federal attorneys, including one who served as a top-ranking Justice Department official, were indicted Monday in Miami along with 56 others as part of a broad racketeering case against the Colombia-based Cali cartel, a group charged with running a $2-billion cocaine distribution enterprise since 1983.

The indictment incorporates evidence gathered over a decade about the cartel’s activities in the United States, where it allegedly controls about 80% of the cocaine supply and is believed to have smuggled in at least 210,000 tons of the drug. The indictment describes the cartel as a multinational corporate-style enterprise that has effectively used U.S. lawyers to protect its financial interests and help disrupt investigations here and in Colombia.

Among the attorneys indicted in the case is Michael Abbell, who once headed the Justice Department’s Office of International Affairs. Abbell, who left the department in 1984, participated in federal efforts to investigate one of the Cali cartel’s co-founders, Jose Santacruz Londono. Donald Ferguson, who had been an assistant U.S. attorney in Miami, also was charged. Former assistant U.S. attorney Joel Rosenthal has pleaded guilty in the case to charges of money laundering.

Abbell and the other lawyers face charges of money laundering, drug conspiracy and racketeering. The indictment also charges them with obstructing justice, preparing false affidavits and conveying warnings to arrested cartel members that they should not cooperate with the government.

The case against the lawyers is unusual because it calls into question the generally protected nature of attorney-client communications. But the indictment charges that the work of attorneys retained by the cartel went far beyond legal boundaries, with the defense lawyers aiding the cartel in the commission of illegal acts.

South Florida lawyers Francisco Laguna and Robert Moore already have pleaded guilty to charges in the case after an investigation in which the Justice Department seized law firm files and tracked cartel payments to lawyers. Laguna was a partner of Abbell in the Ristau & Abbell Miami office. South Florida defense attorney William Moran also was charged.

Miami attorney Albert Krieger, who represents Moran, said that joining allegations against the cartel with charges against the lawyers is prejudicial. “The indictment is extraordinarily detailed,” he said. “The result of that, whereas the lawyers are excluded from the allegations concerning their participation in drug smuggling and drug distribution, they are thrown into a case with those who are accused of such activities. The result is that the spillover effect is guaranteed to hinder the jury’s consideration of the separate acts of the lawyers.”

Santacruz and the other alleged cartel co-founder, Gilberto Rodriguez Orejuela, also were charged Monday in the broad racketeering case unsealed in Miami. But the alleged Cali kingpins, who are believed to be living in Colombia, already have been indicted on drug charges numerous times in this country. Authorities here have been unable to bring them to trial because of Colombia’s policy prohibiting the extradition of its citizens to the United States.

The racketeering case builds on earlier cases brought by the DEA against the Cali leaders.