2 Ex-Law Officials Accused in Drug Smuggling Scheme

A government extradition expert who once helped bring Colombian drug smugglers and other foreign criminals to justice in the United States was among three U.S. lawyers accused Monday in a drug smuggling conspiracy.

More than 60 people were charged in the case, including the former Justice Department official and a former federal prosecutor. Three other lawyers, including a second federal prosecutor, have already pleaded guilty to reduced charges.

One of the lawyers named in the indictment was Michael Abbell, who once headed the international affairs office of the Justice Department’s criminal division. Abbell’s duties included heading efforts to bring the Cali cartel smugglers to justice in the United States.

After leaving government service, Abbell represented reputed Cali cartel leader Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejuela.

“These lawyers defended clients charged with drug crimes aggressively,” said Roy Black, Abbell’s attorney. “They did all the things lawyers are supposed to do, and now they’re charged.”

The charges against the former Justice Department lawyers stemmed from their activities after they left the department, authorities said.

Federal officials said the lawyers warned potential witnesses to keep silent, provided drug money to relatives of cartel associates being prosecuted and fabricated evidence for use in Colombia to obstruct prosecution.

U.S. Atty. Kendall Coffey called the indictment “the single most significant prosecution in history against the Cali cartel.”

Another of the lawyers, William Moran, was accused of tipping the cartel to the identity of an informant who was later killed. Marty Weinberg, Moran’s lawyer, said his client was not guilty.

The investigation, dubbed Operation Cornerstone, provided one of the most detailed pictures yet of the sophisticated Cali cartel and especially how it may have used U.S. defense lawyers to deliver money, falsify evidence and even deliver warnings to those in jail about the hazards of cooperation, federal agents said.

The cartel, which is run like a Fortune 500 company, has smuggled an estimated 200,000 kilograms of cocaine into the United States since 1983 and is responsible for bringing in 80% of the drug circulating in this country, federal officials said.

The indictment also charged cartel leaders Miguel Rodriguez-Orejuela, Gilberto Rodriguez-Orejuela, Jose Santacruz-Londono and Helmer Herrera-Buitrago and dozens of distributors and managers in Latin America and the southeastern United States. Earlier indictments had named many of the leading figures in the Cali cartel.

About a third of the people named in the indictment are in the United States. Federal officials said 22 had been arrested by Monday.