About seventeen months ago, a Colombian defendant, instead of waiting to be extradited to the United States, surrendered to federal authorities. The defendant, however, was not coming to the United States to plead guilty to narco-trafficking charges as the government hoped. The government threatened him with trial. The prosecutors said they had paramilitary “cooperators” (the new term)– that would convict him, and he would go to jail for life. The defendant was unmoved.
The staring contest went on for months, but finally the government blinked. Rather than try the defendant, the government accepted a plea to a money laundering charge so old, (fourteen years), that the defendant had to waive his right to object to prosecuting such an old case. As part of the deal the defendant would have to pay a steep fine, but how was the government going to enforce the payment of a fine by a deportable defendant? At sentencing the judge imposed “time served” and the defendant went home.
So why did the Government blink if it had such a strong case? Because it finally had to realize that these paramilitary witnesses had so much “prior bad acts” baggage that no jury would believe them—at least not a unanimous jury. The prosecutors could argue otherwise, but there is no other explanation. They had the defendant, they had the indictment, they had the witnesses, and they believed the defendant was guilty–and still do to this day.
I have been saying through these newsletters ever since the paramilitaries were extradited to the U.S. that it was going to be difficult both legally and politically for the American Government to convict these folks and they should not cooperate until they were either a) returned to Colombia or b) offered a satisfactory plea deal. But the paramilitaries would not listen, and most of them pled guilty–to the relief of United States prosecutors.
That the government blinked in this case was not surprising. It was perfectly reasonable.
David Zapp