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NEW YORK — A federal narcotics agent leaked delicate case details about one among Washington’s prime prison targets in Venezuela as a part of a scheme to promote authorities secrets and techniques to protection legal professionals in search of to draw deep-pocketed purchasers, a jury was advised this week.
In a wiretapped telephone name, U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Agent John Costanzo Jr. revealed the precise date in 2019 when prosecutors in Miami deliberate to deliver prices in opposition to businessman Alex Saab for allegedly siphoning $350 million from state contracts.
The leak, not beforehand made public, marks yet one more embarrassing case of high-profile agent misconduct on the U.S.’ premier anti-narcotics company and will complicate the Justice Division’s already-fraught prosecution of Saab.
Saab has turn out to be a trigger célèbre amongst allies of President Nicolas Maduro. The socialist chief claims the Colombian-born businessman is a Venezuelan diplomat focused for his efforts to bypass American sanctions imposed by the Trump administration. Saab was arrested throughout a jet gas cease in 2020 whereas en path to Iran, the place he was despatched by Maduro to barter oil offers.
However previous to his arrest, Saab was himself signed up as a DEA informant, assembly with brokers exterior Venezuela, forfeiting thousands and thousands in unlawful earnings and agreeing to assist deepen their investigation of Maduro’s inside circle earlier than abandoning his cooperation settlement, in line with prosecutors.
“Once we indict somebody, there’s a cause that it’s secret,” Michael Nadler, a former federal prosecutor in Miami who charged Saab, advised the Manhattan federal jury. “You shouldn’t be giving info to help anyone exterior the prosecution crew to get purchasers.”
PHOTOS: DEA agent leaked secret details about Maduro ally focused by US, prosecutor says
Nadler’s testimony got here a number of days into the bribery trial of Costanzo, who’s charged with pocketing $73,000 in money in return for leaking confidential legislation enforcement info to his former boss within the company – and now co-defendant – Manny Recio.
Recio, days after retiring as a DEA supervisor, went to work as an investigator for Miami protection legal professionals Luis Guerra and David Macey.
Whereas prosecutors have described the protection legal professionals as “crooked attorneys” who “paid handsomely for DEA secrets and techniques,” they haven’t defined to jurors why they haven’t been charged alongside Costanzo and Recio.
Macey and Guerra didn’t reply to requests for remark nor did The Florida Bar, which polices lawyer conduct, say whether or not it had taken any disciplinary motion in opposition to the 2 males.
Costanzo and Recio vehemently deny wrongdoing and have mentioned the fees are rooted in “leaps, guesswork and hypothesis.” They’ve attacked this week the credibility of key witness Jorge Hernández, a longtime drug snitch who wore a wire for the FBI on this case even after the DEA blacklisted him for extorting different informants. Hernández has pleaded responsible to cash laundering and advised jurors he hopes his testimony will earn him a sentence of time served.
“The federal government is seeing ghosts as a result of there was by no means a quid professional quo,” protection lawyer Torrey Younger mentioned in her opening assertion. “John Costanzo wouldn’t be purchased, couldn’t be purchased and wasn’t ever purchased.”
It’s not clear what Recio did with the data leaked to him about Saab. Nevertheless, he had been in shut communication with Hernández, who was a trusted confidant of Saab and had been enlisted by Recio to assist the protection attorneys recruit purchasers.
“I don’t know if you wish to make your transfer now or wait,” Costanzo advised Recio, referring to Saab, in a single wiretapped dialog performed in court docket Tuesday. “For those who get a gathering, let me know and I’ll let you know what to say.”
Saab protection lawyer Neil Schuster, who has attended the trial since its outset, declined to remark, citing a decide’s gag order within the case.
Prosecutors have painted Costanzo as a corrupt agent who repeatedly queried a DEA database at Recio’s behest and leaked info to him over a burner telephone about a number of ongoing investigations. One probe concerned a high-level trafficker within the Dominican Republic who managed to elude seize for greater than 4 months regardless of a manhunt involving 700 legislation enforcement officers.
Each lawmen deleted a whole lot of calls and messages in what prosecutors say was an try and cowl their tracks. In change for the leaked info, Recio allegedly directed $73,000 in purchases to Costanzo, together with airplane tickets and a down cost on a apartment.
“Recio knew who would promote DEA’s secrets and techniques for chilly, onerous money,” Assistant U.S. Lawyer Mathew Andrews advised jurors in his opening assertion. “Costanzo and Recio thought they might get away with it, they usually had been incorrect.”
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Goodman reported from Miami.
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