Blog Archives - My Experiences With A Drug Kingpin

My Experiences With A Drug Kingpin

Prison Guards

4/30/2014

When I visit prisons I make an attempt to get to know the guards; that is easier in some prisons than others. Personalities seem to vary from region to region, and Jerry says that goes along with the treatment of the inmates as well. In one of the prisons I got to know this one guard, a young man with a keen sense of humor, and one day we started talking about NASCAR. He was excited because he had purchased tickets to one of the major races on a short track, which guaranteed a lot of wrecks.

When next I saw him, I asked if he liked the race and he gave a sheepish grin and said he hadn’t seen it. “I gave my best red-neck appearance,” he said. “I got so drunk the night before I wasn’t able to do anything.”

One of the guards had been in Army special forces, a young man who was proud of his young family. Another guard kidded the visitors, especially the older women, making them feel at ease. But there was another side to the guards as well. At one of the prisons, some of them were confrontational, belligerent, making it clear they didn’t want you there. This was also the place where daily newspapers were delivered once a week and where packages would be held up for weeks before finally being delivered.

I concluded that prisons were a reflection of the leadership who could do pretty much anything they desired without fear of consequences. The warden rules!

I made several complaints that fell on deaf ears. I called, wrote, anything possible without any results. Being in prison is like being held captive in a third world country…..anything goes.

And it isn’t right.

Drugs In Prison

4/29/2014

Smuggling drugs into a prison evidently happens all too frequently, according to Jerry. They come via many different avenues. Once when I was visiting, soon after the inmate arrived and spoke to his female visitor, she walked over to one of the guards and asked him to unlock the bathroom. I noticed that Jerry watched her with some curiosity. A minute or two after she returned to the prisoner, guards rushed in and escorted him firmly out of the visiting area. She and those with her were also led out. Jerry said she had probably been carrying drugs.

While you are randomly searched when you visit a prison, it is not a cavity search, so evidently she was hiding drugs somewhere. I won’t speculate where that was.

He told another story about a couple of inmates at one prison who used a “mule” to bring in drugs. Mule is a slang term for someone who carries drugs, and in this case the man would swallow bags and then pass them out of his body when he went to the bathroom. The mule might have left the prison to go to court or had some other reason to be outside. In this case, the inmates grew tired of waiting for him to pass the drugs, so they cut him open.

He told me other similar stories but you get the idea.

Drugs are more available to some than to others. Once, Jerry was in the same cell block with John Gotti, Nicky Scarfo, and the head of the Cali Cartel. You don’t think they couldn’t get drugs if that was their desire? But none of them used. Jerry says he has never used, only tasting cocaine one occasion.

In later posts, I’ll tell some of the stories he regaled me with about famous cell mates.

Jerry and God

4/28/2014

I think the body of this message was left out yesterday, so I've reposted.

First, I’ll say that Jerry is a friend and I don’t believe he would mind my sharing this information. I would not do anything to embarrass him because he deserves my respect, no matter his past.

Over the many interviews I’ve had with Jerry, it was inevitable that religion come up; well, perhaps a better word would be spirituality because I’m not very religious. In fact, I find the term insulting because it has overtones of piety, and I may be a lot of things, but pious is not on the list. I am, however, spiritual, and I don’t say the word to boast but as a fact of what I am. So, we discussed spirituality.

As you might suspect, being in prison for 30 years affects people in different ways. Some find “religion” and are quick to let everyone know, while others withdraw and wonder if there is a God. Jerry is somewhere in between. He believes in God but doesn’t think, as I’ve previously said, that God cares anything about him. He thinks Jesus was the most righteous man the world has ever seen, and that’s about it.

So, we talked. I fancy myself as somewhat of a student of early Christianity and used this as a baseline for our discussions. I pointed out that there were many beliefs among the early Christians, and by early I mean before books were placed in the canon after the Council of Nice, and that some of these sort of affirmed what he now believed. So, that was a starting point. I gave as an example the Gnostics who believed that humanity fell into three camps regarding a chance of the afterlife: those with the spark of God inside who had the chance, if they could become enlightened enough to escape this world, to have a wonderful afterlife, those who had no chance and were just like animals, destined to become worm food, and those who could obtain a reasonable afterlife through good deeds and works. It was this latter belief that inspired many New Testament writers to challenge in their writings. My point to Jerry was that there has never been, nor will there be, a monolithic approach to Christianity.

I was encouraged by his interest so we began exchanging thoughts. Jerry is well read and intelligent, with a curious mind. He is very familiar with the bible and has discussed it a lot of people. His questions are pointed and logical. I began sending him books. I sent him a book on meditation and discussed little tricks to quiet your mind. He promised he was trying. I sensed it was useless to talk about salvation in the normal sense of the term because he had been through too much, so I simply encouraged him to understand that everything he needed to know was already inside and all he had to do was listen. God wasn’t hiding from him.

His belief about prayer is ambivalent; he wants to believe but doesn’t understand why a God would ever listen to him when there are so many more deserving people. He has many Jewish friends and corresponds with a Rabbi but doesn’t adhere to their total beliefs. Like many throughout history, he wonders if there are two Gods, one in the Old Testament and one in the New. He wonders about errors in the bible, asks what I believe, and I tell him. I also tell him the answer is not within that question, but within himself. Only God can tell the absolute truth.

We talk about this on every visit. I urge him to find peace and tell him that God doesn’t look back, so he shouldn’t either. I tell him that God wants him to have a good life. He has difficulty in accepting this but we are still talking. He is seeking answers. ……..just as we all are.

Jerry and M-19

4/28/2014

In the 20th century, Colombia was a spawning ground for revolutionary groups because of the severe oppression brought by the government. This oppression was one of the reasons for Pablo Escobar’s ascension into power, but that’s another story. What this post is about is a group called M-19, so called because on 19 April 1970 a man was cheated out of victory in a presidential election.

M-19 was a small group, without a lot of influence, not much money, and more a pest to the government than a real threat. But they were a pain in the rear to the drug traffickers because they would kidnap their children for ransom. Escobar retaliated by creating death squads that brutally killed known M-19 members. As to be expected, a truce between the traffickers and M-19 quickly occurred.

M-19 and the CIA formed an alliance because the enemy of my enemy is my friend. It’s the shadowy way of intelligence, cutting your losses in case something goes wrong. Since he was now living in Medellin, Jerry knew about M-19. He also knew about the CIA. He had made a good impression on the cartel leaders, including Escobar, because he ran an efficient operation and had proved to be an excellent pilot. To drug smugglers, pilots were gold.

One day he was approached by a man identifying himself as a representative of M-19. He made it clear that he had been given approval to talk to Jerry. He wanted to make an offer. If Jerry would fly cocaine from Medellin to Europe and return with heroin, he would be paid $20,000,000 a trip. Jerry was astounded. The man assured Jerry that full protection would be provided. He discussed this with Humberto Herrera, his Medellin cartel contact, and was told it was okay with the cartel. However, it would require Jerry to purchase something similar to a Lear jet so he could fly the long distance without refueling.

Jerry thought about it, weighing the pros and cons, before rejecting the offer. He simply didn’t want to be tied to a political organization.

To understand his decision, you need to understand his concept of these organizations, whether it was the CIA, M-19 or others. (You also need to know he was already getting $2,000,000 a flight to smuggle cocaine.) To him, after what he had witnessed, they were capable of extreme violence and betrayal. The CIA, DEA, Customs---he was certain that all were involved in the drug trade. He had seen CIA operatives with cartel leaders and had heard stories about others. And he understood violence. He never went anywhere in Medellin without at least two bodyguards and his home was heavily guarded. So, he thought it was for his best interest if he remained above the political fray.

I know that many who read this think it’s a reach to imagine our government involved in drugs, but I’ve talked to many people, read an abundance of material, much which was presented to Congress, and have concluded that where so much smoke occurs there is probably some fire. Jerry swears he’s is telling the truth about his contacts, and I know of no reason for him to lie, so there is that to consider.

For your consideration I’ve included a summation of a long story about Barry Seal. This has nothing to do with Jerry except it came up as part of my investigation into the CIA’s involvement with drugs. Seal, an accomplished pilot, worked for the Medellin Cartel in the early 1980s until he was caught. In an attempt to avoid prison, he convinced the Vice President’s drug task force to allow him to operate as a high level informant against the Medellin Cartel. His cooperation led to several arrests. Later, he was asked if he feared retribution from the Colombians and his reply was that his greatest fear was from high level officials in the United States, including one top official in the CIA.

He was later murdered outside his hotel. According to several sources, his widow, Debbie Seal, received a $29 million dollar jeopardy assessment from the Internal Revenue Service. It has been claimed that this was a strategy to keep her from talking to reporters. While defending herself from the IRS charge, she discovered a frequently-called phone number in Barry's records. When she dialed it she discovered it belonged to the Defense Intelligence Agency. She was told to "never call it again". Later that day, the DIA phoned her back. "Debbie, you're young, you have a whole life ahead of you, and you have your kids to think about... Don't call anyone in Washington again."

Fulfillment

4/27/2014

First, I’ll say that Jerry is a friend and I don’t believe he would mind my sharing this information. I would not do anything to embarrass him because he deserves my respect, no matter his past.

Over the many interviews I’ve had with Jerry, it was inevitable that religion come up; well, perhaps a better word would be spirituality because I’m not very religious. In fact, I find the term insulting because it has overtones of piety, and I may be a lot of things, but pious is not on the list. I am, however, spiritual, and I don’t say the word to boast but as a fact of what I am. So, we discussed spirituality.

As you might suspect, being in prison for 30 years affects people in different ways. Some find “religion” and are quick to let everyone know, while others withdraw and wonder if there is a God. Jerry is somewhere in between. He believes in God but doesn’t think, as I’ve previously said, that God cares anything about him. He thinks Jesus was the most righteous man the world has ever seen, and that’s about it.

So, we talked. I fancy myself as somewhat of a student of early Christianity and used this as a baseline for our discussions. I pointed out that there were many beliefs among the early Christians, and by early I mean before books were placed in the canon after the Council of Nice, and that some of these sort of affirmed what he now believed. So, that was a starting point. I gave as an example the Gnostics who believed that humanity fell into three camps regarding a chance of the afterlife: those with the spark of God inside who had the chance, if they could become enlightened enough to escape this world, to have a wonderful afterlife, those who had no chance and were just like animals, destined to become worm food, and those who could obtain a reasonable afterlife through good deeds and works. It was this latter belief that inspired many New Testament writers to challenge in their writings. My point to Jerry was that there has never been, nor will there be, a monolithic approach to Christianity.

I was encouraged by his interest so we began exchanging thoughts. Jerry is well read and intelligent, with a curious mind. He is very familiar with the bible and has discussed it a lot of people. His questions are pointed and logical. I began sending him books. I sent him a book on meditation and discussed little tricks to quiet your mind. He promised he was trying. I sensed it was useless to talk about salvation in the normal sense of the term because he had been through too much, so I simply encouraged him to understand that everything he needed to know was already inside and all he had to do was listen. God wasn’t hiding from him.

His belief about prayer is ambivalent; he wants to believe but doesn’t understand why a God would ever listen to him when there are so many more deserving people. He has many Jewish friends and corresponds with a Rabbi but doesn’t adhere to their total beliefs. Like many throughout history, he wonders if there are two Gods, one in the Old Testament and one in the New. He wonders about errors in the bible, asks what I believe, and I tell him. I also tell him the answer is not within that question, but within himself. Only God can tell the absolute truth.

We talk about this on every visit. I urge him to find peace and tell him that God doesn’t look back, so he shouldn’t either. I tell him that God wants him to have a good life. He has difficulty in accepting this but we are still talking. He is seeking answers. ……..just as we all are.

The Boat Trip

4/26/2014

Jerry began the smuggling business in a 27` Sea Ray, traveling alone from south Florida to Jamaica. It was basically a large ski boat, not meant for open water, and he nearly paid with his life for the decision. I said he was alone but he began the journey with three others, one dropping out in Florida, the other two in the Bahamas, leaving him alone, without any experience, but determined to see it through. By the time he reached Haiti, the storm was showing its teeth, and the next morning it began to bite, forcing him to seek refuge behind a tiny, uninhabited island. He said the storm was the worst he could imagine---at that time, as it turned out---and didn’t seem it would ever relent.

The next morning, he resumed his journey to Jamaica. When he reached where the suppliers were supposed to waiting, they weren’t there, not surprising because he was late. When he went ashore, the Jamaican police arrested him—they called it detainment to check him out---and took him to Kingston. After verifying his credentials, and not finding any marijuana, they released him. After making repairs to his boat, which had been damaged by the storm, he prepared for the long return trip to Florida. Then, a surprise happened! He was approached by a young man who whispered that they were waiting for him outside the harbor with the marijuana.

He followed him in his boat, loaded the bales, and set off into the approaching storm. Many things happened in this storm that the book will detail, so I’ll only say it made the previous storm seem like a summer rain. When finally, and miraculously, he reached the Bahamas, he was arrested, beaten, robbed, and told to leave and never return. And that was the end of his boat days in the smuggling business.

As I listened to his story, I was impressed by the courage it took for such a venture. I could not imagine how it must have felt to be battling a raging storm at night in a small boat. But by now I knew that he was one of those people who genuinely felt that if you weren’t living on the edge, you were just taking up space.

A funny side to this story is that the next boat he purchased was a 77` foot yacht, complete with captain and full crew.

Families

4/25/2014

She was blond, with pale blue eyes, high cheekbones, her nose was slender, and her mouth was formed with thin lips on which she wore just a trace of lipstick. She was no more than twenty-two, a soft appearance of innocence, and spoke with an accent of which sounded familiar. And she was there to visit her husband who was in prison for dealing with drugs.

She seemed at first to be embarrassed by our conversation but gradually became at ease. She told me she was from a small town outside of Knoxville, Tennessee, had two small children, and struggled to get by. Her in-laws lived close and helped; otherwise, she said, with slumping shoulders, she just didn’t know how she would make it.

We talked for several minutes while waiting to be taken to the visiting area. She wanted to know why I was visiting and simply shrugged when I said I was interviewing a prisoner for a book. Her eyes said she didn’t think that was a good enough reason to come to a prison. I understood. Prisons were depressing. I would see people happily embrace when they finally got to touch their loved one, only to end up in tears as they left a couple of hours later. I tried to put myself in their place, but of course, that was not possible.

She said she tried to come up regularly but sometimes that wasn’t possible. Sometimes the prison was in lockdown and visitation wasn’t allowed and sometimes one of the children might be sick. I sensed a weariness to her words. I wished her luck and said I would keep her in my thoughts.

Inside, I saw her embrace her husband, young with a babyish face, looking like he was no more than twenty. I was constantly amazed by how young the inmates seemed.

I saw her one other time after that day, then a new woman was visiting the inmate and she was no longer there. Then, one day I was seated close to him when his mother visited, and we began talking. She said his wife had taken up with another man and the other woman I saw was his sister. She said it without anger, as though understanding the burden the wife had felt.

That, I learned, was fairly common, the dissolution of family while the father is incarcerated. But still I recalled her sorrowful eyes and hoped that somehow she and her inmate would get back together.

General Russell Bowen

4/24/2014

Retired Brig. General Russell Bowen is another fascinating person tied to Jerry’s cocaine empire. During WW 2, he received the Distinguished Flying Cross and other medals for his time as a young fighter pilot. It was during this time he was brought into the OSS and when President Truman banned the intelligence organization, Bowen and others secretly maintained the organization, later to become the CIA. He helped establish several airlines in South America that were used as cover for the CIA and was an expert at extracting CIA operatives from dangerous situations when their cover had been exposed. He was heavily involved in CIA drug trafficking, especially in South America, and had many friends within both the Medellin and Cali cartels. Eventually, Bowen and others became disenchanted with the CIA involvement with drugs and wanted to stop the practice of bringing them into America. In the early 1980’s, he wrote an anonymous letter to U.S. Customs, reporting the details of the smuggling operation, but nothing happened. But something did happen to him. In 1982, a CIA operative ordered him to fly a trip into Medellin, Colombia, taking a CIA undercover agent and to then bring back another agent. On the return trip, several hundred pounds of cocaine were placed on the plane. When he landed at a remote airport in Georgia, federal authorities were waiting. At his trial, he wasn’t allowed to use his CIA status as a defense---much like Harold Rosenthal---and was sentenced to hard time.

How does this tie into Jerry LeQuire? Well, the CIA operative who ordered him to go to Colombia was the same man who had worked for Jerry for many years. And the airport where he was arrested was the same airport Jerry had bought a few years earlier.

There will be more on this in later posts.

Karla Espinal

4/22/2014

Karla Espinal was a beautiful Cuban that Jerry met in Kentucky, through a lawyer friend with the nickname, “Lying Larry.” It was an apt name as Jerry would later regrettably discover. Karla soon became his mistress and moved into his palatial home in Fort Lauderdale. She wasn’t aware of this but he also had another mistress who would fly from Colombia and spend the weekend with him at a Miami hotel, but that’s another story. Jerry wasn’t sure he could trust Karla and after his smuggling organization came crumbling around his feet, he began to suspect that she had betrayed him. Later, after his arrest she convinced him they should get married so she couldn’t be forced to testify against him. This was a mistake because she began taking his money, money he had stashed away, and running wild. She had a good friend, a woman named Bonnie Anders, who had worked for Jerry as a wire-tap expert. She had even helped arrange the tapping of the federal grand jury room so Jerry would know who was saying what. (Jerry was never found guilty of any of this because there was no proof of his direct involvement.) Bonnie and Karla began their own cocaine operation, using Jerry’s Colombian contacts .As soon as Jerry learned what she was doing, he divorced her. When she was caught, as an act of retribution, and a way to gain her freedom, she went over to the feds and began feeding them both truth and lies. Whatever they wanted to hear, she was more than ready to provide. So, new charges, including RICO, were brought against him, and Karla was the star witness. Not only did she testify against him, she testified against the Colombians, so she was forced to enter the witness protection program. I’ve been unable to learn if she’s still alive, but Bonnie is living in Kentucky.

F. Lee Bailey

4/21/2014

F. Lee Bailey is one of the more interesting people you could hope to meet. He represented Jerry in most of his trials and according to Jerry, was worth every penny paid---and it was a lot of pennies. When I first tried to contact Bailey, I had to go through an advertising firm because he had lost his license to practice law and was into another line of work. But that’s another story.

Jerry’s tales about him were interesting. He said that when Bailey entered the courtroom, you could almost hear a pin drop, and when he began cross-examining witnesses, the prosecutor would move to the edge of his seat. His reputation was such that people went out of their way to accommodate him and his quick tongue and command of the English language would turn witnesses into muttering imbeciles. On one occasion, when Jerry’s ex-wife was on the witness stand, Bailey’s cross-examination caught her in such a large lie that the prosecutor jumped to his feet and said she had just made him, the prosecutor, a witness for the defense.

Still, Jerry went to prison, but the original deal that Bailey worked out was nothing like what Jerry eventually received. If the feds had stuck to their word, Jerry would be out of prison. But that’s another story for another time. For now, understand that no matter what you might think about Bailey, he was one of the best. Like someone told me, if you listed all the lawyers his equal, it wouldn’t take long to call roll.