US drugs prosecutors switch sides to defend accused Colombian traffickers

After working to take down cartels, former officials say America's 'war on drugs' is misguided and the human cost too high
Rory Carroll in Los Angeles
The Guardian, Wednesday 27 February 2013


US prosecutors and other senior officials who spearheaded the war against drug cartels have quit their jobs to defend Colombian cocaine traffickers, saying their clients are not bad people and that United States drug policy is wrong.

Senior former assistant US attorneys and Drug Enforcement Administration agents are turning years of experience in investigating, indicting and extraditing narcos to the advantage of the alleged traffickers they now represent.

"I'm not embarrassed about the fact that I changed sides," said Robert Feitel, a Washington-based attorney who used to pursue traffickers and money launderers at the Department of Justice. "And I'm not shy about saying that no one knows better how a prosecutor thinks. That's what people get when they come to me. There are lots of hidden things to know about these cases."

The fence-jumpers include Bonnie Klapper, who was feted for taking down the Norte del Valle cartel, Leo Arreguin, who headed the DEA's office in Bogota, and reportedly former members of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, Ice. They work in separate legal practices with their own clients, not as a group.

In interviews with the Guardian, Feitel and Klapper spoke of recognising the humanity of their clients and called for alternatives to a four-decade-old "war on drugs" which costs billions of dollars and incarcerates thousands.

Feitel (pictured) called for cocaine and cannabis to be legalised and complained that extradited drug suspects were treated worse than Guantanamo Bay detainees. "I don't think I could ever be a prosecutor again. The human drama that I see on this side is sometimes more than I can bear."

The sight of high-profile former US officials visiting clients in Colombian and US jails has astonished observers in Colombia – which has long followed Washington's lead on drugs – but passed largely unnoticed in the US.

Last December Arreguin, who was director of the DEA in Colombia from 1998 – 2003, tried to visit the alleged drug lord Diego Pérez, alias Diego Rastrojo, at his jail in Giron, Santander, but was turned away because he lacked permission, local media reported. Rastrojo, a former member of the Farc, is accused of commanding 800 hitmen and smuggling tonnes of cocaine. Contacted at his home in Virginia, Arreguin declined to be interviewed: "I have nothing to say."

Feitel, who worked closely with the Department of Justice's Narcotic and Dangerous Drugs Section until retiring from public service in 2009, said he grew frustrated with official bungling in drug-related cases. "I realised I no longer wanted to be part of this process. It was time to go. After 22 years, enough."

He became a defence lawyer, started learning Spanish and uses his expertise to represent around two dozen Colombian clients from a DC-based office. "It's hard to defend a Colombian on drugs trafficking if you don't understand the predicate of how drugs trafficking currently works in Colombia."

With Colombia's justice system geared towards extradition suspects face intense pressure to trade information for a deal with US authorities before fellow arrestees do the same. "You can try to head off your problem by trying to hire a US lawyer and get ahead of the curve so to speak."

Traffickers' lawyers usually trade reduced sentences for information, but Feitel said he liked to fight cases if justified on merit. "Otherwise I'm just like everyone else. But I'm not because I was a prosecutor for so long." He occasionally teams up with his wife, a defence attorney, and another colleague at a different firm. "We are fighters for our clients, we don't just say to the government, OK, you can have it your way. I'm not in it for the theory, I'm in it to win. "

Often government cases, when analysed, proved weak, he said. "My job is to try to maximise the ability of my clients to cooperate, if that's what they want. And if they want to fight, then my job is to fight every single step once they come to the United States."

He fought "tooth and nail" for Ramiro Anturi, a Colombian prosecutor accused of leaking information to traffickers. Anturi received an unexpectedly light sentence – 55 months despite the DEA trumpeting the case as evidence it would "not tolerate any acts that put our agents' lives in jeopardy".

Feitel said he was shaken by the "trauma" of suspects who were extradited to the US speaking no English, with no visits from relatives denied visas. "They have no one to hug them. There is a lot of human anguish that I had not previously seen. I've had clients whose parents have died while they've been in jail. It's a pretty terrible fate to be extradited. While it might be defensible to do it to the leaders I don't think it's defensible to do it to the rank and file traffickers in Colombia. I find it really troubling."

He said the US system punished traffickers not according to their importance but the quantity of drugs, meaning a truck driver nabbed with a big consignment could face a longer stretch than a capo caught with a lesser amount. The practise of squeezing information and sending traffickers back to Colombia after their sentence, Feitel said, left them vulnerable to revenge. "Sooner or later someone is going to get killed and that will deter others from talking."

He said most of his clients had no history of violence but that even those implicated in kidnapping and murder were entitled to a defence. "I don't represent people I don't like. So I like all my clients." The former prosecutor said he had some regrets about his previous career. "I try to grow with what I do. I think I would change certain things that I did."

Former colleagues respected him for his honesty even though now they were on opposite sides, he said. "When we disagree, we do it like professionals. Agents are pretty savvy; they know when there are weaknesses in their case."

As an assistant US attorney Bonnie Klapper, working from New York, earned a high profile in helping to dismantle the Norte del Valle cartel, a role publicised in the books The Takedown, by Jeffrey Robinson, and El Cartel de los Sapos, by Andres Lopez Lopez, a best-seller in Colombia which was turned into a telenovela and a film.

Klapper (pictured) retired from public service last February after 26 years and went into private practice with offices in New York and Miami. Two months later Colombian media reported her visiting La Picota jail in Bogota to see Andrés Arroyave, alias Máquina, a 25-year-old alleged drug lord accused of killing a lawyer and a DEA informant, among others, in revenge for his father's murder. He has a reported $100m fortune.

In an email interview Kappler said she stopped being an assistant US attorney because of long commutes, threats to her life and meddling supervisors. "I don't see that I have moved from one side of the fence to the other. As an AUSA, I never felt it was my job to obtain the harshest sentence; I always felt that my mission was to see that justice was done. I feel the same about my role now. The system only works when there are hard-working, honest people with integrity on both the government and the defense side."

Former colleagues supported her switch, she said. "In fact, those with whom I worked previously are happy to see me on the other side, as they know they can trust me and I will capably represent my clients. The few negative comments I have heard have been either from agents (not AUSAs) who did not know me before."

Unlike Feitel, Klapper said her new role had not really changed her perspective. "As a prosecutor, while I did prosecute a number of very bad, violent individuals, the vast majority … were good people who made bad choices."

For the people she once pursued, and those she now defended, trafficking was a family business and route out of poverty, she said. "I have always felt that it was unfair of our government to place all of the onus on Colombians or Mexicans or Central Americans when the demand for the drugs comes from our own country."

Klapper called for "more innovative solutions" to replace the drug war's "endless cycle of arrests, prosecutions and convictions, where there is always someone waiting in the wings to take the place of the last individual convicted".

Feitel was more emphatic in calling the drug war a failure, saying decades of effort, billions of dollars and countless lives had made no appreciable difference to the quantity of drugs on American streets. He urged federal authorities to legalise and regulate cannabis and cocaine. "And I say that even though it would be bad for my business."

Feds crack down on Colorado medical pot dispensaries

(Ah, a multiple state broken campaign promise from Obama.--jef)

By Reuters - Friday, January 13, 2012

DENVER (Reuters) – Federal prosecutors in Colorado launched a crackdown on Thursday against nearly two dozen medical marijuana dispensaries located within 1,000 feet of schools, giving the proprietors 45 days to cease operations or face civil and criminal penalties.

U.S. Attorney John Walsh issued the ultimatum in letters to 23 dispensaries and landlords he said were in violation of federal and state law, a statement from the U.S. Justice Department said.

The move makes Colorado the latest battleground pitting federal prosecutors against storefront distributors of pot in states that have decriminalized marijuana for medical purposes.

“When the voters of Colorado passed the limited medical marijuana amendment in 2000, they could not have anticipated that their vote would be used to justify large marijuana stores located within blocks of our schools,” Walsh said.

He cited a 2011 memo from U.S. Deputy Attorney General James Cole that allows individual federal prosecutors to “exercise their discretion to handle marijuana trafficking matters.”

The Colorado move followed an announcement in October by federal prosecutors in California that they were mounting a crackdown against medical pot dispensaries they said were fronts for large-scale, for-profit drug trafficking.

Last March, federal agents also raided greenhouses and dispensaries in 13 cities in Montana cited by authorities as operating illegally under the guise of that state’s medical marijuana law.

A month later, U.S. attorneys in Washington state issued a legal opinion threatening to prosecute not only dispensary owners and growers but state officials who would have enforced a proposed state licensing system for medical marijuana.

Washington Governor Christine Gregoire cited that warning in her decision to veto a bill to establish a new regulatory system for state-sanctioned suppliers of medicinal cannabis.

A total of 16 states and the District of Columbia have enacted some sort of legalized medical-marijuana statutes, according to the National Drug Policy Alliance. But cannabis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under federal law, a point Walsh underscored in his letter to Colorado dispensary operators.

“The dispensary is operating in violation of federal law, and the Department of Justice has the authority to enforce the federal law … even when such activities may be permitted under state law,” the letter said.

Walsh did not identify any of the letter’s recipients, except to say the businesses were located throughout the state.

Denver lawyer Robert Corry, who represents clients charged with marijuana offenses, said in recent testimony before the Denver City Council that “there should be no arbitrary distance limits” for legal marijuana businesses.

“There is no documented case of any child ever purchasing or obtaining medical marijuana from a dispensary,” he said.

Nevertheless, Walsh said law enforcement will be on the lookout for other violators, and offenders could be subject to asset seizure and property forfeitures.

“Those who do not comply will be subject to potential criminal prosecution and civil enforcement actions,” Walsh said. “Because the stores are operating within 1,000 feet of a school, enhanced penalties apply under federal law.”

California’s largest doctor group calls for marijuana legalization

By Eric W. Dolan - RAW Story
Sunday, October 16, 2011

 

 

The California Medical Association, the state’s largest doctor group, on Friday adopted a resolution to support the legalization of marijuana for medical uses, according to the Los Angeles Times.

The group’s support of medical marijuana comes after U.S. prosecutors in California threatened to seize the properties of licensed California marijuana dispensaries if they don’t close up shop within 45 days. U.S. attorneys in California have also threatened to target newspapers, radio stations and other media outlets that advertise for dispensaries.

The California Medical Association said the discrepancy between state and federal law created an untenable situation for physicians. The use of marijuana for medical purposes is legal under California law, but the drug is still classified as a Schedule I substance under federal law, a classification reserved for dangerous drugs with no real medicinal value.

“It’s an uncomfortable position for doctors,” said Dr. Donald Lyman, the physician who wrote the new policy. “It is an open question whether cannabis is useful or not. That question can only be answered once it is legalized and more research is done. Then, and only then, can we know what it is useful for.”

In August, the California Medical Association issued recommendations for physicians on medical marijuana, saying that the drug “may be effective for treatment of nausea, anorexia, pain and other conditions (i.e., spasticity), but that more clinical research is needed regarding specific indications, dosing, and the management of side effects.”

The group is skeptical of marijuana’s medical value, but believes the drug’s criminalization has “proven to be a failed public health policy.” They would like to see marijuana regulated in a manner similar to tobacco and alcohol, and no longer classified as a Schedule I substance.

But the Drug Enforcement Administration denied a nine-year-old petition to initiate proceedings to reschedule marijuana in late June, claiming that, “marijuana has a high potential for abuse, has no accepted medical use in the United States, and lacks an acceptable level of safety for use even under medical supervision.” The medical marijuana advocacy groups Americans for Safe Access (ASA) and the Coalition for Rescheduling Cannabis (CRC) have filed a lawsuit against federal agency over the issue.

The use of medical marijuana has been legalized in 16 states and the District of Columbia. But, according to the DEA, marijuana cannot be considered to have medicinal value because there is a lack of scientific studies assessing its safety and efficacy as a medicine.
The American Medical Association, the largest physician’s organization in the U.S., adopted a resolution in 2009 calling on the DEA to reclassify marijuana to facilitate research on marijuana-based medicines.

“Results of short term controlled trials indicate that smoked cannabis reduces neuropathic pain, improves appetite and caloric intake especially in patients with reduced muscle mass, and may relieve spasticity and pain in patients with multiple sclerosis,” the AMA’s resolution (PDF) reads.