9-1/2-month 'Swordfish' Trial Is Winding Up
Saturday, June 6, 1987
By JEFF LEEN
Herald Staff Writer
In a futuristic maroon-and-white courtroom that once served as a Miami Vice set, the longest federal criminal trial in South Florida history inches to a conclusion after 9 1/2 months.
The trial has featured:
- A best-selling author's secret collaboration deal with a key prosecution witness.
- A defendant who claims she was kidnapped by the U.S. government.
- The same defendant professing to be a legitimate businesswoman who dealt in large amounts of U.S. currency - more than $5.5 million - and didn't keep financial records.
- A defense theory that the defendant was raising money to ransom the kidnapped children of a Colombian cocaine kingpin.
Welcome to "Operation Swordfish," a marathon excursion into the Cocaine Cowboy days of the early 1980s when $1.5 million was found in a Monopoly box at Miami International Airport and a Colombian drug lord was arrested in North Miami Beach with a gun in his waistband and emeralds in his pockets.
For 110 days, two Colombian women, Marlene Navarro and Bertha Yolanda Paez, have been on trial in the federal courthouse in downtown Miami, charged with being part of an cocaine money-laundering conspiracy.
The case went to the jury of nine women and three men on Tuesday. After 12 hours of deliberations over three days, U.S. District judge Aleee L. Hastings sent the jury home Friday afternoon with instructions to return at 9:30 a.m. Monday.
The trial, which began Sept. 15, 1986, has dragged on so long that four of the original jurors have been replaced. Three left for health reasons - one to have a baby - and a fourth needed to find employment.
The trial has been no easier on the lawyers,
"I know what it's like to be pregnant now," said defense attorney Ray Takiff, who represents Paez.
"I've forgotten the concept of Saturday," said Assistant U.S. Attorney Myles Malman, a 40-year-old career prosecutor who has tried dozens of murder cases in New York.
In its day, Operation Swordfish grabbed headlines and shocked the community. It was the product of a unique sting; DEA agents set up their own business to catch smugglers seeking to launder drug money. The agents called it Dean International Investments, using the first three letters of their agency in the title.
Marlene Navarro was one of Dean's best customers, bringing bags of cash to its offices in Miami Lakes. Agents filmed her op hidden video cameras. The government says she washed $5.5 million.
The DEA says Navarro was tipped off and she had fled Miami by the time the indictment came down on Oct. 19, 1982. In all, 20 people, were indicted. So far, 12 have been convicted or have pleaded guilty.
