Ex DEA chief indicted in Allen Stanford scandal (new Article)
Online
September 11, 2009
In a surprise indictment, a prominent former Miami federal drug agent was charged for his role in the Allen Stanford financial scandal.
BY MICHAEL SALLAH AND ROB BARRY
msallah@MiamiHerald.com
The former chief of the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration's Miami office who led the agency's cases against infamous Panama strongman Manuel Noriega and Medellín cartel kingpin Fabio Ochoa was indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday for ordering the shredding of records belonging to disgraced banker Allen Stanford.
Tom Raffanello, who left the DEA five years ago to become Stanford's local security chief, was charged with ordering workers to destroy thousands of documents just days after government agents shut down the banking empire in a massive fraud case.
Prosecutors say the records -- including secret background reports on employees and potential investors -- were hauled away from the company's security bunker in Fort Lauderdale after a federal judge ordered that no company paperwork be destroyed.
The 61-year-old former DEA chief said he was prepared to turn himself over to federal agents Friday on charges of conspiracy, obstruction and destruction of records in a federal investigation.
''No one is sorrier than me that it came to this -- after spending 32 ½ years working for the government,'' he told The Miami Herald. ''But I'm prepared to fight this. I still believe in the system.''
The once highly decorated former agent is the latest defendant in a widening criminal probe of Stanford's banking network, which collapsed earlier this year when federal agents shut down dozens of offices across the nation.
Prosecutors say Stanford and top lieutenants carried out a spectacular $7 billion Ponzi scheme -- diverting most of the money to failed business ventures and supporting Stanford's extravagant lifestyle.
RAFFANELLO'S ROLE
For the past five years, Raffanello -- who is not accused in the Ponzi scheme -- worked on Stanford's security team, at first overseeing the company's fledgling Caribbean airline and later taking over the entire security force in 2006.
During those years, Raffanello dealt with a series of crises swirling around the flamboyant banker, including problems with disgruntled employees and clashes with angry investors, said Raffanello and other Stanford employees.
Though the former DEA chief said he traveled all over the world on Stanford's private jets, his base was a security bunker on the edge of Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport.
Shortly after the government takeover of Stanford's banking operations on Feb. 17, federal agents swept across the country, seizing thousands of records from company offices to try to recover money invested with the firm.
It was during that effort that prosecutors say Raffanello and other employees set out to destroy records in a move that would prompt a separate FBI investigation.
The problems arose on Feb. 23 -- six days after the court order to keep all records intact -- when Raffanello told his employee to call a shredding company, the indictment says.
Two days later, a shredding truck arrived at the bunker and hauled away the office's records in a 95-gallon bin, with security staff member Bruce Perraud supervising the operation, prosecutors charge.
Though Perraud was indicted in June for his role in the removal of the records, prosecutors continued to press the case.
FBI agents interviewed Raffanello for several hours in June, gathering information that led to Thursday's indictment.
REACTIONS
Raffanello told The Herald that he was open with agents, telling them the shredded paperwork was simply duplicates of electronic records stored elsewhere.
''We kept everything on electronic files,'' he said. ''I told them that I ordered [Bruce Perraud] to destroy the paper records because we had duplicates.''
Raffanello's lawyer, Kendall Coffey, a former Miami U.S. attorney who once worked with Raffanello, said the indictment was ''a serious mistake.''
''It's not like they have any theory that anybody was trying to conceal anything or even trying to keep their jobs,'' said Coffey.
''They were just cleaning out the offices to close down their company.''
Raffanello's indictment came as a surprise to numerous lawyers who knew his work over the past three decades. He began his career as a sky marshal but spent most of his time at the DEA -- the last two years as chief of its Miami office.
Myles Malman, a former prosecutor who worked closely with Raffanello during the drug-trafficking case against deposed dictator Noriega, said he was saddened by the criminal charges.
''He was a Vietnam combat veteran and a great federal agent,'' Malman said.
''He's the real deal. My dealings with him were always upright.''
Malman said that Raffanello was on the investigative team that won prestigious ''Director's Awards'' from then-U.S. Attorney General William Barr for the 1992 conviction of Noriega, who is still imprisoned in Miami-Dade County.
Raffanello and Perraud are scheduled to appear in federal court in Fort Lauderdale at 11 a.m. Friday.
Miami Herald staff writer Jay Weaver contributed to this report.
