U.S. v. Saldarriaga, 91-5473

• Decision Date: 08 April 1993
• Docket Number: No. 91-5473,91-5473
• Citation: 987 F.2d 1526
• Parties: UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William SALDARRIAGA, Defendant-Appellant.
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eleventh Circuit

Page 1526

987 F.2d 1526

UNITED STATES of America, Plaintiff-Appellee, v. William SALDARRIAGA, Defendant-Appellant.

No. 91-5473.

United States Court of Appeals Eleventh Circuit.

April 8, 1993.

Steven E. Kreisberg, Coconut Grove, FL, for defendant-appellant.

Dexter W. Lehtinen, Michael P. Sullivan, Anne M. Hayes, Linda Collins Hertz, U.S. Attys., Miami, FL, for plaintiff-appellee.

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Southern District of Florida.

Before KRAVITCH and BIRCH, Circuit Judges, and CLARK, Senior Circuit Judge.

PER CURIAM:

Appellant William Saldarriaga was convicted of various cocaine-related offenses in violation of 21 U.S.C. §§ 959, 963. He was sentenced to a term of twenty years on each count, to run concurrently. For the following reasons, we affirm his conviction.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Facts Establishing the Conspiracy

The basis for the indictment against Saldarriaga focused on two months of activity in 1986 in Panama, Colombia, and Miami, Florida. The government, however, introduced evidence that linked Saldarriaga to a number of drug smuggling operations, beginning in the early 1980s. It was at this time that Saldarriaga met and established relationships with various people connected to the Medellin drug cartel. ¹ One of these people, Marta Ochoa, was Saldarriaga's wife from 1982 to 1984. ²

Government witnesses testified that early in 1986, Saldarriaga and his business partner, Ramon Navarro, became interested in purchasing a yacht named the KRILL from Ruben and Amed Paredes for the purpose of using the KRILL to import cocaine into the United States. The terms of the sale of the KRILL were finalized at a dinner in Panama City at the Tower Club, a restaurant owned by Cesar Rodriguez, who had owned the KRILL before selling it to the Paredes brothers. This dinner was attended by Saldarriaga, Navarro, Navarro's wife--Elizabeth Berbel--the Paredes and Jaime Gomez, Navarro's driver and bodyguard. The parties agreed to a sale price of $140,000, $100,000 of which Navarro paid in cash via two women in Coral Gables, Florida.

Early in March 1986, the Paredes brothers met with Rodriguez at the Tower Club and discussed the idea of using the KRILL to smuggle cocaine from Colombia to Miami. Ruben Paredes and Rodriguez both mentioned that the entire operation would be protected by General Manuel Antonio Noriega, the President of Panama. Later that same day, the three met with Saldarriaga, Navarro, Brian Davidow, and Gomez to discuss the smuggling plan. General Noriega spoke to the group by speaker phone and stated he would take care of getting the KRILL out of Panama. ³ During this meeting, plans were made to create stash compartments on the yacht for storage of the cocaine and for Saldarriaga to supply up to 350 kilograms of cocaine. The KRILL was to leave Panama on March 10 or 11.

Subsequent meetings with the same group, which now included Nubia Pino, were held to iron out the final details of the plan. Throughout these meetings, General Noriega was kept informed--via speaker phone--and he promised that everything was ready for the operation to proceed as planned. ⁴ The principals also discussed a plan whereby guns would be exchanged for the cocaine.

The KRILL departed from Panama City on March 11, 1986. Documents revealed that aboard the ship were a carpenter named Efren Sosa-Ruiz, Jorge Palacios, who served as the ship's captain, and Manuel Sanchez-Vasquez. The KRILL first traveled to the city of Cristobal, Panama, where it stayed for three days. Sosa-Ruiz built the secret stash compartments and two boxes of guns were delivered and loaded onto the KRILL. The KRILL then sailed to Cartegena, Colombia. Colombia police observed the KRILL while it was docked in Cartegena. Police also conducted surveillance of Navarro, whom they knew to be a drug trafficker, and of Saldarriaga. The two were observed having frequent meetings in Cartegena. Saldarriaga and Navarro never travelled aboard the KRILL but would meet the ship at each destination.

Sanchez-Vasquez testified that he met with Gomez (Navarro's bodyguard) in Cartegena, who told him that the KRILL was to be taken to the island of San Andres. When the KRILL left Cartegena, the only member of the original crew to remain was Sanchez-Vasquez; he was joined by two Colombians, Captain Pena and Edison Garcia. En route to San Andres, the ship stopped at the Rosario Islands, where it was met by Saldarriaga and Navarro, who were guarded by men with machine guns. While the KRILL was docked at the Rosario Islands, burlap bags were loaded onto the boat and placed in the secret compartments. Navarro and Saldarriaga met there with Gabriel Toboada, who was seeking assistance in transporting marijuana and cocaine to the United States. Navarro and Saldarriaga advised Toboada of their plans and invited him onto the KRILL. Navarro told Toboada that he was distributing cocaine for the Ochoa family of Medellin, Colombia.

The KRILL arrived at San Andres on March 20. Early in the morning of March 21, Colombian police boarded the KRILL, and awakened and arrested the crew--Pena, Garcia and Sanchez-Vasquez. During a search of the boat, police found four secret compartments containing 322 kilograms of cocaine and the photograph of General Noriega that bore his inscription. ⁵

B. Saldarriaga's Post-KRILL Statements

The government introduced evidence showing that Saldarriaga met Hector Jesus Velez in April 1986, just after the KRILL was seized. Saldarriaga told Velez all about the failed operation. Approximately six months later, Saldarriaga was in Miami, where he saw Hector Lopez, whom he knew from previous drug transactions, and told Lopez that he needed money to stay in the United States because he could not return to either Panama or Colombia in the wake of the KRILL fiasco. Saldarriaga also told Lopez that the cocaine seized on the KRILL had come from the Ochoa family and that high-ranking Panamanian officials were involved.

Three years later, Saldarriaga was arrested in Miami during a routine traffic stop. His former wife, Marta Ochoa, was with him in the vehicle. Two portable telephones and between $2000 and $3000 in cash were seized. While at the Miami Correctional Center (MCC), Saldarriaga told of his involvement in the KRILL venture to a number of inmates, including information regarding the participation of General Noriega and the Ochoa family. With one of the inmates--Francisco Rodriguez-Milanes--Saldarriaga discussed whether or not he should cooperate with the government. ⁶ Saldarriaga also renewed his acquaintance with Velez (whom he met in 1986) and Toboada (whom he met on the Rosario Islands), both of whom were being held at MCC, and discussed his involvement in the KRILL venture with them.

C. The Death of Ramon Navarro

Sometime after the seizure of the KRILL, Ramon Navarro began to cooperate with the United States Government. He testified on a number of occasions before the federal grand jury regarding the KRILL venture. When the indictment issued, ⁷ Navarro was not named. As both Saldarriaga and his co-defendant, Brian Davidow, expected Navarro to be a key government witness, they repeatedly sought Brady ⁸ and Giglio ⁹ material on Navarro from the government during the course of pre-trial discovery. Nevertheless, the government was not bound to call Navarro as a witness nor to disclose when, if at all, he would be called. ¹⁰

Opening statements were made to the jury on the third day of trial. ¹¹ During its opening statement, the government outlined the evidence it intended to present to the jury. In describing how the Paredes brothers decided to sell the KRILL to Navarro and Saldarriaga, the prosecutor remarked:

While they [the Paredes] were engaged in negotiation with Fernando Burbrauder (ph) here, in Miami, another person arrived on the scene to complicate matters. That person was a Colombian named Ramon Navarro.

Navarro was a notorious drug trafficker, and he decided that he wanted the "Krill" for his own purposes, which was smuggling cocaine into the United States....

These people got together, and the transaction changed radically from a trade of the "Krill" for the house in Kendall, to, now, just a straight sale of the "Krill" to the Colombian, Ramon Navarro.

Ramon Navarro had two associates that he brought with him from Colombia to Panama. Their names were Jaime Gomez, who is named in these counts of the indictment with some co-defendants.

The other associate of Ramon Navarro is the defendant on trial, William Saldarriaga.

(R. 13 at 479-80).

In his opening statement, counsel for Saldarriaga told the jury that the evidence would show that Saldarriaga had a legitimate business partnership with Navarro for purposes of buying the KRILL, and that Saldarriaga did not know about Navarro's intent to use the KRILL to smuggle cocaine into the United States. After setting out his theory of the case, counsel prepared the jury for how he would discredit Navarro as a government witness. For example, counsel stated:

We don't intend to dispute that Mr. Saldarriaga had the misfortune of knowing Ramon Navarro, who everybody seems to call, "El Turco," and you'll be able to see for yourselves, in a couple of days, what Mr. Turco is, what he's like, whether he's a believable person, and what his motives are....

Now, Ramon said nothing to him about any drugs being put on the boat, nothing to him about the fact that when Ramon and boat [sic] were in Panama, Ramon, apparently, had these secret compartments built someplace in the boat.

He told him nothing about the guns, and why should he tell him? Ramon Navarro, as you will see, is the kind of person, who, if there was money to be made, would want to make it all for himself.

(R. 13 at 508, 511). ¹²

The evening following the opening statements, Navarro was killed in an auto accident. This information was brought to the court's attention the next afternoon when the government made a motion...