JURY ACQUITS CABRERA OF DRUG CHARGES

Law Enforcement Informant Was Charged With Possession And Conspiring To
Possess Cocaine With The Intent To Distribute

A federal jury Friday acquitted Jose Ricardo Cabrera of charges that he had
been involved in drug trafficking even as he worked as an informant
assisting south Florida law enforcement in the war on drugs.

Cabrera had been charged with one count each of possession and conspiring
to possess cocaine with the intent to distribute. The jury deliberated for
most of Friday morning before returning to Chief District Judge Charles R.
Butler Jr.'s courtroom around 1:30 p.m. with a verdict acquitting Cabrera
on both counts.

Defense attorney Fred Helmsing Sr. of Mobile smiled as the verdict was
read. "This proves again the validity of our jury system," Helmsing said.
We are grateful and appreciate very much the not guilty verdict."

Federal prosecutor Gloria Bedwell declined to comment on the verdict,
saying only that prosecutors believed they had what was needed to garner a
conviction.

"We thought the evidence was sufficient to support" a conviction, Bedwell
said. "But we have to respect the jury's verdict."

A handful of Cabrera's family members who had traveled from Florida waited
in the courtroom and in the hall outside as the jury deliberated. The case
involved a quarter-ton shipment of cocaine that undercover Customs agents
had brought up Mobile Bay in 1999. The undercover agents had a rendezvous
with a larger boat in the Gulf of Mexico to take on the drugs, then sped
back north up the Bay to dock near the Brookley Industrial Complex,
according to testimony this week.

But the operation was actually part of a Customs Service sting operation,
according to testimony.

Of that load of cocaine, 37 kilograms were to sent to Miami as a commission
for the Colombian who brokered the deal. Prosecutors said that Cabrera was
acting on the broker's behalf.

With the help of another federal informant, agents arranged a meeting for
the exchange of the 37 kilos so they could catch their main target --
Cabrera -- but he was able to avoid capture. Cabrera was later arrested and
eventually charged.

Helmsing had told jurors that his client was an informant for the South
Broward Drug Enforcement Unit, a multi-agency task force that included the
Customs Service. Helmsing contended during the trial that every move his
client made was with the permission of some law enforcement agency.

Prosecutors countered that even if Cabrera was an informant, he had skirted
the necessary procedures required of all snitches and should be punished
for it.

Cabrera's arrest had been one of 43 to date in a continuing Customs
operation targeting Colombian cocaine importers. Since starting the
operation in 1997, agents say they have seized about $7.5 million in cash
and assets and more than 500 kilos of cocaine and heroin.