MAN IN 'FREE JIM' CAMPAIGN PLEADS GUILTY

Businessman Cooperates In Cali Investigation

TAMPA -- Jim Williams always said he was innocent.

During the four years he spent in prison in Ecuador, he insisted he was
wrongly convicted of laundering drug money and deserved a fair trial in the
United States.

His friends and family launched a media campaign. Several members of
Congress tried to get then-President Clinton to intervene. His family held
protests on courthouse steps and started a Web site called "Free Jim,"
where Williams, a Jacksonville businessman, could proclaim his innocence.

"I am an innocent man. I never committed any of the crimes that I am
accused of. Neither in Ecuador nor in the USA," Williams wrote in one
letter on the Web site.

In October, Williams entered a secret guilty plea in his case in Tampa.
U.S. District Judge Susan Bucklew sentenced Williams late last week and
gave him no additional jail time. She also unsealed some of the records in
the case.

He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to launder drug money for the Cali cartel
in one of the nation's biggest drug investigations. He is cooperating with
the government as it prepares to hunt down the top tier of the cartel.

Williams was sentenced to four years prison time already served, plus two
years of probation.

"The amount of suffering he endured in an Ecuadorean jail for 4 1/2 years,
with no food, no medicine, no room to move, was enough," said his lawyer,
Greg Kehoe. "Mr. Williams suffered through a tremendous amount, and he
contracted all types of diseases down there. The government said enough is
enough."

Williams, 55, was president of Caribbean Fisheries Inc., which imported
fish from Central and South America.

In 1992, Williams went into business with a company in Buenaventura,
Colombia, called Invermarp. There he worked with Jose Castrillon- Henao,
the suspected head of maritime smuggling for the cartel.

For years, Williams processed fish shipments and helped Invermarp buy and
install electronic equipment in its boats, according to his plea deal.

The vessels primarily were used to haul cocaine into the United States, the
plea agreement states.

Williams accepted thousands from Invermarp - sometimes the cash was wrapped
in newspaper and placed in paper bags - but he said he never knew it was
drug money.

Williams knew Invermarp was doing something illegal, but he never asked and
didn't know the money came from drug sales, the plea agreement states.

Williams was jailed on a money laundering conviction in Ecuador from 1996
to 2000. Then he returned to the United States to face an indictment in Tampa.

Castrillon-Henao, who also was named in the indictment, is cooperating with
the government. In the past two years, authorities have seized more than a
dozen boats loaded with cocaine worth hundreds of millions of dollars from
the Eastern Pacific.

More than 100 sailors on the boats have been brought to Tampa for prosecution.

In December, federal agents traveled to Colombia to help arrest seven men
considered to be middle managers of the cartel. They await extradition.