ARMY FIRES COLONEL WHO LAUNDERED DRUG MONEY

An Army colonel who pleaded guilty earlier this year to charges of
laundering cash from his wife's drug deals while he headed U.S. anti-drug
operations in Colombia has been fired by the Army.

Col. James C. Hiett, a 24-year veteran, has been dropped from Army
personnel rolls and as a result will receive no military retirement pay,
spokesman Lt. Col. Russell Oaks said yesterday. Oaks said Hiett cannot
appeal the decision.

Army public affairs officials said they did not know how to reach Hiett to
respond to media requests for comment.

A federal judge in July sentenced Hiett to five months in prison, five
months of home confinement and one year probation. Hiett pleaded guilty in
April to charges he tried to launder $25,000, proceeds from drug shipments
his wife made from a post office in the U.S. Embassy in Bogota to New York
City.

Laurie Hiett pleaded guilty in January to charges she shipped packages
containing $700,000 worth of heroin and cocaine. She is serving a five-year
sentence.

James Hiett was U.S. military group commander at the embassy in Bogota at
the time. In that job, he was in charge of all U.S. military activities in
Colombia, including highly sensitive counterdrug operations.

After the allegations became public in August 1999, Hiett was transferred
to a desk job at Fort Monroe, Va.

At the time, the Army said an investigation by its criminal investigations
division in Panama cleared Hiett of any involvement in criminal activity,
saying he had "no prior knowledge" of his wife's cocaine shipments.

In entering his guilty plea in April, Hiett told the court he became aware
of his wife's drug money in June 1999 after Army investigators told him of
her drug shipments to New York. In the weeks after learning this, Hiett
said, he sought to conceal the origins of the money by paying bills in cash
and depositing the rest in bank accounts in small amounts.