FBI INFORMANT LATEST TO POINT FINGER AT MILAN

The confessed drug dealer testified that the Camden mayor had fake
documents created to conceal the source of drug money.

A confessed drug dealer who was working as an FBI informant testified
yesterday that Camden Mayor Milton Milan created phony documents to
conceal $10,000 in drug profits for a multimillion-dollar drug ring.

The paid informant, Juan Marquez, 36, of Camden, also testified that
he agreed in 1996 to tape-record conversations of drug transactions.
And he named Milan as one of the people whom authorities asked him to
record.

Testifying in U.S. District Court in Camden, Marquez, winner of a 1988
Mr. Universe bodybuilding title, said Milan helped him create the
bogus documents. He said the documents were falsified after he was
arrested in 1994 for possessing steroids, which authorities seized
from a safe that also contained $10,000 in drug profits.

To get the money back from authorities, Marquez said, he, Milan and
Jose Luis "J.R." Rivera, the alleged financier of the drug
organization, faked documents to make it appear that the money was
legitimate.

Milan, elected mayor in 1997, was a construction contractor at the
time. He has not been charged with any crime.

Carlos A. Martir Jr., Milan's attorney, said Milan had never been
involved in criminal activity with any of the drug defendants. He also
said Milan was not taped in any of the conversations that will be
played at the trial.

"There's nothing to support [Marquez's] statements whatsoever," Martir
said.

Marquez's testimony came in the drug-conspiracy trial of Rivera, 40,
and Luis "Tun Tun" Figueroa, 34, an alleged enforcer for the
operation. Prosecutors are calling it the most significant drug
prosecution in Camden's history. If convicted, Figueroa and Rivera
will face life in prison.

Milan's name has been mentioned several times during the trial, which
is in its third week. In previous weeks, two drug dealers who are
cooperating with the prosecution said the mayor was a bulk buyer of
cocaine in 1993.

Milan has denied ever buying drugs.

During his testimony, Marquez cried several times as he detailed his
part in the drug organization, which used violence, including murder,
to protect the business.

He said state police raided his Logan Township home in July 1994 and
arrested him after finding the steroids and $10,000 in the safe. He
said he lied to investigators about the source of the cash, telling
them that Rivera had given it to him as sponsorship money for
bodybuilding competitions.

At a meeting at Rivera's East Camden business, JR's Custom Auto Parts,
Marquez said, Rivera told Milan "to take care of it," and directed him
to create the documents.

"J.R. told Milton Milan to draw up some false paperwork and back-date
it so it would look like sponsorship money," Marquez said.

When Assistant U.S. Attorney Kevin Smith asked if Milan had been aware
of the source of the money, Marquez said that Milan knew "that it was
drug money" and that Milan had his secretary type up the paperwork.

Smith held up for the jury two $5,000 promissory notes that Marquez
identified as the documents Milan had prepared. They were agreements
between Rivera and Marquez dated May 1994 and notorized in July.

Earlier in the trial, Smith introduced evidence of a $2,500 promissory
note that Milan signed in 1992 with Rivera. According to earlier
testimony, Milan and Rivera had had several business dealings since
the early 1990s. One drug dealer testified that Rivera boasted that he
bankrolled Milan's mayoral campaign.

Yesterday, Marquez said Milan and Rivera were among numerous customers
who frequented his Maple Shade gym, the World Championship Fitness
Center, in 1989. Marquez had just won a top amateur bodybuilding
competition, and business was good, he said.

"Everyone wanted to train where the No. 1 bodybuilder was training,"
he said.

His customers included childhood friends, such as Rivera and confessed
drug dealers Camildo Cruz and Lucas Torres. Milan also worked out
there, he said.

At that time, Marquez said, he was not involved with drugs or
steroids. But a year later, he said, he moved the business to East
Camden after buying a decaying building from Camden Police Officer
Jeffrey Williams.

Marquez said he traded a 1988 truck and paid $2,500 for the building,
which needed a new roof, plumbing and electricity. Williams later
pleaded guilty to accepting $12,000 in cash and drugs while on duty
and was forced off the Police Department.

"I came out of the ghetto," Marquez said, his voice cracking. "And my
intentions were, at the time, to get the youth off the street and show
them if I could do it [succeed], they could do it."

He took out an $8,000 loan for renovations but needed more money, he
said. So he asked his brother-in-law, Noel Ruiz, for help. Ruiz came
through with money that, Marquez said he later learned, had come from
Saul "Gordo" Febo, a known drug dealer.

Ruiz and Febo have since pleaded guilty to drug-conspiracy charges and
are cooperating with the government. They have yet to be sentenced.

Febo and Ruiz, Marquez said, started packaging cocaine after hours at
Marquez's business, then called the Beast Gym because the bodybuilder
was known as "the Beast from the East." Marquez said he decided to
sell the business to Febo. The deed, he said, was placed in Rivera's
name.

Marquez opened shop again about 1991, this time on Route 130 in
Pennsauken. By then, he said, he had begun using steroids and
supplying them to customers, including Rivera, Cruz and Torres. And,
Marquez said, he overheard many of their conversations about the drug
ring.

The organization, which operated for more than a decade before it was
broken up in 1998, included two open-air drug markets, "The Alley," at
Boyd and Bank Streets, and "The 33d Street Set," at 33d and Westfield
Avenue.

To protect business, top leaders of the organization would rough up,
even murder, those who betrayed them, Marquez said.

He testified that he became "the muscle" for the 33d Street Set about
1993, beating up people who had failed to do their jobs, earning
$1,000 a week. There were limits to what he would do, he said. He
wouldn't kill.

But, he said, others did.

He said Rivera talked about having killed drug dealers he had believed
were cooperating with police or stealing from him. After another
dealer, Manuel "Manolin" DeJesus, plotted to take over the Alley with
Lucas Torres in 1993, Marquez said, he heard that Febo had killed DeJesus.

Febo has admitted his part in the slaying but has not been charged.
Figueroa, accused of having been the triggerman, has been charged in
state court with murder and is to be tried later.

Rivera and Figueroa have denied having been part of the drug ring.
Their attorneys say their clients were set up by dealers seeking
lenient sentences.

Yesterday, Marquez said he got out of the drug trade in 1995, after
being indicted on kingpin charges. He began cooperating with federal
authorities shortly afterward, receiving $2,800 a month, he said. He
added that he wore a wire and taped more than 90 conversations with
drug dealers.

It was his cooperation, authorities said, that helped penetrate an
organization so powerful that at least one law enforcement official
allegedly protected the drug trade in exchange for hush money. A
federal Drug Enforcement Administration officer knew of the bribes but
did nothing, Torres has testified.