MIAMI MAN CONVICTED OF SMUGGLING COCAINE

A Miami Vice-style cocaine chase that had a Customs agent straddling
two speeding boats -- one abandoned and crammed with a metric ton of
powder cocaine -- resulted in a federal jury conviction Friday in U.S.
District Court in Miami.

Jorge Alberto Diaz of Miami was convicted of importing 39 bails of
cocaine weighing 2,244 pounds and valued at an estimated $170 million
on the street. He faces about 24 years in federal prison.

But more dramatic than the five-day trial this week was the Dec. 9,
1997, pursuit and capture of Diaz's go-fast boat in Biscayne Bay --
police work that won Customs Agent Joseph Goulet a personal thank you
from the President.

"It was just excellent police work all the way around," said Assistant
U.S. Attorney Rick Carey, who prosecuted the case with Customs Agent
and special prosecutor Kevin Kosak. "It was very dramatic."

It began shortly after midnight when Customs agents spotted Diaz's
30-foot boat and a guide boat entering the bay and tried to stop Diaz.

The chase was on.

Goulet -- a 14-year Customs veteran -- turned on his blue light and
took off after the drug-laden boat.

"I did everything I could to get him to stop, but it wasn't
happening," Goulet said. "I was moving at a pretty good clip -- maybe
30 or 40 knots, but every time I made a pass I'd tumble off his wake
and have to recover."

Finally, after about six passes, Goulet said he was able to strike
Diaz's port engine, slowing the go-fast boat considerably.

"I came alongside and we were hitting each other rail to rail," Goulet
said. "He was in a turn so we were going around in a circle, his boat
on the inside. Then I see him go overboard."

Goulet said he couldn't be sure the boat was empty, so he decided to
attempt to stop it -- gingerly moving his hands from his boat's
controls and stepping across to the other boat.

"I liken it more to comedy than to dramatics," he said. "It was like a
game of Twister. It took me three or four tries going back and forth
to my boat to keep control. Finally, when his boat shut down, my boat
just took off and I had to dive back to make it."

Meanwhile, other Customs agents had gone up the coast and captured two
others in the guide boat.

"The best work done that night was by the agents who made the arrest,"
Goulet said. "I had the dope, but I didn't have my guy. It was
frustrating."

Diaz, who left behind his identification, apparently swam the two
miles to shore and was finally caught in New York in April. His
defense at trial was that it wasn't him driving the boat, but the jury
accepted Goulet's identification.

Within a week after the seizure, President Bill Clinton publicly
praised Goulet's bravery during a visit to Miami, forever etching the
image of Goulet straddling two speeding boats into Customs lore.

"Like Charlton Heston in a Ben Hur movie," one fellow agent
quipped.

Diaz's sentencing is set for April 9.