A CROWD ON THIS 'BUS'

Federal prosecutors wanted to make sure Israel Abel didn't get off the hook.

Abel said that among the dozens of witnesses who testified against him at
his 1992 Miami drug smuggling trial were several people he'd never laid
eyes on. They were there to "jump on the bus," earning sentence reductions
by testifying about things they'd never seen having to do with a person
they'd never met, he said.

It wasn't until several years after Abel was sentenced to life in prison
that he learned where the witnesses had come from. Abel's family found in a
court record a copy of a letter that a government informant named Jorge
Machado had written to his sentencing judge.

Abel knew Machado but not most of the others whom Machado lined up to
testify. In his letter, Machado apologized to the judge for being a cocaine
smuggler, lamented that he'd spent 34 months in prison and told him he was
actively pursuing cases that could help him win a sentence reduction.

In support of his plea, Machado provided a summary of his cooperation. "I
have recruited [confidential informants] in four different cases," wrote
Machado, even though, as he pointed out, he'd only been a gopher for drug
barons and would know little about a smuggling ring's inner workings.

In the government's case against Abel, "I recruited the following people:
Joaquin Guzman, Jorege Cardenas, Jose Ledo, Carlos De La Torre, Carlos
Betancourt. Mr. Betancourt recruited Mr. Catano." The letter went on to
list people Abel says he's never met.

During his trial, Abel's lawyers had no reason to believe Machado or any of
the other witnesses were phony and so the lawyers never questioned them
about how they came to testify. They wouldn't find out until much later.

Abel, who has been imprisoned for seven years, hopes one day to be able to
point that out in an evidentiary hearing, if one is granted, to show that
many of these witnesses were nothing more than liars trying to buy their
way out of jail.

Checked-by: Richard Lake