FISH TALE WAS ONE OF MANY STRETCHES

Drug-sniffing dogs had scoured the boat and found not a whiff of cocaine.

Coast Guard helicopters, airplanes and balloons had tracked the 37-foot
"Nevada" after it left Colombia, but their surveillance tapes turned up no
sighting of drugs, either, nor was there evidence any had been thrown
overboard.

In court, Orlando Perez explained why. Dolphins got it, he said.

Dolphins?

"After the cocaine was thrown overboard into the water, dolphins showed up
and they started playing with it, and they would sink it," Perez said.

"Dolphins like Flipper?" asked Assistant U.S. Attorney Bruce Pearson.

"Yes, just like Flipper. . . . Then there was a larger package or bag with
several packages of cocaine inside. It was wrapped in a blanket, and,
incredibly, a much larger dolphin came out, and it flipped and fell on top
of that bag, and he also sank it in such a way that when the Navy
helicopter began hovering around, they couldn't find the cocaine," Perez said.

Everyone in the Miami courtroom erupted in laughter, except for Ramon Roque
Osorio, who was on trial for smuggling the cocaine.

Osorio had told federal agents that he'd signed on as a seaman and mechanic
with Perez in August 1990 to help deliver the 37-foot vessel from Miami to
its new owner in Puerto Rico.

Mechanical problems forced it off course several times. It was finally
towed to a Colombian port after drifting without power for eight days in
the Carib-bean, Osorio said. That's when the Coast Guard started watching it.

Osorio had invoices and receipts to confirm the mechanical problems and the
repairs, and when the Coast Guard first questioned Perez on Jan. 11, 1990,
he confirmed everything that Osorio had said. He insisted no drugs had been
on board and no drugs had been thrown overboard.

When he changed his story, he first said there were 500 kilograms of
cocaine on board, then 300, finally 94.

There was one very good reason why Perez changed his story and lied.
Federal agents had implicated him in another cocaine trafficking case with
a man named Julio Nunez, who had become a government witness. Agents told
Perez he could earn a lenient sentence if he would finger other drug dealers.

Offering up Osorio reduced his sentence to six months. Nunez, who'd also
been implicated in two murders, got the same.

Osorio's attorneys didn't learn of the deal until after Osorio was
convicted and sentenced to 17 years in prison.

Perez was the only witness to implicate Osorio.

This is a clear case of the government fabricating testimony, coercing
witnesses to cooperate against an innocent man and using confidential
informants to set up a drug conspiracy, Osorio said.

"I don't mind doing time if I did something, but you're letting major drug
dealers, people who have committed murders, go in exchange for me," he said.

"What kind of baloney is that?"

Checked-by: Richard Lake