VERDICTS FREE 2, CONVICT 3 IN DRUG TRIAL

[ Sarah Huntley covers federal courts in Tampa and can be reached at (813)
259-7616. ]

TAMPA - A high-profile cocaine case comes to an end after a federal jury
concludes more than a day of deliberations.

Not guilty.

They are words Wilman Montealegre-Nira and Reginald Williams won't likely
forget.

A year after being charged with participating in a lucrative cocaine ring,
both men were acquitted Monday by a federal jury.

As the verdicts were read, Montealegre-Nira beamed and leaned forward to
hug his lawyer. Williams covered his face with his hands and wept.

The news wasn't as good for their three co-defendants.

After deliberating for a day and a half, jurors found Jose Hubert Palacios,
accused by prosecutors of heading the Tampa-based drug ring, guilty of
conspiracy and of related marijuana and money-laundering charges. Two men
alleged to be his associates, Jose Caride and Alfred Williams Jr., were
convicted of conspiring to possess cocaine with intent to deliver.

The three reacted to the verdicts with silence.

All five men were arrested in October 1997 after a two-year investigation
that authorities say was one of Tampa's biggest this decade.

In the weeks leading to the jury's decision, federal prosecutors played 29
tapes secretly recorded by two government informants. The tapes, mostly in
Spanish, included conversations in which Palacios boasted of running an
organization with resources that could handle thousands of pounds of
Colombian cocaine.

In addition to the tapes, Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Customs
agents set up two phony operations. In November 1996, Palacios and his
colleagues flew what they thought was $500,000 of drug proceeds from New
Jersey to Tampa, the agents said. Nearly a year later, investigators
contend, the group smuggled in 2,000 kilos of cocaine on a sailboat at
Johns Pass.

During closing arguments, Palacios' attorney, Ronald Marzullo, told jurors
that his client did give the informants marijuana and participated in the
Johns Pass delivery but was never able to produce any cocaine on his own.

Accusing the federal government of ``making a mountain out of a molehill,''
Marzullo reminded jurors that the informants, both of whom have criminal
pasts, earned more than $350,000 each for their work in the case.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert O'Neill told jurors the evidence against
Palacios was ``over whelming.'' Prosecutors had accused Montealegre-Nira of
posing as a fisherman and keeping a lookout during the Johns Pass delivery.
Montealegre-Nira's attorney, Richard Cox Jr., argued that his client did
not know he was participating in a drug deal.

A sentencing date for the three convicted men has not been set.

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski