COCAINE CASE FALLS APART

After 21 Months in Jail, a Cleared Man Goes Home

RALEIGH - For 21 months, Gerardo Vilchez's life was contained inside a
jail cell as he awaited a trial on trafficking charges that stemmed
from one of Wake County's biggest drug busts.

He was set free last week, after a Wake jury rejected accusations by a
Wake sheriff's investigator and prosecutors that Vilchez conspired to
transport 32 kilograms of cocaine, or more than 70 pounds, in the
tires of a passenger bus he drove from northern Mexico.

Now the criminal case surrounding the $3.2 million worth of drugs
appears to be nearing an end, with little chance that whoever placed
the cocaine inside the tires or who intended to profit from it will be
charged. The only two people ever charged were Vilchez and Victor Hugo
Lopez, a bus attendant, who remains in jail awaiting a trial on the
same charges Vilchez faced. Vilchez, a U.S. citizen who lives in
Mexico, told jurors he had no idea the drugs were hidden in the tires
of his bus. He said he was just driving the vehicle to places along a
route selected by dispatchers for the Texas tour bus company that
employed him.

He also said he resents the drug trade and what narcotics smuggling
has done to Mexico, which has been torn apart by violence as Mexico's
federal government struggles to crack down on powerful, wealthy drug
cartels. "The people that are involved in drug trafficking, they use
the innocent people," Vilchez said. "All they want is to make money."
In jail, his only view was through a small window that looks out on
Raleigh's downtown streets.

"It was beautiful," he said. Resuming life If the jury had convicted
him of the cocaine trafficking charges, Vilchez would have gone to
prison for at least 14 years, the mandatory term for the amount of
drugs recovered in the bust.

"It would have destroyed my life," Vilchez said. He's eager to return
to that life, where he's a husband and father to three sons. He was
once a chief for the volunteer fire department of the small, scenic
village he lives in outside the northern Mexican city of Monterrey, a
few hours south of the Texas border.

His first grandchild, Emilio, now 1, was born while Vilchez was jailed
in Raleigh. Vilchez hopped on a plane Friday headed for Corpus
Christi, Texas, where he planned to stay with his parents and work at
their Western-style boot and shoe shop until he can renew his U.S.
passport.

Vilchez, who was born in a small South Texas town and holds U.S.
citizenship, wants to resume driving buses from Mexico to the U.S. and
will need his passport to cross the border. In June, federal rules
will require U.S. citizens to show their passports to re-enter the
country from Canada, Mexico and Caribbean countries.

Vilchez hopes he'll get the passport by Saturday so he can get home
and see his wife on their 28th wedding anniversary.

Kilos under rubber When Vilchez arrived in the Triangle in July 2007,
it was the first trip he'd ever taken for the Texas-based tour
company, he said. He dropped off passengers in Atlanta and was sent to
the Raleigh area to pick up more people before returning to Mexico.

A bus dispatcher told him to head to a specific tire shop in Zebulon
to check the bus's brakes.

After a Wake deputy pulled over Vilchez's bus near Zebulon for running
a red light, the officer suspected something was amiss. A
drug-sniffing police dog detected kilograms of cocaine bolted to the
inside of the bus's rear tires, wrapped with various materials to make
it undetectable at checkpoints near the country's border. The cocaine
was hidden so expertly it took several hours to remove, said Mike
Petty, his court-appointed defense attorney. David Sherlin, a Wake
assistant district attorney, said he hasn't decided what he'll do with
the charges against Lopez, the bus attendant arrested alongside Vilchez.

Twenty-one months after his arrest, Vilchez is remarkably calm when he
talks about his confinement, crediting his Baptist faith for his
resolve. "I thought they'd forgotten about me," Vilchez said. Sherlin
said that wasn't so, but it took time to prepare the case and contend
with an already busy local court system. He also argued that Vilchez
made inconsistent statements between his arrest and his trial. "No one
wanted to rush into a trial without having a full understanding of
what actually happened," Sherlin said.

At the $70 a day the sheriff's office estimates it spends housing
inmates, it cost Wake County $45,920 to keep Vilchez for 656 days from
his arrest until he heard the jury's "not guilty."

Vilchez says he spent his time in jail talking to younger inmates,
especially those who have dealt or used drugs, urging them to change
their ways. "Whether you sell the drugs or use them, it may be good
for a moment, but it's going to put you in jail or kill you," he said.
'You can't give time back' N.C. Indigent Defense Services, which
oversees the various public defender offices in the state that appoint
lawyers to represent criminal defendants, doesn't track how long
people spend in jail awaiting trial, said Thomas Maher, director of
the state agency.

"People are spending time in jail that end up being acquitted, and you
can't give them that time back," Maher said. "You end up being
punished by the system when you haven't committed a crime."

On Thursday evening, Vilchez stood on a side street in downtown
Raleigh, pointing up to the window of the jail pod he called home for
15 of the 21 months he was there. He waved, wondering if his cellmates
were looking out. Every day he used to peer at people on downtown
sidewalks. One day, he remembered thinking, he would join them. "And
right now I'm here," he said, a smile spreading across his face.
Sidebar Drug problems in N.C.