Notorious drug smuggler to be sentenced

MIAMI, Jan. 16 (UPI) -- Sal Magluta, one of south Florida's most notorious drugs smugglers, will be sentenced Friday on convictions of money laundering and fixing an earlier trial.

He was also tried last year on ordering three murders, but was acquitted of those charges.

During a three-day sentencing hearing that began Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Patricia Seitz ruled that evidence presented in the murder cases would not be allowed during sentencing.

During Friday's session, U.S. Attorney Marcos Daniel Jimenez will make his first appearance since taking office in August as a Bush administration appointee.

Jimenez is expected to ask for what would be in effect a life sentence on the various convictions.

Magluta was convicted Aug. 15 on 13 of 41 counts.

Prosecutors said Magluta, 47, led a conspiracy that resulted in his acquittal and that of boyhood pal Guillermo "Willie" Falcon in 1996.

They said he paid a $500,000 bribe to the jury foreman, Miguel Moya, and illegally distributed $27 million in drug proceeds from prison.

But the jury issued an innocent verdict on charges he ordered hit men to murder three witnesses in Colombia. Defense attorneys said the government's case was questionable because it had used witnesses who agreed to testify in exchange for reduced prison terms.

Magluta's 12-week trial included testimony from more than 130 witnesses.

Authorities said Magluta and Falcon headed a drug trafficking ring that netted more than $2 billion from the late 1970s until their arrests in the early 1990s.

Magluta is already serving a nine-year sentence for illegal use of a passport and jumping bond after his acquittal in 1996 on charges he ran the drug ring.

Falcon is awaiting trial on a similar jury-fixing charge. He is also in prison on a firearms conviction.