LOS ANGELES -- The convicted leader of the 'Grandma Mafia' drug smuggling ring -- an unlikely group of grandmothers and hardened drug dealers -- could be imprisoned for life for what prosecutors described as her 'colossal greed.'
Barbara Mouzin, 44, showed no emotion Tuesday as guilty verdicts were read on 19 counts of operating a multimillion dollar drug organization, racketeering and cocaine trafficking.
Prosecutor Robert Perry, who showed jurors 130 pounds of cocaine and more than $1 million cash seized by authorities, told jurors the woman was a calculating drug trafficker motivated by 'a colossal greed.'
Her organization -- made up of middle-aged grandmothers, clothing executives and narcotics dealers -- laundered drug profits through a Miami clothing store.
The jury also decided that Mrs. Mouzin, a former Indiana resident who now lives in Miami Lakes, Fla., should forfeit to the government her share of ownership of Mr. C's, the clothing store used along with a Southern California bank to launder money for several Colombian cocaine rings.
Co-defendant Alphonso Carvajal, 32, of Miami, who formerly was affiliated with the Chase Manhattan Bank in Colombia and allegedly ran a West Coast drug operation, was convicted of eight drug and money-laundering counts.
U.S. District Judge A. Wallace Tashima, who earlier declared a mistrial in the case against three other men, ordered both defendants back in court for sentencing June 6. They face maximum terms of life in prison.
Mrs. Mouzin and Carvajal were among 11 people indicted by a grand jury last June following a government sting operation involving nearly 200 people from four agencies. Six have pleaded guilty and await sentencing.
The 'Grandma Mafia' ring, so-named by authorities because several participants including the ringleader were grandmothers, was exposed when a banker reported the large sums of money Mrs. Mouzin illegally deposited without reporting to the Internal Revenue Service.
During a four-month period in 1981-82, $5 million delivered in large suitcases was deposited in a small bank in Manhattan Beach near Los Angeles. The bank president eventually contacted authorities, who set up a meeting between Mrs. Mouzin and undercover agents.
The government established a bogus financial company that received $20 million in deposits from Mrs. Mouzin between February and June 1982, when she fled to Mexico. She was arrested in August while trying to return.
In convicting Mrs. Mouzin and Carvajal, the jury rejected defense allegations of improper entrapment.
Attorney Howard Weitzman, the lawyer who also represents automaker and accused cocaine dealer John DeLorean, claimed Mrs. Mouzin began dealing drugs after she was robbed of $700,000 in a theft purportedly engineered by IRS agents.
Mrs. Mouzin was robbed in the parking lot of the government-run Pan-Pacific Financial Management Co. One of the two gunmen later died in an accidental fall at Yosemite National Park.
