LOS ANGELES -- A wealthy Honduran whose arrest last year in Tegucigalpa sparked anti-American rioting was convicted in federal court Wednesday of drug trafficking as a major cocaine conduit to the United States.
Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, 44, was expressionless as the seven-count guilty verdict was translated into Spanish for him. His wife, Nancy, appeared shaken as the six men and six women on the jury nodded vigorously when collectively asked whether they affirmed the verdict.
Matta, a storied billionaire, has been described as one of the most important links between Colombian drug lords and Mexican smugglers who bring drugs into the United States. Former U.S. Attorney Robert Bonner, now a federal judge, once described Matta as 'one of the highest-level members of the Colombian cocaine cartel.'
Matta's lawyers argued that the case against him hinged on one unreliable witness who lied to protect his standing in a federal witness protection program.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Jimmy Gurule said the verdict sent a message to the embattled Colombian government. 'If we are permitted to extradite Colombian kingpins to the United States, they will be prosecuted aggressively and to the full extent of the law,' he said.
Sentencing was set for Oct. 5, when Matta faces a maximum life sentence without possibility of parole.
Acting U.S. Attorney Gary Feess said Matta was among the top 10 'chief executive officers' of the international drug trade.
Defense lawyer Martin Stolar said, 'The United States government is determined to make a scapegoat out of anybody they would call a drug kingpin,' and added he would ask that the conviction be reversed or appeal the case to a higher court.
Members of the jury would not comment on their verdict, which was reached after four days' deliberation. The five-week trial was conducted amid tight security.
Stolar said the verdict was partially due to 'massive amounts of publicity' about Colombian drug lords in the wake of the assasination of a Colombian presidential candidate and the resulting governmental crackdown on the drug industry.
The prosecution of Matta began after U.S. drug agents, acting on a tip from Colombian police, raided several apartments in a Los Angeles suburb in October 1981 and seized 114 pounds of cocaine and $1.9 million in cash, the state's largest drug and cash haul at that time.
At his trial, a Drug Enforcement Administration expert testified that seized drug ledgers contained code names referring to Matta as the boss of the ring. Another witness said he arranged to fly cocaine into the United States for Matta, whom he met once in Colombia in 1981.
Honduran officials spirited Matta from his Tegucigalpa estate in April 1988, and onto an airplane to the Dominican Republic, where he was transferred to a flight for the United States and arrested.
Matta's return to Los Angeles sparked rioting at the U.S. Embassy in Tegucigalpa tht caused $6 million in damage and killed five people.
Matta's lawyers said the arrest was part of an illegal campaign by the Justice Department to avenge the 1985 killing in Mexico of DEA agent Enrique Camarena, who was investigating two Mexican drug lords said to be close to Matta.
Prosecutors would not comment Wednesday on whether Matta will be charged in Camarena's murder.
Through his lawyers, Matta has denied that he has any connection to cocaine trafficking or to the death of a DEA agent.
Officials said Matta was an underground narcotics chemist in the 1970s, and after he escaped from a Florida federal prison camp in 1971, rose to the top of a Mexican cocaine smuggling ring associated with the Cali, Colombia, drug cartel.
