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Law officers get $11-million from smuggler's stock

By LUCY MORGAN
Published June 25, 2005

TALLAHASSEE - State and federal law enforcement authorities gathered Friday to divide $11-million they obtained from the sale of stock taken from famed criminal defense attorney F. Lee Bailey.

Bailey's attempt to hang onto the stock once owned by drug smuggler Claude Duboc landed him in federal prison in Tallahassee for 44 days in 1996 after he refused to follow a court order to surrender the stock.

Bailey said Duboc turned the stock over to him to use in maintaining estates Duboc owned outside of Paris and on the Mediterranean coast.

U.S. Attorney Greg Miller said more than $200-million has been divided by law enforcement agencies in Thailand, Hong Kong, Luxembourg, France, Dubai, the Arab Emirates, Singapore and the United States.

"Sometimes crime does pay, not just for criminals but for law enforcement agencies," he said.

There's more to come. Two estates in France, a palace outside Paris and another estate next door to one owned by King Fahd bin Abdul Aziz of Saudi Arabia have yet to be sold. The sale of the Mediterranean estate was delayed because Duboc renovated the buildings without permission and authorities must restore them, said U.S. Marshal Dennis Williamson.

The money distributed Friday included $1.5-million for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, $341,292 for the Alachua County State Attorney's Office; $3.5-million for Gainesville police and $5.8-million for the criminal investigative division of the Internal Revenue Service in Pensacola.

Duboc was one of the masterminds of a hashish and marijuana smuggling ring that annually imported more than 169 metric tons of hashish into the United States for a decade. He is serving a life sentence at a federal penitentiary in California. Bailey - who defended the Boston Strangler, Sam Sheppard, Patty Hearst and O.J. Simpson - has been disbarred.

The Florida Supreme Court concluded that Bailey's handling of Duboc's stock showed "some of the most egregious rules violations possible."

Bailey treated Duboc's money as his own, U.S. District Judge Maurice Paul said when he ordered the lawyer to jail.

Bailey traveled to Europe on the Concorde, bought meals at five-star restaurants and stayed in posh hotels at Duboc's expense as he defended him and visited foreign estates the smuggler owned. He had lavish lobster, sushi and steak dinners delivered to Duboc's cell in the Levy County Jail.

Two other attorneys who represented Duboc also went to prison. Penny Shelfer of Tallahassee was sentenced to five years in federal prison for obstruction of justice, and Henry Uscinski of Hong Kong went to prison for four years for falsifying tax returns.

[Last modified June 25, 2005, 00:34:16]