Colombian sailors guilty in drug case

By GRAHAM BRINK

© St. Petersburg Times, published February 2, 2001

TAMPA -- Another crew of Colombian sailors is on the way to federal prison after a jury found them guilty Thursday of trying to smuggle tons of cocaine.

The case of the trawler Layneyd is the latest in a series of prosecutions that began last year after the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard teamed up to bust 10 Colombian fishing boats carrying 19 tons of cocaine off the coast of Ecuador.

The Layneyd has many of the characteristics of the previous busts and subsequent trials but with an added dimension:

Defense attorneys outlined a provocative theory that a Cali cartel drug lord set up the busts to make the U.S. authorities look good and to curry favor to avoid a life sentence for drug smuggling.

"Something stinks worse than the fish found in the hold of the Layneyd," defense attorney Danny Castillo told the jury.

A U.S. helicopter saw the 81-foot Layneyd on April 4 in international waters several hundred miles off the coast of Ecuador. When the helicopter appeared, the boat began to take evasive maneuvers, Coast Guard officers testified.

The USS John A. Moore, a guided-missile frigate, approached the vessel. The boat was riding suspiciously low in the water, the officers testified. A search of the boat revealed 7,260 pounds of cocaine packed in hidden compartments.

At trial, attorneys for the Layneyd's captain, Segundo Quinones, and his five crewmen, Santos Arroyo, Fernando Tenorio, Damian Urdin, Jorge Rosero Ocampo and Cesar Dominguez, argued that the men did not know the cocaine was on board. They thought they were on a legitimate fishing trip.

Federal prosecutor Joe Ruddy argued that any experienced fisherman would have known the Layneyd was in no condition to fish.

Reynaldo Avenia-Soto, an accountant for the cartel whose job included keeping track of payments to crewmen, testified that the cocaine owners picked trustworthy crewmen who knew what was going on.

Avenia-Soto's testimony only fueled the theory that the government was in cahoots with drug kingpin Jose Castrillon-Henao.

Castillo, who did the bulk of questioning for the defense, argued that Avenia-Soto easily could have doctored the records to implicate the crewmen.

Castillo also said that Avenia-Soto was lying to help out Castrillon-Henao, his father-in-law.

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