Pubdate: Tue, 18 Apr 2000
Source: New York Times (NY)
Copyright: 2000 The New York Times Company
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Author: Alan Feuer

COLONEL ADMITS HE USED CASH FROM WIFE'S DRUG SMUGGLING

NEW YORK -- A U.S. Army officer who once oversaw the government's
antidrug wars in Colombia admitted Monday that he had paid his
household bills with thousands of dollars he knew his wife had
received from smuggling heroin from Bogota to Manhattan and Queens.

The officer, Col. James C. Hiett, made his admission in Federal
District Court in Brooklyn while pleading guilty to failing to report
that he knew that his wife, Laurie Anne Hiett, had been laundering the
profits of her drug-smuggling ring. In January, Hiett admitted she had
sent six packages of heroin wrapped in brown paper through diplomatic
mail.

With his chin held high and back straight, Hiett stood before Judge
Edward R. Korman and said crisply and quietly that his wife had given
him $25,000 last April after traveling twice between Colombia and New
York City. But he insisted he did not know the money had come from
drug smuggling until Army investigators told him.

"As a result of my conversations with the Army investigators, I then
knew that the cash my wife had previously given me came from drug
trafficking," he said. "I then took steps to dissipate this cash by
paying bills as possible, and depositing some of the cash in our accounts."

Hiett used $800 to pay his wife's hotel bills in Boca Raton, Fla., and
Myrtle Beach, S.C., federal prosecutors said. They added that he used
$1,425 to make car payments and about $1,200 to pay off his credit
card debt. All told, Hiett admitted disposing of about $11,000 from
the drug smuggling.

When he is sentenced June 23, Hiett, 48, is likely to receive a prison
term of between 12 and 18 months. He has filed for retirement, which
will take effect in November.

Hiett denied for months that her husband knew anything about her
illegal dealings, and the Army's three-month investigation was
conducted only to clear the colonel's name. From the start, though,
the civilian authorities, particularly the United States Customs
Service, which broke the case, had strong suspicions that Hiett was
somehow involved.

At her plea hearing in January, Mrs. Hiett said she was a former drug
addict who suffered from manic depression. She walked out of court
Monday holding her husband's arm tightly, tears streaming down her
face.

She has admitted to mailing heroin from Bogota to two accomplices in
New York City last spring while her husband was in charge of 200
American troops that trained Colombian security forces in
counternarcotics operations. She is scheduled to be sentenced April 28
and faces a prison term of between seven and nine years.

Although the government revealed two weeks ago that Hiett was going to
plead guilty, his admissions are still likely to prove embarrassing to
the Army and to the Clinton administration, which is now trying to win
Congressional support for a $1.7 billion plan to help Colombia and
other countries combat drug trafficking.
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