Pubdate: Wed, 08 Mar 2006
Source: Miami Herald (FL)
Copyright: 2006 The Miami Herald
Contact:  http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/262
Author: Jay Weaver
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/coke.htm (Cocaine)
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/af.htm (Asset Forfeiture)

HEIR APPARENT TO CALI CARTEL FOUNDERS EXPECTED TO ENTER GUILTY PLEA 
IN NARCOTICS CASE

The heir apparent to reputed Cali cartel founders Miguel and Gilberto 
Rodriguez Orejuela is scheduled to plead guilty today in Miami 
federal court to charges of running his father and uncle's 
multibillion-dollar cocaine empire during the past decade.

William Rodriguez Abadia's scheduled plea this afternoon dramatically 
bolsters the government's high-profile drug case against his father 
and uncle, who are being held in solitary confinement in the Miami 
Federal Detention Center.

Rodriguez Abadia's expected plea deal likely means he will have to 
admit to helping the Cali cartel founders run their cocaine empire 
while they were in a Bogota prison in the late 1990s.

Rodriguez Abadia surrendered in January to U.S. agents to avoid a 
lengthy extradition process in Colombia, said his Miami lawyer, 
Humberto Dominguez.

A Colombian-trained lawyer, Rodriguez Abadia was charged in a 2003 
drug-smuggling indictment along with his father, Miguel, 62, and 
uncle, Gilberto, 66. They face trial in September.

Although the Rodriguez Orejuela brothers had been imprisoned by 
Colombian authorities since 1995, a South Florida federal grand jury 
charged them eight years later with managing their once-powerful drug 
business from behind bars. The indictment further alleged that 
Rodriguez Abadia took orders from his father and uncle to export 
cocaine to the United States.

The brothers' heyday was in the early 1990s, when they allegedly 
exported more than 4,000 kilos of cocaine per month and supplied 80 
percent of the cocaine on U.S. streets.

The Miami indictment, issued in September 2003, seeks the forfeiture 
of $2.1 billion -- their alleged profits between 1990 and July 2002.

Miami lawyers David O. Markus and Roy Kahn, representing the 
Rodriguez Orejuela brothers, said they are preparing for trial 
against prosecutors Richard Gregorie, Edward Ryan and Matthew Axelrod.
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