Source: Tampa Tribune (FL) Contact: http://www.tampatrib.com/ Copyright: 1998, The Tribune Co. Author: Sarah Huntley of The Tampa Tribune Pubdate: 27 Oct 1998 VERDICTS FREE 2, CONVICT 3 IN DRUG TRIAL [ Sarah Huntley covers federal courts in Tampa and can be reached at (813) 259-7616. ] TAMPA - A high-profile cocaine case comes to an end after a federal jury concludes more than a day of deliberations. Not guilty. They are words Wilman Montealegre-Nira and Reginald Williams won't likely forget. A year after being charged with participating in a lucrative cocaine ring, both men were acquitted Monday by a federal jury. As the verdicts were read, Montealegre-Nira beamed and leaned forward to hug his lawyer. Williams covered his face with his hands and wept. The news wasn't as good for their three co-defendants. After deliberating for a day and a half, jurors found Jose Hubert Palacios, accused by prosecutors of heading the Tampa-based drug ring, guilty of conspiracy and of related marijuana and money-laundering charges. Two men alleged to be his associates, Jose Caride and Alfred Williams Jr., were convicted of conspiring to possess cocaine with intent to deliver. The three reacted to the verdicts with silence. All five men were arrested in October 1997 after a two-year investigation that authorities say was one of Tampa's biggest this decade. In the weeks leading to the jury's decision, federal prosecutors played 29 tapes secretly recorded by two government informants. The tapes, mostly in Spanish, included conversations in which Palacios boasted of running an organization with resources that could handle thousands of pounds of Colombian cocaine. In addition to the tapes, Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Customs agents set up two phony operations. In November 1996, Palacios and his colleagues flew what they thought was $500,000 of drug proceeds from New Jersey to Tampa, the agents said. Nearly a year later, investigators contend, the group smuggled in 2,000 kilos of cocaine on a sailboat at Johns Pass. During closing arguments, Palacios' attorney, Ronald Marzullo, told jurors that his client did give the informants marijuana and participated in the Johns Pass delivery but was never able to produce any cocaine on his own. Accusing the federal government of ``making a mountain out of a molehill,'' Marzullo reminded jurors that the informants, both of whom have criminal pasts, earned more than $350,000 each for their work in the case. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert O'Neill told jurors the evidence against Palacios was ``over whelming.'' Prosecutors had accused Montealegre-Nira of posing as a fisherman and keeping a lookout during the Johns Pass delivery. Montealegre-Nira's attorney, Richard Cox Jr., argued that his client did not know he was participating in a drug deal. A sentencing date for the three convicted men has not been set. - --- Checked-by: Mike Gogulski