Vegas to host trial in case about drugs, guns, terror

By Jeff German

Friday, Feb. 6, 2009 | 2 a.m.

The Justice Department has sent some of its big guns to Las Vegas to prosecute an international drug trafficking case tied to an alleged terrorist group in Colombia.

The case has its roots here but was tracked by federal agents through not just Colombia but Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama. The trail also eventually went through New York and Washington, D.C., before returning to the federal courthouse in downtown Las Vegas.

Former Las Vegan Rene Oswald Cobar and Luis Angel Gonzalez-Largo, a Colombian, are to stand trial Monday on federal drug charges stemming from an alleged April 2004 deal to sell undercover U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents 400 kilos, or 882 pounds, of cocaine as well as heroin from Central America.

In court papers, Washington-based prosecutors alleged that Cobar has worked over the years for a prominent Guatemalan drug trafficking organization and has smuggled hundreds of thousands of dollars in drug proceeds from the United States into Central America.

Gonzalez-Largo, prosecutors allege, has ties to the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia, a violent right-wing paramilitary group tied to the Colombian drug cartels, included on the U.S. State Department’s list of terrorist organizations and referred to as such by prosecutors.

Commonly known by its Spanish acronym, AUC, the organization also has been linked to Colombia’s military and has dedicated itself to battling leftist guerrilla groups in that country. During its years of bloody battles with the leftists, the AUC has been accused of killing thousands of civilians, including human rights activists and trade unionists.

A week after Cobar’s April 6, 2004, arrest in New York, Nicaraguan authorities took Gonzalez-Largo into custody on charges of trying to buy AK-47s and other weapons for the AUC paramilitary group. More than $700,000 in cash was seized from Gonzalez-Largo at the time.

Then, two years later, after Gonzalez-Largo had been convicted and served time behind bars, DEA agents from Las Vegas went to Nicaragua and took him into custody to face federal drug trafficking charges with Cobar in Washington.

But before the agents left for the United States, Gonzalez-Largo admitted to having a relationship with AUC leaders and trafficking in Colombian cocaine, prosecutors allege.

“Gonzalez further advised that on four or five occasions he used the drug proceeds to obtain military-grade arms, which he would then forward to the AUC in Colombia,” prosecutors wrote in court papers.

And Gonzalez-Largo admitted to DEA agents that he participated in the April 2004 drug deal with Cobar, prosecutors allege.

Gonzalez-Largo’s attorney, Gabriel Grasso, declined to comment on his client’s alleged ties to the AUC, but Grasso said he expects to raise questions at trial about the way the investigation was conducted. So does Cobar’s attorney, Lisa Rasmussen.

Mike Flanagan, who runs the Las Vegas DEA office, would not discuss details of the investigation, but he described it as a “massive cooperative effort, locally, nationally and internationally.” The investigation, he said, involved the use of court-approved wiretaps, confidential informants and the sharing of intelligence between the DEA and police agencies in several Central American countries. DEA agents stationed in Colombia, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Panama were among those participating in the investigation, Flanagan said.

In the end, the toughest part of the case has turned out to be getting Cobar, who moved from Las Vegas to Miami just before his arrest, and Gonzalez-Largo to stand trial. The federal government has struggled the past 4 1/2 years to find the right jurisdiction in which to charge the defendants. All the while, both men have remained behind bars.

Because the case originated in Las Vegas, the defendants were first charged here in a May 5, 2004, indictment. But by December 2005, prosecutors had decided that because of the complicated international nature of the investigation, it was better suited to be tried in Washington, where the Justice Department is based. Prosecutors had the Las Vegas indictment dismissed and got a new indictment in Washington.

But in November 2006, a federal judge in the nation’s capital dismissed that indictment after Cobar’s attorneys challenged Washington as the proper venue to try the case. Prosecutors then went back to their original game plan and filed another indictment in Las Vegas against Cobar and Gonzalez-Largo in January 2007.

Cobar has waived his right to a jury trial, and District Judge James Mahan has agreed to try him next week in his courtroom at the same time a jury will try Gonzalez-Largo in his courtroom.

Grasso said he has never heard of that happening in his 20 years of practicing law. Arguing that the dual trials will harm his client’s ability to get a fair shake from the jury, Grasso has filed court papers asking Mahan to have the defendants tried separately. A hearing on that is scheduled for this morning.

Jeff German is the Sun’s senior investigative reporter.