-Caveat Lector-
Thursday, February 15, 2001
U.S. Built Vignali Case on Wiretaps
Law: Informants portrayed dealer who received clemency as key
financier of a cocaine pipeline.
By RICHARD A. SERRANO and STEPHEN BRAUN
Los Angeles Times Staff Writers
MINNEAPOLIS--The 1994 case against Carlos Vignali, whom President
Clinton freed last month after appeals from prominent Los Angeles
politicians, was built on the testimony of informants and federal
wiretaps, which convinced a jury that he had provided large sums
of cash to purchase cocaine for sale in Minnesota.
About 800 pounds of cocaine were mailed in the early 1990s from
Southern California to Minneapolis. In one telephone recording,
Vignali discussed a successful drug deal with two of his
partners, boasting: "It's going to be like that. Ain't never
going to be a problem."
Later, talking about 15 pounds of cocaine that was missing,
Vignali complained: "Get that right back. . . . Kick anybody
down. You guys should roll right up in there and get it."
The trial narrative, reviewed by The Times on Wednesday, was
contained in boxes of trial transcripts and other court documents
at the federal courthouse here. It reveals a government case
built almost entirely upon wiretaps and the testimony of
informants, who turned against Vignali in hopes of winning
lighter sentences. The government portrayed Vignali as one of
the key financiers of the cocaine pipeline from Los Angeles to
Minneapolis. He was described as a young man flush with cash,
who clinched his deals in cell phone conversations and sought to
meld with tough-talking drug hustlers.
Among those who lobbied on Vignali's behalf were former Assembly
Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa, U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los
Angeles), former U.S. Rep. Esteban Torres and Roman Catholic
Cardinal Roger M. Mahony of Los Angeles. Most asked for further
review of Vignali's case, though some went further.
Villaraigosa, for instance, claimed that Vignali had been wrongly
convicted. Villaraigosa and Mahony recently have expressed
regret at involving themselves in the case.
Horacio Vignali, father of Carlos Vignali and a well-connected
Los Angeles businessman, had asked them to contact the White
House on his son's behalf, most of the letter writers said.
Of the 30 defendants indicted on charges of involvement in the
drug ring, which converted the cocaine powder from Los Angeles to
crack cocaine in Minneapolis, all but one were convicted or
pleaded guilty. The jury convicted Vignali on three counts of
conspiracy and cocaine distribution and acquitted him of a fourth
count.
While prosecutors have said that Vignali was a central figure in
the conspiracy, U.S. District Judge David S. Doty, who has
criticized Clinton's decision to commute Vignali's sentence,
cautioned at the 1995 sentencing that he was not "an organizer,
leader or manager."
Still, the judge sentenced Vignali to 15 years, one of the
harshest sentences handed down in the case. Clinton commuted the
sentence after Vignali had served six years. In an interview
Wednesday, Doty said that Vignali "provided funds to the
conspiracy, provided places and was involved in the direct
transfers. . . . He was a big player. He was one of the top
two or three defendants."
Andrew Dunne, the assistant U.S. attorney who prosecuted Vignali
and who advised the Justice Department against commuting his
sentence, said that "he was clearly a key player. . . . He
never said, 'I'm sorry.' "
Vignali, who testified in his own defense, said that he thought
he was loaning money to friends for an investment with a group of
basketball players. He and his father, who also testified, said
that his son had had much of the money since childhood, when he
would lovingly iron hundred-dollar bills and keep the crisp cash
stacked neatly in his bedroom closet.
"I don't understand," Carlos Vignali said on the witness stand.
"What do you mean, drug money?"
Dunne told the jury that this account was absurd. "I submit to
you that's the most preposterous story I have every heard," he
said.
His father testified that ready cash had always been a central
part of the way he had done business in the auto body shop
industry, one of several of his business ventures, including real
estate.
"Cash is a way of making money when nobody else can," said
Horacio Vignali, who bragged about his wealth. Since his son's
arrest, he has contributed $160,000 to federal and state
politicians in California and elsewhere.
"If I have the right amount of cash and I go to an auction, or I
happen to see somebody with a for-sale sign on the street and I
pull them over and we start dealing about the price, if I have
the cash, I buy the car," the father testified.
"If I don't have the cash, somebody else buys the car. So it
gives you an advantage."
He said of his son: "I treated him like my best friend, my
partner, anything he needed, I would always provide for him,
always. It doesn't matter what, I always provided for him."
The defendant's lawyer, Danny Davis of Los Angeles, told the jury
how Carlos Vignali worked at his father's auto body shop and was
more interested in his girlfriend and pursuing a career in rap
music than in becoming involved with drug dealers far away in
Minnesota.
"He is a product of his father's grand energy," Davis said. "He
is a person who deals with everyone who comes in that shop as
well. Carlos Vignali, the client here, is about cars, he is about
music and he is about a girlfriend."
Carlos Vignali was indicted with others in the case in December
1993. The group consisted largely of Minnesota street characters
with gang nicknames such as J-Bone, Binky and Lepp.
Vignali, a high school dropout, was known as C-Low, though it was
a moniker he denied at trial. On a tape of the phone taps, he
and others involved in the ring referred to drugs as "love." An
informant testified that Vignali bragged about his role in an
Eazy-E rap video, "Easy-E, Only If You Want It."
When prosecutors introduced the video into evidence, saying there
was both a clean and raunchy version, the judge said, "I hope you
have the clean one here."
In the video, Vignali looked daunting, according to Dunne. "He
had a shaved head, goatee, fierce-looking," the prosecutor said.
Vignali was arrested in Los Angeles and released when his father
posted $250,000 bail. He was the only defendant released on bail
during the six-week trial. In the courtroom, he wore nice suits
and appeared clean-cut, with his hair grown out and styled.
At one point, Denise Reilly, Dunne's assistant prosecutor,
observed that Vignali "has been sent to charm school. . . .
He's had a make-over."
Dunne and Reilly outlined the government's case against Vignali.
Dunne told the jury that, even though drugs were not found on
Vignali, he was guilty nonetheless. "Carlos Vignali didn't have
to physically ship [drug] packages to be guilty under the aiding
and abetting law," he said.
He added: "This case is about cocaine and money, lots of cocaine
and lots of money."
There were 50 witnesses in the trial, and some testified that
36-ounce bricks of cocaine were strapped onto people's bodies
when they flew to Minneapolis. Others said that money and drugs
were flown on planes, shipped in the mail or wired via Western
Union.
Reilly said that in October 1993, two of the defendants arranged
for 6 kilograms, or about 15 pounds, of cocaine to be sent to
Minneapolis. "Those kilograms came from Carlos Vignali," she
said.
In his own testimony, Vignali denied any involvement with drugs.
Most of his answers to questions from attorneys were short, blunt
and spare denials.
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Kadosh, Kadosh, Kadosh, YHVH, TZEVAOT
FROM THE DESK OF:
*Michael Spitzer* <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The Best Way To Destroy Enemies Is To Change Them To Friends
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