Path to Justice

by Jim Dutton

  The various judges in Montana, Utah and San Diego would sign off on the warrants the day before the planned execution. Nick wasn’t worried that a judge would refuse to sign a warrant—the affidavits in support overflowed with probable cause.

  The affidavits would be ordered sealed by the signing judges until formal charges can be filed. The order would be based on the fact that the continuing investigation would be jeopardized if the information in the affidavits could be accessed by the public. Felicia wasn’t named in the affidavits—she was described as “Confidential Informant One”. When court proceedings heat up, it would be expected that the defense would bring a motion to disclose the identity of the confidential informant.

  Nick stayed at the command center during the execution of the warrants and helped coordinate the seizures. He responded to any questions about what to seize, or not to seize, at the various locations. The face of the individual warrant set out the items, or category of items, to be seized at each location. But occasionally, one of the agents would inquire as to whether a particular item could be seized under the warrant. Nick told the officers at Luis’ condo in Coronado to seize brochures about Donzi Classic boats and Ducati Streetfighter motorcycles. The brochures were considered evidence of crimes because they tied Luis to the ownership of the type of boat and motorcycle used in criminal activities.

  The search of accountant Sendow’s residence, in an upscale neighborhood in San Diego, afforded his shocked neighbors with some entertainment. Sendow was roused out of his bed at 7:00 a.m. and he promptly rushed outside in his boxers where he protested the seizure of his beloved BMW. Sendow’s pasty belly hanging over his boxers wasn’t a pretty sight for his proper neighbors. Sendow’s dignity was further assaulted by two officers restraining him and dragging him, limp limbed, back into his house. A file cabinet of documents attributed to the cartel was seized from Sendow’s office.

  Unfortunately, Luis’s condo was fairly clean of incriminating evidence. Not so, for the four warehouses. Marijuana and black tar heroin were found at each location. The biggest haul was at the Otay Mesa warehouse and ranch. Five hundred pounds of marijuana and 100 kilos of heroin were found in an underground storage area, accessed by a trapdoor under a carpet in the warehouse’s office.

  Documents in a safe at the Salt Lake City warehouse included an apparent log of shipments to Missoula and two locations east of Salt Lake, an address outside of Chicago, and an address in Kansas City. This information was passed on to law enforcement in each area. College boy’s checkbook showed monthly deposits of $15,000. Pretty good money for a starving college student.

  After the search warrant teams in Missoula and Salt Lake City inventoried and sealed the non-drug evidence, it was sent to the San Diego’s Task Force offices by overnight express. The seized drugs were logged in at the respective law enforcement offices. The out-of-state labs would perform their own drug analysis for later use at trial. Small samples of the tar heroin found at each location were collected by a DEA transport vehicle and delivered to the San Diego lab for a more detailed profile of their nutrient and mineral content.

  That evening the team went to their favorite watering hole, the Days End, to celebrate the successful execution of the warrants. The highlight of their conversation, over pitchers of beer, was a recounting of what Sendow looked like in his boxers, with his bony legs, running around like a chicken with his head chopped off, on the cold pavement in front of his house. If nothing else, his pasty pouch kept him warm in the chill of the early morning hour.

  Nick related his beer influenced thoughts to the others, “Sendow should be ripe for the picking. We will let him stew for a few days and then approach him about saving his hide. Otherwise, his goose, or in Sendow’s case, his chicken is cooked.”

  Pepe said, “With that profound observation and torture of a trite metaphor, it’s time to go home.”

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  The team continued to surveil Sendow. After exposing his skinny legs at the search warrant and losing his precious BMW, Sendow came up with a beat-up Ford Escort to drive around. On workdays, he would get breakfast at a diner near his office in Mira Mesa. The team had frequented the diner when they wanted strong coffee and heaps of hearty food. Nick knew Maggie, the owner of the place. She was in her sixties, widowed, and had lost none of her Irish flare. He had helped her son get out of a misunderstanding—a bar fight on St. Patrick’s Day where her son’s drunken antagonist disparaged leprechauns. Nick dropped in and showed Maggie a picture of Sendow. Maggie instantly commented, “I know that guy. He comes in most work days, and orders three eggs over easy, bacon, and hash browns. He keeps to himself, doesn’t even talk to Sallie, our one, eye-catching waitress.”

  “Maggie dear, can you do an old Paddy drinker a good turn?”

  “Nick, I didn’t know you were a connoisseur of our finest Irish whisky. That’s music to my ears. What do you want?”

  “Tomorrow morning when Sendow comes in, have him sit over there in the corner, away from everyone else. One of my agents and I will unexpectedly be joining him for breakfast.”

  “Honey, I can do that for you and I know not to ask why.”

  “Only thing I can say, Sendow is one of those snakes that our blessed St. Patrick drove out of Ireland.”

  Nick and Mario parked across from the diner, and saw Sendow walk into the diner just after 8:00 a.m. “Mario, are you hungry?”

  “You know better than to ask an Italian that question, I’m always ready for a good meal.”

  “I can’t promise you a good meal, but there’ll be a lot of it. Let’s go.”

  Nick winked at Maggie when they entered. Sendow was sitting in the corner table with his back to Nick and Mario. Sallie was leaning over Sendow, pouring his coffee, angling for a good tip as her left breast pressed against his shoulder. Nick and Mario pulled up chairs on either side of Sendow and quickly sat down. Before he could say anything, Nick greeted him, “Hi Lester. I didn’t know you appreciated such fine dining. I’m the prosecutor who arranged for the search warrants executed on your residence and office a few days back. I’ve been getting some complaints from your neighbors about having to see you in your boxers at the crack of dawn. Tough on their constitutions so early in the morning. Here’s my identification. Say hello to Detective Mario Cipriani. He’s a member of our Money Laundering Task Force.”

  Sendow blanched and began to sweat. Nick thought he might have a heart attack right there. He wanted Sendow to wait until at least they’d eaten breakfast. Nick, in a calm, soft voice, said, “Lester, relax, we’re here to help you. If we wanted to arrest you, you’d already be in handcuffs. Let’s have breakfast, I’ll order.” Nick called Sallie over. “Sallie, biscuits and gravy for me, with a side of pork links. For Mario, a stack of blueberry pancakes and for my friend here, three eggs over easy, bacon, and a side of hash browns.”

  “How did-did-did you know what I like to order?” stammered Sendow.

  “We know a lot about you Lester. We know about your stolen property conviction that was bargained down from embezzlement of your client’s funds. It saved your license. I think you got lucky. If the Accountancy Board knew all the facts, they would’ve yanked your CPA license. For your sake, we hope they don’t find out. We also know about your drug usage as a juvenile and your successful completion of adult drug diversion before you got your CPA license. We know you still have a drug problem. A real big drug problem.” Mario slid a photograph of Lester with Luis in the Polaris Ranger, driving towards the Canadian border with duffle bags in the back.

  Sendow gasped, “Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit. What am I going to do? I’m ruined.”

  Nick leaned close to Lester. “You’re right, you’re in deep shit. But you don’t have to be ruined. We have you tied to the Familia, both on the drug side and the money side. Our forensic auditors are going through your boxes of records and your business computer as we wait for our break
fast. Have you ever looked up the penalties for being part of a Continuing Criminal Enterprise? Up to life imprisonment. All the money laundering and standard drug distribution counts will be gravy.

  “So, Lester, it’s your lucky day. We’re going to give you the opportunity to work with us in this case. We’ll have your back. We’ll fully debrief you and we want you to wear a wire for certain meetings. If you tell us the truth and fully cooperate, the heavy lifting felonies are off the table. We’d want you to plead to a money laundering count and a drug distribution count. When the time comes, if you live up to the deal, we’ll tell your sentencing judge of your cooperation and positive impact on the case. You shouldn’t have much prison exposure. And, it sure beats a life sentence.”

  “If I’m alive to enjoy all this future time among the free. You’ve no idea how violent and cruel these men are. They don’t value life. It’s not that they randomly go around shooting people. But if they kill people, it’s just business to them! Nobody ever loses any sleep.”

  Mario replied, “We do have a good idea what the cartel is about. That’s why it’s so important to get the top leaders and shut them down. You’ll be fully and discretely supported on any undercover work you do. Once the indictment comes down, you’ll be whisked away to the federal witness protection program. You’ll have to testify at trial. After the cartel members are sentenced, you’ll be sentenced. Your CPA license will be gone, but you’ll still have your life. You can start over. If you don’t work with us, your life with the cartel will end in one of two ways—death by the cartel or life imprisonment.”

  Nick added, “In case you’re thinking about telling the Familia about this conversation, that would just sign your own death warrant. If they know we’ve approached you, they’ll think you have turned no matter what. You said you know them. Cruel and violent, it’s just business. Your death would just be tying up a loose end.” Lester stared straight ahead. His eyes were miles away.

  After a couple of minutes of silence, Lester said, “I need some time to think about it.”

  Nick responded, “Sure, we can wait until you finish breakfast.” It was the longest breakfast that Nick and Mario ever had to endure. Lester savored every bite and followed the age old mother’s axiom of chewing twenty times before swallowing.

  As Nick watched Lester’s last bite, he told him, “I don’t care if working with you is a win-win for both of us. If you ever put me through an eating marathon again, you’ll get life in prison.”

  “All right Mr. Drummond, I’ll cooperate, but you have to convince me I’ll be safe.”

  “We will. Tomorrow morning at nine Detective Cipriani will pick you up here and take you to our offices. You’ll tell us all you know and we’ll go over your safety concerns. Don’t worry about the bill. We’ll see you tomorrow. Remember, if you have any thoughts about going to the cartel about this, just imagine what Luis will do to you to ensure your silence.”

  They were waiting for Ana in the conference room to begin the debriefing of Lester. Ana limped in, a few minutes late, holding a grande cafe latte. She knew Nick hated to be kept waiting. He detested lines and took it as a personal affront when there was a long line in front of him to order lunch. Patience certainly wasn’t one of his virtues. Ana felt the urge to explain her tardiness to try to forestall Nick’s angry, you screwed up look. “I’m sorry I’m late. It was one of those mornings. I was dropping off dry cleaning when a guy zipped up in his Mercedes, parked in the red zone in front of the cleaners and beat me to the counter with an armload of clothes. Of course, he then had to explain each stain on each item of clothing and asked how the cleaners were going to handle his special situation. Boss, I almost arrested him right there for obstruction of justice. Then, at the other end of the parking lot, I drove over to the Starbucks drive-through on automatic pilot and it didn’t register that there were 10 cars ahead of me. Before I could back out, another soccer Mom had pulled up behind me after dropping Junior off at the local elementary school. It was a child friendly van that I couldn’t get around.”

  Nick studied Ana for a moment. “I think I know the Starbucks you’re talking about; the one just off the freeway and Del Mar Heights Road.”

  “Yes”.

  “Why would you ever go to the drive-through when at the other end of the parking lot, at Von’s, there’s a Starbucks where you never have to wait.”

  Ana responded, “Hey Mr. Starbucks hater, how do you know so much about Starbucks locations? Are you a closet partaker?”

  “No, Judy used to drag me along when the kids would play soccer games at the nearby grammar school.” Nick thought, Shit, probably shouldn’t have brought that up.

  Mario said, “To answer your question Nick, I have done a study of women waiting in line at Starbucks drive-throughs. They enjoy the time sitting in their cars. They can listen to Public Radio, or Google something on their phone, check out Facebook, talk on their phones, or better yet, if another woman is in the car with them, they can have quality chat time. So, don’t think they’re just too lazy to get out of their car to go to a Starbucks at Von’s, even if it saves them ten minutes.”

  Nick heaved a sigh of relief, “Mario, I’m glad you set us straight with scientific research. If it came out of my mouth, some people around here might think I was being sexist.”

  Ana smirked, “You sexist, never.”

  Nick replied, “I know this is probably a fascinating topic of conversation for Lester, but let’s move on.

  “Lester, we need to know how you met Luis and how you became the cartel’s accountant.”

  “I like to bet on the ponies and I was getting behind with my bookie. He knew I was a CPA and told me about Luis and that he was looking for an accountant. I went over to Luis’ condo in Coronado in late April of last year. We hit it off. Luis was really into horse racing. He told me he went to Del Mar each year. I told him I had some free time because tax season was over. He told me that he knew about my horse racing debt and my previous trouble with the law. He also told me he would pay well, but I shouldn’t ask too many questions. He offered me a $50,000 retainer. It happened to be the amount of my gambling debt. I accepted.”

  Mario asked, “Did you know he wanted you to facilitate an illegal enterprise?”

  “Not exactly. He said he was in a cash business as a wholesaler of agricultural products grown in Mexico. A couple of businesses, owned by others, were helping him move cash back and forth across the border. He wanted my help on moving the money and keeping track of it.”

  “Did you ask him what the agricultural products were? questioned Mario.

  “No, I didn’t really want to know.”

  Nick said, “So, you stuck your head in the sand and just followed instructions.”

  “You could say that.”

  Ana asked, “These companies which move cash back and forth, how is it done?”

  “When I started to look at Luis’ operation, it was a mess. He told me that one of the companies that was helping him was an import business that purchased food from Latin America and sold the products in Mexico and the United States. The company is called Latin American Productos and is owned by Anthony and Rachel Sakia. Luis’ company was also dealing with L&M Freight, which is a cross-border, trucking business. That business is controlled by Hector Morales. Luis told me that his company had too many cash dollars. The Mexican purchasers of his food products were paying in U.S. dollars, instead of pesos, because the dollar was more stable. The Mexican peso was being devalued every few years which translated into losses for the companies that dealt in pesos. So, Luis had a huge surplus of cash dollars in Mexico that he couldn’t deposit directly into Mexican banks because of Mexico’s restrictions on cash dollar deposits. He was also going through a chain of Mexican exchange houses, called Numero Uno, which moved the dollars across the border for deposit into U.S. banks for a fee of three percent of the gross. The cash dollars were
deposited in L&M Freight and Latin American Productos accounts for later transfer back to Mexico.”

  “Did you buy that?” asked Nick.

  “Then, I didn’t know enough about cross-border business, payment in pesos or dollars, and the Mexican currency regulations. So, although it sounded weird, I didn’t think it was necessarily illegal. Luis said that a couple of cash couriers of Numero Uno got busted by the feds for not declaring the $80,000 in cash that they were carrying in backpacks into the U.S. I looked into it and told him, if he needs large amounts of cash transported into the U.S., just fill out the forms at the border and declare it. Nothing illegal about bringing large amounts of cash over if it’s declared on the IRS Customs form. We set up a process to skip the middle man, Numero Uno, and just have Morales and the Sakias, or their employees, bring large amounts of cash over the border to be placed into their U.S. accounts. We didn’t want to raise the suspicion of the U.S. bankers, so we spread the cash deposits into numerous accounts. Because of loopholes in the Mexican currency restrictions, once we had the cash in U.S. banks, the money could be wired directly into Mexican bank accounts, either in pesos or U.S. dollars. The Mexican restrictions don’t apply to funds wired into Mexican accounts.”

  “Pretty damn complicated,” commented Nick.

  “Not really, once it got up and rolling. Luis also didn’t want his cash sitting for any length of time in U.S. banks. I told him that in addition to wiring the dollars back to Mexico, the couriers could immediately obtain cashier’s checks for the amounts deposited and transport those across the border to Mexico for deposit in a Mexican bank. The Mexican cash dollar deposit restrictions don’t apply to cashier’s checks.”