Part 37 (1/2)

'What! On what grounds?'

'Because I carried on doing business with Lord Moynihan after November 1st, 1987. That means I should have been sentenced under the Sentencing Reform Act, which demands a higher sentence than the one Judge Paine gave me. The prosecution say I should get fifteen years without parole. That makes it a worse sentence than Ernie's. At least he'll get the chance for parole before that. I won't. I'll be in prison until well into the next century. I can't do this to my wife and kids.'

The six of us sat around discussing old and present times. I hadn't had a joint for almost a week.

'Can we get any dope here, Ernie?'

'Forget it.'

In the afternoon I interviewed a number of Miami attorneys, all wearing the trappings of dope-dealing wealth and most claiming to have close friends within the prosecution with whom they could negotiate a favourable snitching deal. One of the lawyers, Steve Bronis, behaved very differently from the others. He was cold as ice and didn't smile.

'Mr Marks, let me make one thing clear before we start. If you intend to plead guilty or co-operate with the US Government, I am not your lawyer.'

'You're my lawyer. As long as I can afford you. What will you charge?'

'I'll get the papers from the court and read them. Then I'll let you know.'

In the evening, I talked to some other prisoners, again mainly Cuban and Colombian. The message was obvious. Unless one was absolutely as innocent as the driven snow and could prove it without the remotest shadow of a doubt, one would get convicted. The only way to avoid the resulting heavy sentence was to become, or pretend to become, a snitch.

My mind was troubled when I tried to get some sleep. No way can I become a snitch, a gra.s.s, a chivato chivato, a stool-pigeon, a squealer, a rat, a traitor, a wrong 'un, a betrayer, a Judas, and lie at the bottom of Dante's h.e.l.l for all eternity. I wouldn't be able to look my kids or my parents in the eyes if I did that. If Patty was convicted and got seven years, what would happen to Judy, presently languis.h.i.+ng in a nearby jail? She was equally incapable of gra.s.sing and might have to spend years in prison. I might have to spend forever inside. How would our children survive without us? But then I mustn't give up. When I asked the US Marshals in court what had happened to my personal belongings, they said the DEA had them. John Parry's idea had worked. The DEA are now reading my phoney defence. I'll stick it right up them in trial. If I can get acquitted at the Old Bailey, surely I can manage it in downtown Miami. I'll talk to Hobbs and Malik in the morning and get them to agree to say the Pakistani load was for Australia, not America. I drifted off.

'Name?'

'Marks.'

'Number?'

'41526-004.'

'You're going to court, Marks. Leave everything behind in your locker.'

Thirteen hours later, in the Miami Courthouse's bullpen, the court proceedings finished for the day. I had not been called. I managed to get a US Marshal's attention and asked him what was happening.

'What's your number?' asked the Marshal.

'41526-004.'

'You are being transferred to another facility.'

'Where?'

'North Dade.'

I'd heard that name before. That was where Judy was being held. I turned round to face the other prisoners.

'They're sending me to a women's prison,' I exclaimed. 'North Dade. That's where my wife is. Fantastic.'

'That's not just a broads' joint,' said one of the prisoners. 'It's where they put stool-pigeons. You're getting a break, Limey.'

North Dade Detention Centre is a Florida state jail rather than a federal prison. State jails normally house offenders against that state's law. International dope smuggling is a federal offence, but the US Federal Government has taken to renting state jails from the state authorities and using them for its own purposes. Some of North Dade was used to house the increasing number of female federal prisoners; the rest was used to cultivate snitches and protect them from those who would wish them ill. The jail itself conformed somewhat to the American movie stereotype, with metal-grilled, electronically controlled cell entrances. Facing the array of cells were televisions that were never switched off. There were telephones. The outside recreation area was a small cage containing a table-tennis set-up and a weight-lifting machine and could be used by only a handful of people at a time. There were no facilities other than those required for basic hygiene. Almost every male prisoner was a self-confessed snitch who had been caught smuggling cocaine. They had agreed to testify against their business partners and friends in return for lower sentences. One man was giving evidence against his mother. Each had his own justification: he'd been ripped off, it wasn't his fault he was busted, he told them to stop, he couldn't stay in prison for years because it wouldn't be fair to his family, everyone would have to become a snitch soon, there was no other way. The American 'War on Drugs' was fulfilling some hidden and sinister agenda. Demand for confessions had been a characteristic of political repression in many countries at many times. It probably reached its peak during the Cultural Revolution in Communist China. Loyalties to families and friends have to be replaced by loyalty to country. Forget individual ethics and obey the laws and regulations. Enjoy yourself, but do it our way: watch TV for as long as possible, then practise using your firearms. If you don't do it our way, we'll kill you. If your brother is doing something illegal, you should stop him. If you don't, you're as bad as him, and we'll get both of you.

The jail regime was loose. The guards had been instructed not to upset the snitches; they were valuable government property. Not all of the inmates were Hispanic. One was of Italian extraction. His name was Anthony 'Tomak' Acceturo, the once-reputed boss of the New Jersey Lucchese crime family. We discussed our loathing of snitches and the US Government which had created them. At the same time, it was obvious we each suspected the other of being a snitch. Why else would we be here?

Judy and I were able to talk to each other on the phone. She was twenty yards away. Although keeping up her strength, she had been bitterly upset by the treatment meted out to her by her brother Patrick's wife. Their home was within a twenty-minute drive of North Dade, and it had been understood that at least someone would visit her. No one did. Not even her lawyer, Don Re, had been to see her. She was very, very lonely and cried for her children.

Steve Bronis came to see me the first morning, and I said I had not become a snitch. He said he knew and explained that the likely reason I had been transferred was to remove any possibility of my persuading Malik, Ernie Combs, and Patrick Lane not to become snitches. These days there were more snitches than non-snitches. Soon they'd have to build very small special prisons just for stand-up guys.

Bronis had already reviewed the transcripts of the trials of Ernie, Patrick, and others. He felt that the defence lawyers had not put enough effort into getting the telephone taps thrown out of court. He had contacted the DEA and Gustavo in Madrid. Gustavo had sent Bronis the papers I'd left with him. The DEA claimed that there were no defence notes in my personal belongings. Read your heart out, Lovato.

Bronis arranged to have Judy accompany us during his legal visits. I hadn't seen her for six months. She looked different: more worried and more strained. Judy's choice was simple: admit to something she'd never done, get a sentence of time already served, and go home as a convicted felon; or wait for months, maybe years, in a county jail and attempt to establish her innocence before a brainwashed jury. She chose the former. A few weeks later, Don Re's able a.s.sistant, Mona, represented Judy in front of Judge Paine, who convicted her and set her free. The relief was the greatest I have ever known. Her and our children's intense pain and suffering were over. We might not see each other for a while, but Judy's plea agreement made provision for US Government a.s.sistance to be granted to help her to enter the country in the future and visit me.

Talking to the snitches, I quickly discovered what small fry I was. I had been charged with somehow being involved with a grand total of about a hundred tons of dope over a period of almost twenty years. Now I was a.s.sociating with Cubans who had done more than that in a single s.h.i.+pment and had doc.u.mentary evidence to prove it. Lovato and his DEA buddies had certainly done a remarkable job in getting the world to believe I was its biggest-ever marijuana dealer. Part of me really loved the attention I was getting because everyone thought I was the greatest smuggler in the universe. American media, journalists, and authors began to take an acute interest in me. I had been the mystery cartel leader, absent from a trial having all the ingredients that Americans yearn for: a British Peer of the Realm running knocking-shops full of Filipino wh.o.r.es and snitching on his buddy from James Bond's organisation, MI6, who had been smuggling dope in Pink Floyd's equipment and banking in Hong Kong and Switzerland. It was really international: not just a bunch of Hispanics from south of the border, but real foreigners from Europe and Asia. ABC's peak-viewing news programme, Prime Time Live Prime Time Live, wanted to interview me. I said yes, of course.

Paul Eddy and Sara Walden were former members of the Sunday Times Sunday Times Insight team and now lived near Was.h.i.+ngton, DC. They had just written a book called Insight team and now lived near Was.h.i.+ngton, DC. They had just written a book called The Cocaine Wars The Cocaine Wars, which covered cocaine smuggling from Colombia to Miami, and now wanted to write a book about my arrest and trial. Paul Eddy had written to me in Madrid advising me of his intention and asking if I would agree to be interviewed by him. I did so on the condition that I would not answer questions if I felt that I might mess up my defence by doing so. They interviewed me a number of times at North Dade Detention Centre's visiting room, providing a welcome break from the tedium of the television-flooded cell block and enabling me to have an objective viewpoint of the evidence against me. BBC Television wanted to make a doc.u.mentary of Paul's book about me. The director, Chris Olgiati, interviewed me at North Dade. BBC Wales were making their own special doc.u.mentary about me. They interviewed me too.

The fame I'd longed for ever since I was a weak swot in school was now well and truly mine. I loved it. But the fortune I had also longed for had disappeared. I wasn't completely skint: Judy still had the Palma house and its contents. The Chelsea flat was also still in her name, and the Palma Nova flat I'd bought off Chief Inspector Rafael Llofriu was still mine. Some or all of this property could be sold to support Judy and the children. But I had no cash or healthy bank accounts, and Bronis wanted $150,000. My parents sold their smallholding in Wales, now worth a dozen times what it cost them, and liquidated their savings. I was forty-five years old and apparently the biggest dope dealer in the world, yet my modest-living and modest-earning parents were the only ones able to pay for the best dope lawyer in America. Humiliation and shame took their grip of me.

I explained my defence theory to Bronis. Apart from the rock-group scams, I hadn't smuggled any dope to America. I wasn't Mr Dennis, and I could prove I wasn't in Pakistan when DEA Agent Harlan Lee Bowe said I was. The Alameda scam did not concern me. But I was a dope smuggler. The Pakistani scam in which I partic.i.p.ated was to Australia. The Vietnamese scam was to Canada. The United States was not involved. No one in their right minds would smuggle dope to the US these days. Bronis himself worked like a demon. He hired a private investigator to collect doc.u.mentary back-up for my defence. We obtained meteorological data from Australia showing that comments made by us and tapped by the DEA clearly referred to a particularly severe storm off the Australian coast. We obtained reams of statistics about money-laundering and dope-trading in Australia. Every word of the 500 phone taps could be explained. There was enough to convince a jury that what actually happened was a Pakistani scam into Australia. Showing that the Vietnamese scam was a Canadian affair was much easier because the DEA were accusing me of precisely that. Additionally, however, the DEA were claiming American jurisdiction of the Canadian scam on the basis of some weed the DEA had found in California which had been packaged in precisely the same manner as that busted by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police in Vancouver. Each half-kilo bag of Vietnamese weed masquerading as Thai weed carried a label bearing the words 'Pa.s.sed Inspection' and a logo of an eagle. The Californian and Vancouver weed obviously originated with the same supplier in Vietnam, but the DEA had no other proof of my partic.i.p.ation in any importation to America. DEA Agent Lovato had gone well over the top in trying to prove the Californian Vietnamese weed was mine. He maintained that the logo on all the packages was of a sparrowhawk. As Sparrowhawk was Philip's surname and Philip worked for me in Bangkok, it was obvious that I was smuggling dope into America. Bronis and I acquired ornithological texts demonstrating the physiological differences between sparrowhawks and eagles. Lovato would look a fool in court.

Matters were made considerably easier when, to my enormous joy and consolation, Old John was freed by a Vancouver court. The DEA had intentionally withheld favourable evidence, and the outraged Vancouver judges acquitted Old John of the Canadian charges and denied the United States' extradition request. He was free. The DEA were shown, again, to be cheats. There was other good news: Arthur Scalzo, the DEA's man in the Philippines, the one who dealt with Moynihan, had fled Manila under threat of a multi-million-dollar lawsuit for damages. His credibility would be easily attacked. Also we had acc.u.mulated all sorts of dirt on Moynihan. He would be no problem, and he knew nothing. I was going to enjoy this trial. I would make it the most entertaining and colourful trial Miami had ever seen. I would win. I'd be a star.

The prosecuting authority in any US federal case is the a.s.sistant US Attorney for the particular federal district. He has an obligation to resolve any prosecution quickly and cost-effectively. This is achieved by plea-bargaining. The prosecutor offers a maximum sentence for a plea of guilty to some charge plus some other considerations. Craig Lovato and a.s.sistant US Attorney Bob O'Neill came to see me and Bronis in North Dade. They gave us two choices: go to trial against overwhelming evidence and spend the rest of my life in an American prison, or plead guilty, become a snitch, and go home in a few years. They strongly recommended the second choice. Bronis told them to get f.u.c.ked. I was innocent. We were going to trial.

O'Neill left North Dade a disappointed man. Then he left his job and went to work for a firm of civil litigators in New York. He was replaced by a lightweight who knew nothing about the case. Things were looking up.

My confidence continued to increase as the July 1990 trial day approached. Just before my Old Bailey trial in 1981, I had received a poem from Patrick Lane which had given me a great deal of support. This time I received a letter from him.

Dear Howard,I have just spent the past eight hours with agents Lovato and Wezain here at Oakdale and I have agreed to tell them everything that I know about you and about this case. Consequently, I will be testifying against you at your trial in August. I am informing you of this partly to ease my conscience by forewarning you, but also in an attempt to persuade you to plead guilty now and to make a deal with the Government before it is too late.After serving my time for the past two years in stoic silence, you can well imagine how painful and difficult a decision this has been. I am all too aware that little Amber, who has always treated me with such reverence as her favourite uncle, will now only think of me as the man who betrayed her Daddy and sent him to jail for life. But I have had to weigh my loyalty to you as an old friend and brother-in-law against my love and duty towards Jude, Peggy, and Bridie. I am facing the very real probability of a new 15/20-year jail sentence, and I have no right to impose that on my family when I am offered a way out. In return for the Government's agreement not to pursue the extra jail time, I have become a co-operating witness.Co-operation is a bit like pregnancy: there are no half-way measures. Having agreed to tell the truth, I will have to tell the whole truth; from when I first met you till when I last saw you and everything in between. They started asking me questions today, slowly and methodically, and they will be back again tomorrow, and the next day and the day after that until they are satisfied that they know everything that I know. As I answered their questions, part of me felt detached, listening to my voice as though it belonged to somebody else, speaking in the courtroom. As I listened to that voice, speaking slowly, telling only the truth, I finally realised that you do not stand a chance. If you go to trial, you will be destroyed and I will be one of the instruments of destruction ...[M]y evidence alone will sink you. We have been good friends too long, you and I, and I know too much about you ... I do not care how imaginative or resourceful you are, and I have never underestimated your abilities; this time you will not pull it off ... For you to spend the rest of your life behind bars will not only be a shameful waste of all your gifts but will be a terrible tragedy for all the people who love you and need you and whom you will leave behind ... So, as a lapsed Catholic to a Welsh Baptist, I am recommending submission to a greater power. Extra ecclesiam nulla salus Extra ecclesiam nulla salus no salvation outside the church. I'm afraid it involves a humiliating loss of face and a painful swallowing of pride, but if you wish to rejoin your children while they are still little children, I see no alternative to a complete and utter surrender. You are surrounded, outgunned and outnumbered there is no dishonour in such a defeat. But as a father, as a husband, as a son, and as a brother, you have no right to throw away your life in a futile gesture of bravado ... no salvation outside the church. I'm afraid it involves a humiliating loss of face and a painful swallowing of pride, but if you wish to rejoin your children while they are still little children, I see no alternative to a complete and utter surrender. You are surrounded, outgunned and outnumbered there is no dishonour in such a defeat. But as a father, as a husband, as a son, and as a brother, you have no right to throw away your life in a futile gesture of bravado ...I want little Patrick to be proud of his name. I do not want to have to stand in a Florida courtroom and point my finger at you and reveal to the cold scrutiny of strangers all the secrets of twenty years of friends.h.i.+p. Please don't make me do that. Whatever you decide, all my prayers are with you.Patrick.

I had been gra.s.sed up by my own good friend and brother-in-law, the person after whom I'd named my dear son. Where was all that loyalty, unity, faith, trust, camaraderie, and romance? Where had it gone? Was it all bulls.h.i.+t? Of course it was. We weren't the Mafia. We weren't the IRA. We weren't even Robin Hood and his Merry Men. We were just a bunch of easy-going guys who took the easy way out when the rest of the world went mad and ruthless. Alcatraz and Sing Sing weren't meant for the likes of us.

We all have our breaking points, don't we? Put a gun to the head of any one of my children, and I'll tell you all I know. But threaten me with a prison term, and I'll tell you to f.u.c.k off. So why, Patrick? You're definitely no wimp: you took suitcases of has.h.i.+sh from a locked car outside Hammersmith police station when the owner was inside being grilled by the cops; you drove a car full of has.h.i.+sh from Ireland to Wales; we unloaded a ton of has.h.i.+sh in a German gravel pit; we've been together with loads of money and dope in loads of countries. Can't you fight your way through a prison term? I've spent the last nine months with snitches. They're human. I don't blame you, Patrick. But I can't do it. I'll never help the DEA do any of their evil work. I'm not going to put anyone behind bars and obtain my happiness through someone else's tears. You may be doing the right thing, Patrick. It's just my expectations of you that were wrong. And that's not your fault.

Patrick knew nothing about any of the scams to Canada. He collected the money from the Pakistani scam but had no proof that the has.h.i.+sh had been imported into America. I was going to maintain that the cash in America resulted from a complicated money-laundering system used to move Australian currency. Patrick could not refute that. His testimony wouldn't matter. Bronis would destroy him anyway. Sorry, Patrick. You've got to go through the public humiliation of unsuccessfully betraying me. You can't sink me. Only one person can do that: Ernie Combs, who had handled every ounce of dope I'd imported to America over the last twenty years. No way would he roll over and become a government snitch.

The DEA and the newly appointed prosecutor wanted another meeting with me and Bronis to make a final offer. This time the offer was go to trial and get banged up forever or plead guilty and get a maximum of forty years (with possibility of some parole) with no requirement to gra.s.s anyone up or even talk to the DEA. Again Bronis rejected the offer. I was innocent. The DEA said I might like to change my mind: Ernie Combs had agreed to testify against me. He did not do it to lessen his own forty-year sentence by one day. He did it to secure immediate release for his old lady, Patty.

I love you, Ernie, but no more dope deals.

In West Palm Beach Courthouse on July 13th, 1990, I pleaded guilty to racketeering and conspiracy to racketeer. The Canadian charge had been dropped. It was specified I could never be subpoenaed at anyone's trial or any Grand Jury proceeding to testify against them. The judge accepted the agreement not to impose a sentence greater than forty years. The sentencing date was set for October 18th.

From West Palm Beach I was taken to Miami MCC rather than to North Dade. Having been convicted, I wasn't any problem and could no longer adversely influence my codefendants to irritate the system. Jim Hobbs and Ronnie Robb had finally given in and pleaded guilty. As in the case of Judy and of several other co-defendants, the judge agreed to set them free once they'd admitted some non-existent crime. Miami MCC was much the same as when I'd left it nine months previously but was now frequently in the news because of the DEA's capture and forced extradition of Panamanian leader Manuel Noriega. Apparently the American invasion of Panama was nothing to do with grabbing the strategic Panama Ca.n.a.l. The US were just doing a drug bust. Noriega was housed in Miami MCC prison in special prisoner-of-war quarters. I saw him a few times but never conversed with him.

Shortly after I arrived, Balendo Lo turned up. The British had finally given in to DEA pressure and extradited him. He had been charged with facilitating my racketeering enterprise by supplying me with airline tickets. His business and marriage to Orca had been ruined. He was not a happy man.

A pre-sentence investigation report was prepared by a United States Probation Officer, Michael Berg. After an exhaustive enquiry into the whole case and into me, he concluded: In essence, Marks has pled guilty to facilitating the importation of vast quant.i.ties of marijuana and has.h.i.+sh into the United States while living in Europe. This 45-year-old British subject has remained in continuous confinement since July 25, 1988. An Oxford fellow, he is regarded by many as an intelligent, fascinating, and charismatic individual. Aware of this reputation, this writer must confess to not being disappointed.Marks is a devoted husband and father. He has been described in glowing terms by friends and relatives and all of their letters have been reviewed and considered. Much has been written about Dennis Howard Marks and much will continue to be written. Acknowledging this, this investigation attempted to separate fact from fiction. Dennis Howard Marks has, to some extent, become a victim of his own legend. By what the Government now alleges, he is not the world's biggest cannabis trafficker and he certainly is not responsible for 15% of all the marijuana that has entered the country, as DEA once claimed. He is not the biggest trafficker ever prosecuted in the United States, nor, for that matter, in the Southern District of Florida. However, make no mistake, Dennis Howard Marks is a major trafficker. It is astounding that he operated so long, that so many loads successfully entered this country, and that he did it all while remaining in Europe.