A lawyer, who was known to me, had been sent down to see me in the Federal holding cell by other lawyer friends who were contacted after someone read the note I left in my office, which read "I have been arrested by federal agents; Please call my lawyer xxxxx." The agents had courteously allowed me time to pen a quick note before placing the handcuffs on me.

This lawyer was the exception to the Miami rule; not a flashy or bold drug lawyer, he came from the South, and was exceptionally adept in criminal defence. In fact, I had previously chosen him to represent a client of mine who was arrested in a cocaine offence a couple of years earlier.

We went over the usual information necessary to present to the magistrate in connection with any bond issues:

• Ties to the community: I had at that point lived in Miami for 20 years.
  

• Family ties: parents, wife and infant son lived in Miami.
  

• Professional ties: I had held a state-issued license to practise law in Florida for seventeen years.
  

• Prior arrests: I had none. In fact, although I had been essentially a career criminal for a decade, I had nothing more serious than a speeding ticket on my record.
  

• Flight risk: as an attorney with an office in the city, who worked there, I was not at risk of leaving the jurisdiction to avoid criminal prosecution.

Danger to the community: I had no firearms on my person when arrested, and I was not selling narcotics to people in the city. By no stretch of the imagination did I pose a danger to law-abiding residents.

A person from the US Probation office later met with me and elicited the same information, as they were charged with ascertaining my current status for pretrial release purposes, and also to see if I needed to have a Federal Public Defender appointed to represent me, due to any lack of the financial ability to pay for a private attorney.


At the hearing, the charges were read aloud; conspiracy to engage in racketeering, a 20-year felony, and conspiracy to defraud the Internal Revenue Service by Interfering with the lawful collection of Revenue, a 5-year felony.

The magistrate listened to the details; the case had been brought not in Miami, but in North Florida, where a number of narcotics seizures of client vessels loaded with narcotics had occurred. Therefore,  the court had to ascertain whether it was a risk to allow me to travel on my own to the site of the action, in this case to Gainesville, Florida, in the north-central part of the state.

After reviewing the matter, he allowed me to make bond, what is called a personal surety bond, where the defendant signs a promise to be present for all necessary court hearings in the case, and post only ten per cent of the actual bond amount into the court registry. This is an inexpensive way for defendants to obtain release pending trial.

A corporate surety bond, which was not required of me, is a written guarantee that I would appear in court, or a bonding company could be ordered to pay the full amount. Those types of bonds generally require the defendant to post collateral of a value of at least the principal amount of the bond, such as second mortgages, jewelry, or other valuable items, directly to the bonding company.

So, with little difficulty, I was allowed to be released, and happily walked out of the courthouse back into the light. As I well knew, now things would start to get ugly.

Next: preparation for trial begins, and my life begins to change.