HOSTAGES: A Multi-Part FTW Special Investigation

Medellin Cartel Co-Founder Carlos Lehder A Free Man in Gov't. Charade? --

Wife of Drug Lord Speaks

American International Group, Arkansas, ADFA, Contras, Carlos Lehder and

Coral Reinsurance

Connections to 1996 Dark Alliance Series by Gary Webb

Carlos Lehder

[Part One of a Multi-Part Series]

by

Michael C. Ruppert

[(c) Copyright 2001, Michael C. Ruppert and From the Wilderness

Publications. All Rights Reserved. Part I ONLY may be copied and

redistributed for non-profit purposes only. All subsequent parts may be

copied or distributed only with express written consent of the author. ]

[EDITORIAL NOTE - From The Wilderness is a sole proprietorship and dba. It

is written and edited by one person. Me. I do almost all of the research.

Therefore, in the following story, for both legal reasons and for better

reading I have decided to use the personal pronouns "I" and "me" instead of

standard editorial references in the third person.]

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-- This series is dedicated to Mark Swaney of the Ozark Gazette for his

intellectual courage and tenacity; to John McGlaughlin, the straightest and

toughest man who ever honestly carried a badge; to Celerino Castillo III,

with a heart bigger than his beloved Texas; to all the young men and women,

mostly minority, who are serving up to life in prison for crimes that don't

remotely compare to those of Carlos Lehder, and to all the innocents in

Colombia who stand at the brink of the next Vietnam War.

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This is a story about lies. Big lies. Lies that have been told by many

people and organizations and that weave a web of imprisonment for the

American people and many of those who are described in this special report.

It is a story about deception, lies of omission and perhaps commission told

by one of the largest and most powerful insurance companies in the world -

AIG. It is a story about lies told by individuals to protect their self

interest, reputations and fortunes. It is especially about lies told by the

United States government as it continues to publicly celebrate the 1994

death of drug lord Pablo Escobar whilst in massive preparation for military

intervention in Colombia. It is about the now apparent lie that Carlos

Lehder (co-founder of the Medellin cartel) languishes in the American prison

system being duly punished for his crimes. Instead he has, allegedly since

1995, traveled the world a free man, owning as many as five homes and who -

according to a woman claiming to be his wife, speaking on tape (which I have

obtained) to credible third parties - enjoys US State Department protection.

But perhaps most importantly it is about the lies that the American people

tell themselves each day as they drown in a sea of denial, worried about

their pension plans, investments and careers, needing to deny the fact that

the so-called war on drugs is a flimsy house of cards that consumes millions

of innocent lives every year. It is a story about the lies told by the major

media that chooses to ignore the reality of hard documentation about CIA

involvement in the drug trade. If there is a common thread to this story it

is the fact that lies make us all hostages of our own fears and failings.

Eventually these lies entangle us to the point where even the slightest

movement becomes impossible and, being unable to move, we sink and we

drown - all the while looking for someone else to blame.

Denial is not a river in Egypt.

Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas, aka Carlos Lehder, is the stuff of which

legends are made. Legends are sometimes good, sometimes bad. As is the case

with most legends there is a beautiful woman involved. There is also

intrigue, crime, violence, corruption and betrayal. But legends, when

examined closely, almost always tell more about the civilizations that

create them than they do about the one who carries the name. Carlos Lehder

is not a Colombian legend. He is an American legend. It is America that

created him. America that made him rich. America where he began his criminal

life. America where he was imprisoned and America that, it now appears, has

set him free. It is America's shame that Lehder's freedom, if established,

and alleged employment by the U.S. Government, are hidden behind lies told,

not by Lehder himself, but by the American government to its own people.

In 1979-80, reportedly with the assistance of the CIA and legendary drug

smuggler Barry Seal, Lehder co-founded the Medellin Cartel with Pablo

Escobar and brothers Fabio and Jorge Ochoa. As celebrated on CNN and by

recent books like Killing Pablo (Mark Bowden, 2001), Pablo Escobar was

gunned down in a hail of Colombian bullets directed by U.S. intelligence in

December, 1993. The Ochoas have faded into the jungle-like vortex of Latin

American lore although an October 1999 Reuters story indicated that Fabio

Ochoa had been arrested (again) in Bogota. Word of his promised extradition

to the U.S. has been hard to find. Carlos Lehder remains the only cartel

head to have ever been extradited to, then tried, convicted and sentenced to

life plus 135 years in, the United States. Prosecutors agree that Panamanian

strongman General Manuel Antonio Noriega - against whom Lehder testified in

return for a reduced sentence of 55 "non-paroleable" years in 1989 - was

merely one of Lehder's employees.

Other new material indicating that Lehder, after his 1987 arrest and

extradition, provided information to the DEA that assisted in Escobar's

downfall has been characterized by his prosecutor, former US Attorney Robert

Merkle, as nearly worthless. "That's BS. We didn't need his help to get

Escobar," says Merkle.

As disclosed in this first of a series of special reports, I have now

amassed a sizeable body of documents, records, witness statements and even a

tape recording of Lehder's alleged wife indicating that Carlos Lehder is a

free man who has kept his money, who travels the world freely and who makes

a mockery of any notion that he might be a federally protected witness -

hiding to ensure his safety or the safety of his family. One telling clue to

Lehder's apparent lack of fear is the fact that he is listed by name in 411

directory assistance in La Fayette, California, just outside San Francisco.

My researcher, while looking for other information, came across the listing

and sent it to me. I was able to confirm it as a listing for the Carlos

Lehder - not a coincidence - through confidential sources who know Lehder's

self-professed wife, Coral Marie Talavera Baca Lehder. And I have spoken to

Coral by calling her at that number myself. Mrs. Lehder was, until June 22,

a manager for the insurance giant AIG in San Francisco. [Subsequent segments

of this special series will focus on investigations into allegations of

money laundering by AIG with and through the Arkansas Development Financial

Authority in 1987 - the same year Lehder was originally captured].

I had lunch with Coral two days before she resigned. When I called her San

Francisco office the following Monday, June 25, a company receptionist told

me that she had, "Gone to Cuba."

Coral's reported flight to Cuba cuts off several interesting avenues that

warrant further investigation. Just prior to press time for Part I of this

series, a defense source connected to Lehder's appeal for sentence reduction

told me that their experience indicated clearly that Lehder was still in

prison and that no one named Coral was connected to Lehder in any legal

paperwork. Of all the journalists, experienced investigators and direct

witnesses interviewed for this story, only those who have worked to prepare

his appeals have raised the suggestion that Coral Marie Talavera Baca

(Lehder) is a fraud. The rest have stated that they have long suspected that

Lehder is a free man. So do I. And the possibility that the woman who has

represented herself as his wife for many years has staged an elaborate hoax,

while working for a company long connected to the CIA, only raises an

equally troubling set of questions. Why? For what purpose? To whose benefit?

Just hours before this issue needed to be at the printer's, an e-mail

arrived indicating that Lehder's current attorney (I do not know the name)

had just stated that Lehder was definitely in prison, answered the phone

promptly when called there, had never been married and had allegedly stated

that he had never heard of Coral Baca -- by any name. She was a fraud. At

the same time I have been told that the attorney may not identify himself to

me and probably will not make Lehder available for an interview. This

possible attempt by unnamed sources to delay publication of this story will

be thoroughly investigated for Part II of this series.

"I've been speculating for years that Lehder was free... Why am I not

surprised? If Lehder is out of jail I would be extremely disappointed. It

would send some very bad signals. It's pretty tragic. There's a lot of kids

in jail for the rest of their lives -- I'm talking kids -- and a lot of them

are minorities for insignificant drug offenses compared to what he did,"

says Lehder prosecutor and former US Attorney Robert Merkle. According to

various news sources at the time of his arrest in 1987 Lehder, then 37, was

reported to be worth between $2.5 and $3 billion. Throughout the early 1980s

his airstrip at Norman's Cay in the Bahamas was receiving cocaine flights

from Colombia, every hour on the hour, and transferring the loads to smaller

planes for distribution throughout the US.

Pittsburgh-Post Gazette reporter Bill Moushey, who has perhaps spent more

time tracking Lehder than any American journalist, wrote in 1996, " In it [a

1987 federal detention order] the U.S. government says Lehder and others

were responsible for assassinating Colombia's Justice Minister in 1984; for

the 1985 armed attack on Colombia's Supreme Court building that killed 11

justices and 84 other people; for assassinating two newspaper editors in

Colombia and 26 other journalists; for shooting the Colombian ambassador to

Hungary in 1987; and for a long list of murders of police officers,

informants and other government officials."

Moushey's trail of Lehder grew cold in 1996. "Within weeks of sending that

letter [of complaint regarding the government's alleged failure to honor

terms of secret plea bargain] last fall [1995], Lehder was whisked away into

the night, several protected witnesses at the Mesa Unit in Arizona say. No

one has heard from him since." However he has since indicated that, as of

late 1995, he believed Lehder to be in prison.

I have since talked nearly a dozen reporters, prosecutors and others

connected to the case. At the same time that they protest that they have

received Christmas cards, letters and even phone calls from Lehder

indicating that he is still in prison they all - every one of them - have

confessed their secret suspicions of a charade intended to fool them and

hide a very dark secret. And all of them, without exception, agree that if

Lehder is walking free it is time to find him and tell the American people

about it.

Days of Glory - Days of Shame

I first became aware of Carlos Lehder's possible freedom in the Spring of

1997, not long after I had confronted CIA Director John Deutch on television

and stated that there was direct proof of CIA involvement in the drug trade.

Dick Gregory, the comedian, later told me that he had learned first hand

that my confrontation with Deutch, and Deutch's poor handling of the

situation, had cost Deutch a certain appointment as Secretary of Defense the

following month. I was something of a small-time celebrity afterwards. At

that time, however, those of us like retired DEA Agent Celerino Castillo, a

Bronze Star recipient from Vietnam who has devoted his life to exposing CIA

drug connections in the eighties, stood downstage from Pulitzer Prize

winning journalist Gary Webb whose August 96 Dark Alliance series in The San

Jose Mercury News had inflamed the nation with its allegations of direct CIA

connections to the Contras in Nicaragua and drug trafficking in LA.

In late 1996 I was approached by the publisher of the magazine Prevailing

Winds, Patrick Fourmy, a young Canadian videographer who was also

perennially scrambling to raise money. In several of our meetings Patrick

talked openly of how a woman named Coral Baca had instigated Webb's

investigations by providing him with secret federal grand jury transcripts.

[Although widely ridiculed or ignored by the mainstream media, many of

Webb's allegations were later corroborated in detail by a CIA Inspector

General report released on October 8, 1998 and by a Department of Justice

report released almost a year earlier.] On various trips and a meeting where

Fourmy videotaped an interview with me, he almost boasted about the fact

that Baca was engaged to Carlos Lehder. He claimed to have been the one who

"introduced" Baca to Webb by giving her Webb's office phone number. It

bothered me. But I was broke, unemployed due to an injury, and unable to do

anything but ask, "Doesn't that bother you a little?"

I met with Patrick maybe three times between then and the summer of 1998. At

one time he told of having actually met Lehder whom he repeatedly said was

out of prison. Other confidential sources, close to the Lehders, have told

me that Fourmy actually visited "the house" and videotaped an interview with

Carlos Lehder. I didn't see Patrick much after that. Contacted with written

questions for this story by e-mail and fax at his Santa Barbara offices,

Fourmy has not responded to my requests for comment. I have been unable to

locate a working phone number for him.

On June 28, 1998, just about two weeks after Webb's book Dark Alliance had

been released I was invited to attend a fund raiser at the Beverly Hills

home of Producer Jamie Otis and organized in part by Patrick Fourmy who did

the videography and arranged hotel accommodations. The purpose of the "gala"

event featuring Webb as a speaker, was to raise funds for "citizen's

tribunals" to be conducted by the Institute for Policy Studies in

Washington, D.C. I had just finished reading Webb's book and found it to be

ground-breaking and well documented. In the first pages of Dark Alliance

Webb wrote about his first meeting with Coral Talavera Baca, the woman now

known as Mrs. Carlos Lehder. In retrospect Webb's description of her seems

ponderous.

"I turned, and for an instant all I saw was cleavage and jewelry. She looked

to be in her mid-twenties. Dark hair. Bright red lipstick. Long legs. Short

Skirt. Dressed to accentuate her positive attributes. I could barely speak.

'You're Coral?'

She tossed her hair and smiled. 'Pleased to meet you.' She stuck out a hand

with a giant diamond on it, and I shook it weakly." - (p.6).

Earlier, on page 4, Webb had written that Coral worked for a law firm. What

he did not report was that the law firm was solely devoted to legal work for

AIG and that AIG had long standing ties to the CIA. Rather than reporting

that Talavera was engaged to Lehder -- which he claims he could not

establish -- Webb wrote in Dark Alliance that she was the "girlfriend" of

convicted San Francisco Bay Area drug dealer Rafael Cornejo.

The night of June 28 and the following day can best be described as surreal.

Coral and Webb arrived together and she stood by him as he spoke that night.

She looked more elegant than Webb had described and she was truly stunning.

Fourmy, who was busy with cables and cameras kept pointing her out and

saying, "she's engaged to Carlos Lehder. I introduced them." Fourmy spent

much time that night with crime writer and author Joseph Bosco who made a

strange statement to me towards the end of the evening. "Gary Webb should be

ashamed of himself for what he did to Coral." I have been unable to find out

what Bosco meant.

Fourmy, Bosco, Castillo and Coral were all staying at the Beverly Garland

Howard Johnson's in North Hollywood California. Although I was briefly

introduced to Baca [I use the names Talavera and Baca interchangeably to

reflect how she was addressed in various settings] just before she left the

event in a taxi cab, and didn't quite know what to say, it turns out that

she was more forthcoming in a conversation with Castillo. Just days after

the event Castillo called me and told me what she said that night and the

following day. He has since reconfirmed those statements for this story.

"I remember that I was introduced to her by Fourmy," says the retired DEA

agent who has served in Peru and Central America. "She said, straight out,

that she was engaged to Carlos Lehder... I couldn't believe it! What was she

doing here? I asked her, 'What's Carlos doing now?' and she said, 'Oh, he's

out of jail and selling drugs to the Russians for the CIA.'

"I mean it just knocked me for a loop. It scared me. And then the next day

she was out by the pool. Patrick [Fourmy] was there. Joe Bosco was there.

She came down and sat with us. She was quite open and she said that her

company -- a company she owned that I later found out was Capital Investment

Group -- was owned by five of the largest drug dealers in South America. She

was very agitated at the government and she said that the government had

contacted Carlos and told him to 'put that bitch on a leash.' That, said

Castillo, was probably because of her openness in talking about the fact

that Carlos was out of prison and her public appearances with Webb. I have

confirmed that Baca made at least one other public appearance with Webb at a

book signing in Los Angeles.

Contacted at a New Orleans phone number, Joe Bosco has not returned a call

requesting comment.

Maxine Waters -- From the web site of Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D),

California:

"I also had numerous telephone conversations with Coral Talavera Baca, the

girlfriend of Rafael Cornejo, who was a relative and part of Norwin Meneses'

drug trafficking organization, as well as a long-time business partner of

Danilo Blandon, another central figure in the "Dark Alliance" series. I

received information from Ms. Baca and Mr. Cornejo who were connected to

Carlos Lehder, a Colombian drug dealer and co-founder of the Medellin

Cartel. It was through Lehder's private island that the Medellin Cartel

moved massive amounts of cocaine to Miami and the United States. Ms Baca had

visited Carlos Lehder's private island and have [sic] information regarding

the connection between Mr. Lehder and Norwin Meneses." --

http://www.house.gov/waters/31698pr.htm. Contacted for comment, Waters'

office had not responded at press time.

George Taylor -- George Taylor is a convicted felon. He has been part of the

Federal witness protection program known as Witsec. On June 18, 1996 he gave

sworn testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee then looking into

serious problems with the program. In his testimony he stated:

"The Units also housed one of the most sought after drug Kingpins in the

world. Carlos Lehder Rivas, leader of the Medellin Cartel. Lehder admitted

to ordering hundreds of killings, including a member of the Colombian

Supreme Court, politicians, and reporters. His net worth is over $3 billion

yet only $2 million in assets were ever seized. I reviewed Lehder's plea

assessment, he was convicted and sentenced to life plus 135 years with no

chance for parole. And then he joined the program by agreeing to testify

against Manuel Noriega, who in effect worked for Lehder. Federal officials

immediately cut Lehder's sentence to 55 years with eligibility for parole.

[This eligibility is disputed by a member of Lehder's defense team who spoke

on condition of anonymity]. Further sentence reductions made him eligible

for deportation to Germany, his homeland. I have been told that Lehder is

already in Germany.

"While in the Unit, Lehder developed new drug smuggling plans for after his

release. He talked of a new frontier in the former republics of the Soviet

Union. He and [convicted Gambino crime family Capo Sammy the Bull] Gravano

talked of forming a partnership in a new cartel using money given to them by

our government. They asked me to join them and I turned them down.'

Gary Webb -- Contacted for comment Gary Webb responded: "Coral's

relationship with Lehder, if there was one, was not very pertinent to what I

was looking at." Webb said he saw correspondence suggesting that she and

Lehder may have had a relationship a long time ago but whatever the nature

of that relationship was or is, it was her private business and had no

bearing on his inquiries as far as he could tell.

Robert Merkle -- "I know that Lehder, right after he was arrested, tried to

cut a deal directly with [then Vice President George H.W.] Bush and the

FBI - which conversations I was excluded from... There's a lot of stuff that

went on that was questionable...I've been speculating for years that Lehder

was free but I figured he'd be in Germany or some tax haven with his money,

which he still has... One of the major things that was a red flag in terms

of indicating that he made a deal was that Lehder wasn't required to turn

over his assets... There was essentially nothing seized in that case and the

guy made millions of dollars. If I'm a U.S. Attorney or an Attorney General

and the only member of the Medellin Cartel to be prosecuted in the US,

facing life plus 120 years in jail, wants a deal, the first thing he's going

to talk to me about is money. What banks? Where are they located?"

Texas is a One-Party State

Far and away Celerino Castillo's allegations are the most outrageous. They

demand a level of scrutiny beyond the denials or silence of the other

parties involved.

Under Texas state law, unlike Maryland where tape recordings of phone

conversations unauthorized by both parties proved the undoing of Monica

Lewinsky and resulted in legal action against Linda Tripp, Texas is a state

where only one party to any telephone conversation need grant permission

before recording a call. As a result of a number of investigations

connecting to the CIA in which he was then involved, Castillo had his

telephone set up to automatically record all incoming calls. This proved

fateful when he received a call from Coral in April of 1999. Castillo and

Baca had been in touch infrequently since the June, 1998 fund raiser. Baca

had been suggesting that she might be able to get Castillo work as an

investigative consultant on a legal case connecting to the CIA in San

Francisco and had even paid one phone bill for him in the preceding months

as a partial expense payment for that case. Castillo's early retirement had

resulted from his efforts to expose CIA involvement in Contra-connected drug

trafficking during the eighties and has been documented in his 1994 book

POWDERBURNS - Cocaine, Contras and the Drug War.

In June, 2001 I traveled to San Antonio Texas where I met Castillo and

obtained a copy of one of his "Baca" tapes. He says there are others he is

holding as "insurance against any challenges against me" and that the one he

provided me has had certain sections of the conversation removed for the

same reason. [Beginning in August 2001 I will place selected excerpts of

this tape, converted to MP3 format, on the From The Wilderness web site at

www.copvcia.com. -- See Investigation Notes at the end of this story.]

Having spoken to her on the phone several times since January 2001 I

instantly recognized the voice on the tape. It was definitely the Coral that

I had met.

Following are excerpts from the forty-plus minute conversation: (CC

designates Celerino Castillo. CB designates Coral Baca. Certain segments of

the tape have been edited to protect innocent third parties and to save

space.)

CB: We're living in both places now. We're in Florida now. We did have, we

still have the house in Boca Chica. But we've also got one in Coconut Grove.

CC: Oh. Good.

CB: So it works out really, really nicely. I'm here three days a week.

CC: Then you're flying back.

CB: ...So it works out really, really nicely actually. I thought it was

going to be exhausting but it's not. It's really kind of nice because when

I'm here I really have some time to myself, you know, running the business

[AIG]. I shouldn't say that, running the office.

CC: Oops.

CB: They'll turn that [laughs]. That is a great one.

CC: [Laughs] Ooh - running the business.

CB: I've got to be very careful what I say, you know. Yeah, but um, it's

really nice. If you ever get down there you're more than welcome to come and

visit and stay. I love Florida. It's really beautiful.



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CB: You know because I hear things, like there are going to be hearings on

this mess [The Gary Webb Dark Alliance series]. Let me tell you something.

I'll tell you something and I've heard it from people who have been informed

by very reliable people in the government. No there won't. No there won't be

any more hearings.

CC: But even if there were any hearings...

CB: It's just going to be a joke.

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CB: I've read such ugly articles lately. We attended some benefit. And

somebody wrote an article and they titled it Beauty and the Beast. Is

that...

CC: God Damn...

CB: Is that fucking cruel? I mean like he is like the nicest man, the most

generous man I have ever met. And to call him a beast?

CC: What newspaper was that?

CB: Oh, who the hell knows. I don't even know. I get so upset that people

keep these things from me.... How about all the money he gave me to start an

orphanage in Mexico.

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CB: He was out of jail before I went to Gary.

CC: Oh yeah, well I know that was in, we know, during the Panama thing.

CB: Well no. He was released in 95. In March of 95. I didn't go to Gary

until June - or July - of 1996. [NOTE: This date is disputed by both Webb

and me. It would have given him roughly six weeks to write the entire Dark

Alliance series.]



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CB: Do you know a DEA Agent named Rafael Salcedo or Armando Medina.

CC: Yeah, those names sound very familiar.

CB: Those guys used to moonlight for the CIA all the time.

CC: Yeah, there's a lot of them. The last one I heard was Juan Perez who was

a Cuban...

CB: I know who he is, of course...

CB: We just saw Robert Vesco.

CC: Who?

CB: Vesco, Robert.

CC: What about him?

CB: We just went and saw him when we were in Cuba.

CC: Is he under house arrest? Cause that's what I heard.

CB: What a great man. A Sweetheart.

CC: [Laughing] How's Fidel doing?...

[CB: We had gone down once maybe a year or so ago and I met him [Vesco] for

the first time then. And then when we

went back this time I met him again...I mean he's old and he walks with a

cane. He's just a sweetheart though.

That's what Fidel did for him. He took him in because the United States was

ready to just nab him. I mean you know how the United States is. They kidnap

people and they call it extradition.

CC: So, is Carlos still playing ball with...?

CB: He has nothing to do with the business.



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CB: In fact we're having a birthday party this weekend. What are you doing

this weekend? I'm 29 - again. [Laughs] A little party. Just a hundred of our

closest friends. It's going

to be really, really fun. I think Julio Iglesias. He's going to sing. He's

like my all time favorite. He's in Florida anyway.



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[Baca enters into a lengthy discussion regarding a suspect who had allegedly

burglarized her e-mail accounts. Because these are criminal allegations and

I have been unable to ascertain the validity of the charges I have omitted

references to the named suspect.]

CB: Because of Carlos' situation the State Department called in the FBI to

find out who was doing this... And then he got into my e-mail account, my

Coral Lehder e-mail account, and they were e-mailing Carlos from my e-mail

account...

CB: He got into our e-mail account and was reading all of my correspondence

with, back and forth between Carlos and me.

CC: How did he do that?

CB: Well it's not too hard if you're close to somebody. It's not too hard if

you know what words are important ...

CC: Oh my God. So, what did the FBI... Are they going to bring any charges?

CB: See, there's another point of contention. My other half is very pissed

off and me, no, I'm not going to do that. He has to live with the fact that

what he did [was] wrong...

CC: So the FBI came and they...

CB: The State Department, once I found out that my e-mail was being broken

into, I told Carlos. And Carlos said,

"You know what, it makes sense "Because I knew that some of my e-mails just

weren't right." He's like, "I knew somebody had looked at them." So he

called in I guess, whoever he has to report to, it's a matter of his

national security status, that his security might have been jeopardized. And

the Feds got involved, you know, because they called in the Feds. - It was

an ugly ordeal. Do you know that we had to go to a safe house, because they

didn't know who it was? ...

CB: There were never wedding invitations... I never sent out wedding

invitations. What was sent out after was like notifications... You got the

one that said, "Please extend her every courtesy as my wife..."

---------------------------

."I had several conversation with Coral," says Castillo. "There is no doubt

in my mind that Lehder is out of prison. None whatsoever. I received an

e-mail from Carlos personally, in the summer of 1998, that invited me to

come to the wedding that fall. Carlos had taken her out of the country for

personal reasons. I also received an e-mail from Coral under a separate

account. The address was snowqueen@h... I can't get to those e-mails

now because my old computer is broken and I don't have the money to fix it.

But she was clear on many occasions that Carlos was out. She talked about

travelling all over with him. Why would they have invited me to the house,

or to visit them in the Bahamas if it weren't true? What if I had said yes?

They were going to pay for it but I didn't go. I didn't want to compromise

myself.

"I think Coral is really against the government and the war on drugs. She

has family in jail and she spoke to me I think because of the price I paid

for what I did. I believe that she hates the CIA."

Asked about the possibility of an elaborate ruse by Baca, Castillo replied,

"Look. You almost have to go to more trouble to justify the notion that he's

in prison than you do to justify the position that he's out. What could

Coral possibly have gained from all this effort to make certain people think

so? They both hate the government and would love to make it look bad. She

had a powerful position at AIG that would be jeopardized if she were exposed

as making this up. Why would someone go to all this trouble to make people