A federal magistrate in Miami refused to...

A federal magistrate in Miami refused to set bond Monday for powerboat racing champion Benjamin (Barry) Kramer, after testimony from federal agents that Kramer made $12 million in drug money and was a threat to five people placed in witness protection programs. A removal hearing is scheduled Sept. 8.

Kramer, defending U.S. open class offshore powerboat champion, was indicted last week in East St. Louis, Ill.

Kramer would face possible life imprisonment and a mandatory minimum term of at least 10 years if convicted on a charge of participating in “a continuing criminal enterprise.� The indictment charged he was involved in a cross-country smuggling ring that distributed more than 550,000 pounds of marijuana.

During a 3 1/2-hour hearing, Daniel Cassidy, assistant U.S. attorney, testified that race car driver Randy Lanier, an unindicted co-conspirator in this case who is a fugitive in another case, once told an associate expected to testify at Kramer’s trial that after a friend of Kramer and Lanier was murdered in August 1984, the killer himself was slain.

Lanier, once named as rookie of the year at the Indianapolis 500, is wanted on drug charges in Illinois.