Prada Paid $2 Million a Year by Cartel--U.S.

SAN FRANCISCO —  Santa Ana lawyer Josue T. Prada was paid $2 million a year by the Colombian-based Medellin cocaine cartel to run its California operation, a federal prosecutor alleged in a bail hearing Tuesday.

Assistant U.S. Atty. John Lyons, in seeking the revocation of Prada’s $1-million bail, also alleged that Prada may have used Panamanian banks to stash some of the millions he made through the cartel and could use foreign contacts to flee unless he is held without bail.

U.S. District Court Judge Thelton E. Henderson took the no-bail request under submission, saying that before ruling he will listen to taped conversations in which two co-defendants and an undercover drug agent discuss Prada’s alleged drug activities.

Prada was one of 24 people named in a federal indictment handed down last month in connection with a cocaine ring that authorities said imported as much as a ton of cocaine into the United States each month. Prada is charged with one count of conspiracy to distribute cocaine and one count of conspiring to import the drug. Defendants are from the San Francisco, Los Angeles, Miami, New York and Phoenix areas.

Defense attorney Michael Abzug discounted the prosecutor’s contentions and also said that while the $1-million bail was “staggering,” Prada’s friends and relatives are willing to post it so he can be free pending trial. Abzug also criticized the government for not presenting any documentation, such as Panamanian bank records, to support its claims.

But Lyons said: “His ties to the community are only as strong as he (Prada) wants them to be,” adding that Prada may have such extensive links to the cocaine cartel and its money that he could easily reimburse anyone who has to forfeit property if he escaped.