Harold Jolliffe's turn to testify July 7
Miami jury acquits local promoter
David Baines
Vancouver Sun
Saturday, March 01, 2003
Vancouver stock promoter Jack Purdy, arrested in a massive U.S.-Canadian sting operation last summer, has been acquitted by a Miami jury of three charges of laundering money purported to be proceeds of Columbian drug trafficking.
The acquittal came despite covert audio and videotape evidence and the incriminating testimony of former associate and fellow Vancouver promoter, Kevan Garner, who was caught in the same sting operation.
Garner earlier plead guilty to one count of money laundering and became the prosecution's star witness in the hope that his testimony would be taken into account during his sentencing.
Neal Sonnett, the Miami attorney who represented the 52-year-old Purdy, said his client is "delighted" with the verdict, which followed an eight-day trial in U.S. district court in Southern Florida.
Sonnett said the jury, which deliberated for less than six hours, obviously decided that Garner had acted alone in receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars of cash from undercover FBI and RCMP agents masquerading as representatives of a Columbian drug cartel.
"I told the jury in both opening and closing statement that this man [Purdy] had been unfairly targeted," Sonnett said in an interview from Miami. "I told the jury that the agents reminded me of a pack of coyotes trying to bring down a sheep."
According to Associated Press, the jury agreed: "Everybody came up with the conclusion that he was entrapped basically," the wire service quoted juror Sihan Silva as saying.
"No real drug dealer is going to come out and say they're a drug dealer," said another juror, George Romano. "This guy didn't seem to be looking for that."
Inspector Marianne Ryan, operations officer for the RCMP Integrated Proceeds of Crime Section in Vancouver, expressed chagrin at the verdict.
"We were very surprised and disappointed considering the evidence that was before the court, particularly the testimony of Kevan Garner and the video-taped evidence. We thought it was a very solid case."
***Ryan noted that Purdy is not yet out of the woods. He is scheduled to appear in court on July 7 to answer to nine more charges that he and two alleged co-conspirators, Harold Jolliffe of Duncan and Ron Horvat of Vancouver, agreed to launder thousands more dollars represented by undercover agents to be proceeds of cocaine trafficking.***
Like Garner, Jolliffe pleaded guilty and became a witness for the prosecution in Purdy's first trial, and is expected to testify against Purdy in the second trial.
"We do feel these charges are stronger and we are hopeful that they will result in a conviction," said Ryan.
Meanwhile, Sonnett said he will ask the court to modify Purdy's bail terms so he can return to B.C. and tend to his business interests, which include numerous properties in Bamfield on the west coast of Vancouver Island and resorts in the Caribbean, Hawaii and Italy.
"I'm certainly going to change the way I'm living my life," Purdy told AP after the verdict. "I've had enough of all that. I want to get up in the morning and rejoice that I'm alive."
The joint FBI and RCMP sting operation, code-named Bermuda Short, culminated in mid-August with the arrest of 60 people in the United States on charges of illicit stock dealing and money laundering.
Purdy was arrested at John F. Kennedy airport in New York and transferred to jail in Miami.
On Oct. 10, he was released on $5 million US bail. He was also ordered to surrender his passport, remain in south Florida (where he maintains a 20th-floor condo at the Yacht Club of Portofino in Miami Beach), wear an electronic monitoring anklet at his expense and obey a midnight to 6:30 a.m. curfew.
According to Canada Stockwatch, which covered the trial, Jolliffe testified that he became a partner in one of Purdy's businesses, Bolivian Hardwood, which imported wood from Bolivia and was always short of cash.
In July 2001, he met with an undercover officer who he knew as Bill MacDonald, who introduced him to another undercover agent code-named Ricardo. They showed him stacks of cash they wanted laundered.
In September that year, Garner said he accepted $130,000 cash, then drove around Miami for two days, depositing most of the money in amounts less than $10,000 at various branches of Citibank.
During a subsequent meeting on Vancouver Island, he said he and Purdy talked about the money provided by the undercover agents.
"At the meeting with Jack Purdy, I told him it was drug money, $130,000 worth of drug money."
When U.S. federal prosecutor Richard Hong asked what Purdy's reaction was, he said, "Jack did not seem concerned at the time."
Under questioning by Sonnett, however, Jolliffe agreed that nobody actually told him it was drug money, only that he suspected it was.
During his testimony, Garner said he met with the undercover agents who told him a fund of $20 million to $25 million could be set up for him and Purdy to administer.
"They were Jack's contacts. I was in some ways quite nervous about dealing with those people. I'd never dealt with these cash transactions."
In what he described as a test run, the agents gave him $500,000 cash to launder and return within 60 days.
"We were going to buy the American Toy Vending shell. We were going to sell the shell off at a profit and wire the money back into their account," he told court.
Hong played an excerpt of a surveillance video in which Garner meets with one of the agents on a yacht in a Ft. Lauderdale marina and together they struggle with a large duffel bag containing $500,000 in small bills.
Garner said the transaction with the American Toy company was delayed and after the 60-day payback period expired, an enforcer appeared at their office at 1250 West Hastings.
"You have money from Ricardo, and I'm not going to leave town until the money is paid," Garner recalled the man telling him. "I was quite nervous."
Sonnett argued that Garner was acting alone when he accepted the $500,000 and Purdy did not find out about it until the "goon" showed up, Canada Stockwatch reported.
Garner said Purdy told him to get the problem solved, so he enlisted the help of former Vancouver lawyer Martin Chambers, who he introduced to one of the undercover operatives.
Under questioning by Sonnett, Garner said he did not tell Purdy about Chambers. Sonnett suggested this was further evidence that Garner was acting alone.
"The bottom line is that Kevan Garner was doing it on his own. He was cheating Jack Purdy and he was cheating the undercover agents," the defence lawyer argued.
Another key piece of evidence was a videotape of a meeting which Purdy had with the undercover agents on a yacht in Ft. Lauderdale on Feb. 21, 2002.
"Through Ricardo and his family and his company ... companies, are generating about one and half million dollars a day throughout North America, " said one of the agents.
"Hmmm," replied Purdy.
"We need to find a home for that, I mean obviously this kind of money, collecting for the sake of money is stupid," said the agent.
"It's got to go," said Purdy.
"Can you take two million a month?" asked the undercover agent.
"And use it properly, yeah," replied Purdy.
"We'll send you two million through to you a month, we don't give a f--- whether you find a cure or not, we don't give a shit, as long as we know the money out at the other end."
Sonnett said jurors only saw snippets of the six-hour tape, as selected by the prosecution. He said that during deliberations, the jury asked for a second look and wound up watching two-thirds of the tape.
Garner, Chambers and Bahamian banker Michael Hepburn were also charged with money-laundering offences. Chambers has so far been refused bail and remains in a Miami jail.
Hong contends that Chambers represents a flight risk and has been linked to biker gangs in Vancouver. He further alleges that Chambers, fearing that Hepburn would testify against him, had arranged a contract on Hepburn's life. His trial is pending.
dbaines@png.canwest.com |
