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Fighting to prove innocence led 3 to stiffer sentences (cont.) George Pararas-Carayannis The federal government needed an estimated $4 million and a sexy undercover police officer to snare Dr. George Pararas-Carayannis in a government sting operation aimed at drug dealers who were laundering money. The only person to face charges was Carayannis. There was no evidence he was involved in drugs. Carayannis was accused of laundering $4,000 and netting all of $35 for himself. He faces a 41-month sentence, though he has so many medical problems that doctors have postponed his trip to prison, fearing it might kill him. It was the first time he was charged with a crime. Carayannis is one of the world’s foremost authorities on tsunami, tidal waves that earthquakes trigger and that have killed thousands in coastal communities around the globe. He was named director of the International Tsunami Information Center in Hawaii in 1974 and was responsible for assisting more than 28 nations with natural disaster preparedness. He was fired from the post after he was indicted in 1995 on money laundering charges. His nightmare began after a friend who was an interior decorator introduced him to Lauri McEwen in 1992. Carayannis didn’t know that the interior decorator was an illegal alien whom federal agents had arrested on drug charges. She agreed to help in the sting in exchange for the right to stay in the country. McEwen told Carayannis she was a 26-year-old Canadian who had recently broken up with her boyfriend. Carayannis said she was beautiful, often dressing in tight, revealing clothing that highlighted a spectacular figure. Carayannis, then 56 and divorced, was amazed she found him interesting. Soon they were meeting for lunch and dinner. They held hands and kissed tenderly as he courted her, he said. They talked about life and trips they might take together. What he didn’t know was that McEwen’s real name was Dana Kresich, an undercover Honolulu police officer assigned to the government’s sting. Kresich told Carayannis that she recently had started an escort service, a euphemism often implying a prostitution ring, but Caray-annis said he never made that connection. In government tapes of conversations between him and Kresich, she is never heard to define escort service as being anything illegal. He said the undercover agent assured him that the business was not only legal but that it was registered in the State of Hawaii. Kresich insisted in court that Caray-annis knew it was an illegal operation. Since her escort business was new, Kresich told Caray-annis she had not yet established a credit card account. So several times she asked him if she could run credit card bills from her business through the machine at a small jewelry business that Carayannis owned as a sideline to his government job. Carayannis gladly agreed. He reimbursed her for the $4,000 or so that the charges totaled. He earned $35 in fees on the charges, the government said. Because the credit card companies also charged him that amount as their fee for the service, the transaction was a wash. Government documents showed that Carayannis listed the $35 on his tax returns and paid taxes on it. Federal prosecutors said his actions constituted money laundering because he ran transactions from a prostitution ring through his credit account. Carayannis couldn’t believe it. After his arrest, he next saw Kresich in court. Gone were the low-cut dresses, short-shorts and bedroom eyes. "She was dressed like a nun," he said. Prosecutors quickly offered a deal. "They told my lawyer to pick any one of the charges [to plead guilty to] and this would end," he said. "But I wasn’t guilty of anything, and I wasn’t going to plead guilty to something I didn’t do." Now he’s not sure he did the right thing. Fighting the government has cost him everything. Carayannis emigrated to this country from Greece as a young man. He is the grandson of Lela Carayannis, who led that nation’s largest anti-facist resistance organization during World War II. She and 71 of her followers were executed. Other members of Carayannis’ family were tortured in concentration camps. "I had faith in this system," he said. "I thought with this kind of evidence and due process, I would be acquitted." But he wasn’t. He was convicted and sentenced to 41 months in prison. Hundreds of supporters have sent testimonials to the offices of federal judges and congressmen on Carayannis’s behalf along with questions about the government’s tactics. They have accomplished nothing. Carayannis is in a legal limbo because doctors have said he is not healthy enough to travel to prison because of the effects of three heart attacks. So his seven-year odyssey continues. He says he’s sure of only one thing: Because of his medical problems, the 41 months in prison he faces amounts to a death sentence.
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