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Fighting to prove innocence led 3 to stiffer sentences (cont.) Beryle L. Johnston Beryle L. Johnston was a Papillon, Neb., gentleman farmer, contractor and finance company owner who thought he was getting a good deal on refinancing a farm, but his 1993 trip to Florida to seal the deal ended in a 78-month federal sentence for money laundering. As often occurs in government stings, Johnston wouldn’t learn until after his conviction that the key witness against him had lied to him, to the government and to the court in the sting that would cost him his freedom, his farm and most of his assets. Based on the evidence, the government violated its rules when it snared Johnston in the sting, but because appeals take so long to resolve, vindication might come after his sentence is completed sometime next year at the Federal Correctional Institution at Yankton, S.D. It all started in June 1993 when Jerry Woody, a man Johnston had tossed out of his office years earlier, met two U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agents who were posing as agents for the Cali Drug Cartel. The agents told Woody and an acquaintance that they needed to launder $10 million from cocaine proceeds. People who operate on the fringes of the law usually know that Cali Cartel members don’t share their affiliation with new acquaintances unless they plan to kill them, but these agents had no trouble hooking Woody, who had once been a banker but was as financially unstable in 1993 as he had been most of his life. Although he’d never laundered anything more than a load of clothes, Woody told the smugglers he owned a bank on the Island of Palau, a U.S. Territory off the coast of the Philippines. He said he’d laundered "billions of dollars" over the past decade through connections in Lichtenstein. He didn’t mention that he couldn’t pay his phone bill, had recently run out on several hotel bills and that his foreign bank was simply a piece of paper. His bank charter in Palau had been revoked years earlier because Woody didn’t pay the $50 renewal fee. Virtually everything he told the agents was a lie. The clincher came when Woody said he could arrange to launder money already in the United States through a Nebraska farmer who would be willing to put up his farm as collateral. The undercover police officers said they wanted to meet the farmer — they had $2 million in small bills ready to launder. That complicated things a bit. The farmer was Johnston, and Woody hadn’t spoken to him in years. Johnston simply happened to own a 25 percent interest in a $6 million Nebraska farm and Woody had added his name to the growing list of lies he was feeding the feds. Woody called an old friend, John Velder, in Kansas City, Mo. — a man who knew Johnston through business dealings. Velder, who’d helped Johnston with a loan in 1991, listened as Woody told him that friends he knew had recently inherited $20 million — another lie — and wanted to invest it. Woody thought that Johnston, a partner in Fleetwood Farms, might be a candidate for a low-interest loan. He also asked Velder not to tell Johnston that Woody was behind the deal, since Johnston had refused to deal with him on financial matters because of Woody’s tendency to skirt the law. Velder agreed and called Johnston, who jumped at the offer of a 6 percent loan. The deal would get worked out on July 7, 1993, in Orlando, Fla. Johnston was outraged when Woody showed up with Velder, but the good interest rate kept him talking. At a motel room, the undercover agents joined them. That’s when Johnston says he first learned of the money laundering scheme. "They told me they were going to give me the loan, but you’re going to launder our money," he said in a recent phone interview from prison. Velder left the room before they discussed specif-ics and was acquitted of charges filed against him. Johnston’s apprehension with the agents is evident in several conversations the government recorded, but in the end he agreed to the money-laundering deal. Why would he do something so stupid? Fear, Johnston says. Woody took him aside during the talks, informed him the men were members of the Cali Cartel and pointed out guards stationed in the hall — to make sure no one tried to sneak away. They were actually FBI agents in disguise. After his arrest, the government offered Johnston a deal if he would plead to a lesser charge. He refused. "I told [my attorney to tell prosecutors], ‘You know there’s a law against perjury, and if I admit doing this, I’ve committed perjury.’ " But based mostly on the videotaped conversations from the room, he was convicted. After the trial, he began to discover evidence that the government should have given to his attorneys. Woody wasn’t interested in laundering money. He was trying to rip off $25,000 in front money from the supposed Colombian money men, and because he was broke, there was no way Woody could launder money. In court, the FBI presented him as an accomplished money launderer of some wealth. Sting operations aren’t supposed to target people who don’t have the means to pull off the crime in question. Johnston’s attorney asked DEA Agent Russell Permaul, "Do you have any evidence that Woody handled billions of dollars?" "No, not short of him owning a bank," replied Permaul. There was no bank. Woody had been living on his girlfriend’s credit cards. Johnston maintained at the trial that he’d known nothing about the money laundering deal until the day he walked into the motel room, which the government disputed. Johnston’s daughter would later learn that DEA documents showed no record of Johnston until the day before the Orlando meeting. Further, Woody was prepared to verify Johnston’s story on the witness stand, if prosecutors granted him immunity for those statements, since otherwise he might face still more charges. Federal prosecutors refused, Johnston said. So the witness who had lied to set him up was denied the opportunity to set him free. Woody was sentenced to 80 months for his role in the deal. Finally, Johnston wasn’t satisfied with the videotaped conversations from the sting that prosecutors had played in court. The tape abruptly ended the moment they announced his arrest. After he was convicted, the jury foreman told his attorney that he couldn’t understand why Johnston didn’t simply flee the room. Had the foreman seen the agents throw him to the ground and handcuff him, he might have appreciated the fear Johnston says he experienced. "I was scared; what else can I say," Johnston said. "I’d like to see the jury foreman in my shoes when they grabbed me." Johnston’s repeated requests that the government turn over the original tape have been denied. Johnston figures the DEA’s real interest in him stemmed from one thing: his substantial interest in a Nebraska farm that could be seized under federal forfeiture laws. He was right. The DEA seized Johnston’s $1 million interest in the farm then sold it for $360,000 to his former partners.
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