Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Win at all costs - Few of case's twists, shady deals revealed in court

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Few of case's twists, shady deals revealed in court

November 24, 1998
By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer


	Peter Hidalgo seemed like a minor player in a major drug deal. Called in by a friend to help defuse a tense situation, Hidalgo ended up being the main target after the key players in the drug deal testified against him. He is facing four life sentences for drug smuggling, even though he never even saw the drugs involved. (Darrell Sapp/Post-Gazette)

Federal prosecutors say Peter Hidalgo was a master drug smuggler and deserved the four life sentences that resulted from his conviction in 1994.

Hidalgo says his trial was a farce that conniving federal agents and prosecutors orchestrated.

The Post-Gazette’s investigation found one certainty: Government misconduct at Hidalgo’s trial was so rampant and calculated that nothing resembling the truth could have emerged.

Four years have passed since his trial, yet appeals courts have yet to rule on his challenge. Here’s what the Post-Gazette found:

Hidalgo was accused of leading a smuggling operation that brought 423 kilograms of cocaine into Miami in 1992. Although discovery rules require it, prosecutors failed to inform Hidalgo that 23 kilograms of cocaine were missing after the bust. Prosecutors had in their possession videotapes showing that individuals who had contact with the smugglers discussed the missing cocaine and suggested it had been split among informants and federal agents. Hidalgo believes these informants and agents conspired against him to hide their misconduct. Prosecutors violated discovery by not turning the tapes over to Hidalgo’s attorneys.

Prosecutors withheld other audiotapes and videotapes that included extensive conversations about the smuggling operation. The limited transcripts prosecutors provided were marked "inaudible" in many places, although Hidalgo later learned these inaudible conversations were perfectly clear on the tapes. Hidalgo believes the tapes were withheld and the transcripts abbreviated because his name came up in none of the conversations. Prosecutors hid them because they showed he had no part in the operation, he believes.

Prosecutors failed to inform Hidalgo that a federal agent who played a key role in the drug bust committed suicide shortly after Hidalgo’s arrest. The agent was mentioned 31 times at Hidalgo’s trial and had told his sister just before his death that he feared he would be implicated criminally in one of his biggest cases.

Prosecutors failed to inform Hidalgo that police reports raised enough questions about this agent’s death that it could have been argued that he was murdered.

Hidalgo did not learn until after his trial that some witnesses against him had perjured themselves in earlier trials, that some of these witnesses were convicted murderers and that the government paid some of them huge sums for their services. One man received $500,000.

Prosecutors failed to tell Hidalgo that a key witness against him had fabricated his testimony and bragged to his cellmates that he expected a substantial cut in his prison time for his lies.

Prosecutors failed to turn over copies of grand jury transcripts that would have pointed out many of these discrepancies.

Man of modest means

Hidalgo, 38, made his living selling, racing and repairing boats in Miami Lakes, Fla.

His skill behind the wheel brought him fame and the attention of drug runners who needed equipment that could outrun law enforcers.

Hidalgo, his wife and 1-year-old daughter lived in a modest rental house that he hoped they someday might buy. He considered himself lucky. Hidalgo escaped from Cuba in 1968, and the life he enjoyed in the United States, while modest, seemed a paradise by comparison.

That changed on Sept. 8, 1992.

Federal agents arrested Hidalgo and charged him with being the kingpin behind the drug-smuggling operation that had brought more than 400 kilograms — 880 pounds — of cocaine to the United States from Colombia, via the Bahamas. The cocaine was worth about $6 million wholesale, far more when it hit the streets.

Agents were familiar with Hidalgo. He had been arrested in a 40,000-pound marijuana smuggling case, but all charges against him were dropped. He’d never been convicted of a felony.

The witnesses who would testify against him did not lead Hidalgo’s modest lifestyle. They were cartel-level millionaire smugglers, armed robbers, killers and thieves.

The illegal drug trade had treated them well. They wore expensive clothes, drove expensive cars, lived in beautiful homes.

And while federal agents never captured Hidalgo’s voice on tape, they recorded these men discussing the drug deal in telephone conversations. Agents had photographed and videotaped them in the days before the drug-laden boat arrived and after it reached U.S. soil.

None of the men who would be witnesses against Hidalgo had mentioned his name in their taped conversations, so Hidalgo figured federal agents and prosecutors would see through the ruse, that he was being made a scapegoat so that drug criminals could seek leniency by testifying against him.

Hidalgo was wrong. Federal agents and prosecutors not only ignored the lies and fabricated evidence that came from these witnesses, they made sure no one else in the case would know about them.

There was another difference between Hidalgo and the men who testified against him. Almost all were guilty and eager to cut deals in exchange for reduced sentences. Hidalgo got the same kind of offer.

If Hidalgo would plead guilty, he’d get a maximum sentence of 11 years in prison, prosecutors told him. He might be paroled after nine years or so, and if he would provide "substantial assistance" by testifying against others, he might qualify for the Justice Department’s biggest prize: an even quicker release and a payment of tens of thousands of dollars, just like those who would eventually testify against him.

Hidalgo said he turned down the deal because he was innocent. Had he taken the government up on its offer, he would soon be a free man.