Pittsburgh Post-Gazette - Win at all costs - Inmate exploited prosecutors' need for witnesses

Web Extras: Marketplace, Bridal, Headlines by Email, Postcards

Inmate exploited prosecutors' need for witnesses

November 30, 1998
By Bill Moushey, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Inmates inside the Federal Correctional Institution at Miami had written letters of warning to federal authorities.

Jose Goyriena, who was serving a 27-year prison sentence, had been bragging to them about "jumping on the bus."

He had obtained information from other convicts and government informants about crimes he knew nothing about. Then he memorized that information and offered it as testimony to federal prosecutors, the inmates said.

Despite the letters warning of Goyriena’s scheme, prosecutors let him testify again and again. He even offered to provide the same information for a price to anyone interested in joining him.

With Goyriena’s help, prosecutors sent four men to prison for life. They also won indictments against several others, who later pleaded guilty.

In return, prosecutors promised that Goyriena’s sentence for cocaine-smuggling would be reduced by at least 10 years and that they would seize only a small portion of the millions of dollars in assets he’d acquired through smuggling.

Because of his capacity to lie, and the fact the government has used this bogus testimony in many cases, Goyriena’s name has appeared elsewhere in the Post-Gazette series — including a story about government misconduct in the trial of Peter Hidalgo, which appeared Nov. 24.

In trials of Hidalgo, Andres Campillo and Joseph Olivera, lawyers for Hidalgo and Olivera protested that Goyriena did not know their clients. Campillo admitted that Goyriena had done some construction work for him, but he denied any involvement with drugs.

Goyriena’s lies didn’t catch up with him until he was ready to testify in the one case that he hoped would finally spring him for good. Prosecutors planned to use Goyriena’s testimony against drug baron Castor Gonzalez, but didn’t need it when Gonzales pleaded guilty.

Richard Diaz, a former Miami police officer who later became a criminal defense lawyer, learned that Goyriena had been offering to sell information he obtained to other inmates. Even though he had nothing to do with the Gonzalez case, Diaz filed a motion to make sure the judge took a close look at Goyriena’s actions before allowing him to testify or granting him further sentence reductions.

In that motion, Diaz included four sworn and notarized affidavits in which inmates at the Federal Detention Center at Miami and the Federal Correctional Institution at Miami said Goyriena offered to sell them information so that they, too, could testify against Gonzalez and have their sentences reduced.

Blas Duran, an inmate at FDC-Miami, said Goyriena, known in prison as "El Gorrion," told him in January or February 1997 that the only way Duran could get out of jail early was to "jump on the bus."

"I told him that I did not know what he meant by that," Duran wrote in a sworn affidavit. "Gorrion told me that what he meant was that I could buy information from him or anybody else offering information for sale and provide the information to the respective government prosecutor, demand, and most probably receive, a reduction in my sentence."

Another convict, Victor Gomez, said he heard an inmate offering Goyriena information. Goyriena then planned to give that information to prosecutors, even though he "had no direct, indirect or personal knowledge that [the defendant] had ever done anything illegal," Gomez said.

A fourth inmate, Rafael Martinez, swore to the same set of materials.

Diaz said shortly after he filed his motion about Goyriena, he learned that Goyriena had failed two polygraph tests administered by the government.

While Goyriena told inmates he was looking forward to freedom for his work, the government put on hold its motion for sentence reduction because of the fallout that began with Diaz’s motion.

Appeals from others he helped convict are pending.