Word: rubino
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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That is precisely what the defense team, headed by Noriega's flamboyant lead counsel, Frank Rubino, has been saying all along. Rubino, one of Miami's savviest drug-case lawyers, claims the charges were manufactured because of Noriega's refusal to commit Panamanian soldiers to an invasion of Nicaragua at the request of the U.S. "Just a drug case, huh? Do you believe in the tooth fairy too?" says Rubino. "Like it or not, General Noriega has been an asset of the CIA, the National Security Agency and other government agencies for 20 some years...
...have hardly proved revealing. Censors have taken a giant white-out brush to entire pages on Noriega's dealings with Bush, North and the late CIA Director William Casey. In a 41-page order that is still secret, Hoeveler this month % gave the defense access to classified documents that Rubino claims will help him prove that Noriega dealt with drug traffickers as part of a Washington- sanctioned arrangement. "Many of the things General Noriega did," Rubino argues, "he did for and on behalf of the U.S. government...
...General Noriega," grouses Rubino, "has been the greatest get-out-of-jail card ever." Rubino estimates that the government cut as many as 70 special deals to get testimony against the general. Tony Aizprua, the pilot whose plane landed on I-75, served no time at all, while Noriega's trusted bagman Lieut. Colonel Luis del Cid got his 70-year sentence reduced to a 10-year maximum. Another defendant who is presumably trying to cut a deal is Ricardo Bilonick, a Tulane-educated lawyer who was whisked back from Panama last week to face charges of running cocaine...
...imposed a month ago on CNN's airing of General Manuel Noriega's government-monitored phone conversations from prison. Reason: counsel for the ex-Panamanian dictator no longer objected to having them broadcast. After reviewing transcripts of the five tapes obtained by CNN, lawyer Frank Rubino concluded that the most damaging conversation had already been played on the air and that it "does no good to close the barn door after the horse is out." Yet Rubino continued to insist that the drug-trafficking case against Noriega be dismissed altogether. Much of the government's phone tapping, he said, violates...
...Rubino's charge was hyperbolic, but the ruckus over Noriega's tape-recorded telephone conversations had taken a bizarre new turn as the FBI got into the act. Declaring they were looking for "stolen government property," two bureau agents visited the hotel next to CNN's Atlanta headquarters, where Cable News Network investigative reporter Marlene Fernandez was staying. The agents said they were summoned by hotel security, but they did not have a warrant, and they carried off a videotape and sundry papers, despite the challenges of a CNN lawyer on the scene. Network president Tom Johnson said he protested...