Prison ‘ice’
smuggling outlinedSeveral guards and an attorney
allegedly hid drugs in the mail
A Honolulu attorney and corrupt prison guards conspired to use priority mail to smuggle methamphetamine into Halawa prison, federal prosecutors said yesterday.
Attorney Thomas Stephen Leong is charged with conspiracy, attempt to distribute and possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute. His trial began yesterday in U.S. District Court.
Leong was charged in April 2003 after he was caught and arrested with two ounces of crystal methamphetamine.
Leong had exchanged $3,000 for the drugs in the Aloha Tower Marketplace during a taped undercover sting.
The sting was set up by Ho-nolulu police after they received information from a Halawa inmate identified yesterday as Michael Alvarez who claimed he was involved in smuggling drugs into Halawa.
Defense attorney Barry Edwards said the government's case against Leong was a set-up and is based on sloppy police work and the word of a convicted felon.
Edwards described Alvarez as a "masterful, manipulative fabricator and admitted liar" who made up situations to suit his needs and misled law enforcement so he could get out of prison and get his hands on a bank account.
Law enforcement had much to gain by nabbing a practicing lawyer in a high-profile operation dubbed "High Impact Detail," Edwards said.
Correctional officers picked up methamphetamine from Leong, who represented Alvarez and handled Alvarez' financial affairs on the outside, said Assistant U.S. Attorney William Shipley.
Alvarez, a member of a gang at Halawa, also got inmates' family members to mail drugs to Halawa in priority mail envelopes stamped "confidential legal documents" so that they would not be opened by prison staff, Shipley said.
Under prison procedures, mail addressed to inmates stamped "confidential legal documents" can only be opened by an inmate in the presence of an adult corrections officer.
Lani Soliven, the wife of a former Halawa inmate who was in the same gang as Alvarez, testified yesterday she was contacted by Alvarez to deliver drugs to Leong and she did so to pay back debts her husband allegedly owed to Alvarez.
Soliven said she took drugs to Leong at least three times in January 2003. Each time, he paid her for the drugs, she said.
The third time, she accompanied Leong to his office and watched as he used tongs to place the Ziploc bag containing the drugs into an envelope, place it between the pages of a newspaper and into a priority mail envelope. Leong had her tape up the envelope and drop it off at Federal Express.
Shipley said Soliven took the U.S. Postal Service priority mail envelope to Federal Express, which said it couldn't take the envelope, but did so anyway after slapping a new label on it, covering up the "confidential legal documents" stamp.
Kerry Ann Flores, a Halawa clerk typist who oversaw prisoner mail, said the package looked suspicious because it appeared to be thicker than usual. The package was not marked "legal confidential." She opened the envelope and found what appeared to be drugs inside, she said.
The envelope was addressed to an inmate from "Pamela Ferguson" with a post office box address in Honolulu. The inmate, who belonged to the same gang as Alvarez, was housed in the same housing unit and had daily contact with Alvarez, said Sgt. Lee Fields, a gang investigator at Halawa.
FBI Special Agent Miles Yamane said it wasn't until several months later that they discovered hidden under the plastic enclosed Federal Express label stamp "confidential legal documents" stamp.
Federal agents searched Leong's office, and he turned over a stamp with the words "confidential legal documents," the same size as the stamp on the envelope.
Jurors also listened to a conversation taped April 17, 2003, between police officer Joe Amasiu and Leong purportedly arranging the exchange of drugs the next day and Leong's reluctance about having to weigh the drugs at the meeting.
Amasiu said he recorded the phone call but not a subsequent call from Leong the next day. He also acknowledged there was no mention of the words "ice," crystal methamphetamine or drugs during the conversation.