Miami attorneys bankrolled DEA bribery scheme, federal prosecutors say
MIAMI– Federal prosecutors are expanding their investigation into a bribery scheme involving two former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration supervisors, turning their attention to two Miami lawyers suspected of profiting from repeated leaks of confidential DEA information.
The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Manhattan filed court papers Monday accusing the lawyers of bankrolling the scheme and asking a judge to allow prosecutors to release nearly 1,000 emails, text messages and recordings of secure phone calls between the lawyers and Manny Recio, a former DEA agent. later worked for the lawyers as a private investigator.
Attorneys’ communications with their clients and members of their investigative teams are confidential and generally off-limits to law enforcement unless used to conduct criminal activity. But federal prosecutors took the unusual step this week of asking a judge to invoke the “crime fraud exception” to this privilege, calling communications between Recio and attorneys David Macey and Luis Guerra “integral to the bribery scheme.” .
The motion marked a turnaround for prosecutors, who for years tried hard to avoid naming the lawyers as unindicted co-conspirators and beneficiaries of the conspiracy. Neither Macey nor Guerra have been charged, but prosecutors called them “devious lawyers” who “paid handsomely for DEA secrets” during the two-week trial that ended with a jury that included Recio and former DEA agent John Costanzo Jr. found guilty of bribery. and honest services fraud.
“We are here planning how we are going to make money, money, more money,” Guerra said in an intercepted conversation with Costanzo.
Macey and Guerra did not respond to repeated requests for comment. Both lawyers are longtime members of what’s known in Miami as the “white powder bar,” a fiercely competitive circle of high-priced lawyers who rush to land big clients, negotiate surrender deals and turn them into government employees.
In such a lucrative field, advance notice of a charge or ongoing investigation can be the key to successfully acquiring a new client. But paying government officials for inside information is illegal.
Prosecutors said at trial that after Recio retired, he repeatedly asked Costanzo to file names in a confidential DEA database that tracks federal investigations of interest to his new employers. The two also discussed the timing of the arrest of the Dominican Republic’s largest drug trafficker and the exact date in 2019 when the grand jury would indict businessman Alex Saab, a top criminal target in Venezuela and suspected of being a “bag man” for the president of the country. , Nicolas Maduro.
“During the bribery scheme, Costanzo repeatedly leaked information to Recio for the benefit of him and the attorneys he worked with,” prosecutors wrote in a 28-page memo that quotes wiretapped communications between Recio and Costanzo presented at trial. “Costanzo leaked information so that Macey and Guerra could bring in more business, and part of the plan required Recio to convey the inside information to Macey and Guerra.”
In return, the attorneys presented the two veteran attorneys with nearly $100,000 in cash and gifts, federal prosecutors said.
The bribes included a $50,000 down payment for Costanzo to purchase a Miami-area mansion that was wired through intermediaries including Costanzo’s father, himself a retired and decorated DEA agent who prosecutors say lied to the FBI.
“It’s about greed and corruption,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Emily Deininger said in her closing arguments during the trial. “What they did was wrong and they knew it.”
Macey last appeared in federal court in December for the sentencing of a client who pleaded guilty to distributing more than $16 million worth of counterfeit prescription drugs. Guerra appears to have rebranded his practice to focus on personal injury cases, saying in a social media post, “With Guerra, the money is raining!”
___
Mustian reported from New York.