Three men were arrested Tuesday for allegedly trying to pay up to $100,000 (NZ$176,726) in cash to a juror at the Brooklyn drug trial of a former heavyweight boxer, leading a judge to abruptly dismiss the jury as it was about to hear opening statements.
John Marzulli, a spokesperson for federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, said an anonymous jury will be chosen when the trial of Goran Gogic resumes in a month.
Gogic, of Montenegro, was set to stand trial for allegedly conspiring to smuggle 20 tonnes of cocaine to Europe from Colombia through US ports using commercial cargo ships. He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Law enforcement officials have described Gogic as a “major drug trafficker” and said he operated on a “mammoth scale”.
A former heavyweight boxer, Gogic fought professionally in Germany from 2001 to 2012, compiling a 21-4-2 record, according to boxing website Sport & Note. He was listed as 6-foot-5 (1.96 metres) and weighed in at anywhere from 227 pounds (103 kilograms) to 250 pounds (113 kilograms).
In a criminal complaint in Brooklyn federal court, an FBI agent wrote that the bribery scheme unfolded between Thursday and Sunday.
According to the court papers, one of the men charged in the plot — Mustafa Fteja — already knew a juror described in the complaint as “John Doe #1” and called him multiple times on his cellphone Thursday before the juror agreed to meet him in Staten Island.
During the meeting, which took place Friday, Fteja told the juror that associates in the Bronx were willing to pay him to return a not guilty verdict, the complaint said.
Two days later, Fteja told the juror during a second meeting that they were willing to pay him between US$50,000 ($88,361) and $100,000 (NZ$176,726) to corrupt the trial, the complaint said.
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It was not immediately clear who will represent Fteja and two others accused in the alleged jury tampering scheme when they later appear in court.
According to the complaint, investigators secured several recorded conversations of the defendants planning the juror corruption plot as the men spoke in Albanian and English.
At his trial, Gogic is charged with violating and conspiring to violate the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act. If convicted, he faces a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.
According to prosecutors, Gogic and his co-conspirators worked with the ships’ crew members to smuggle cocaine in shipping containers, hoisting loads of the drug from speedboats that approached the cargo vessels along their route, including near ports in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
Three shipments were intercepted by US law enforcement agents, prosecutors said, including 1437 kilograms of cocaine aboard the MSC Carlotta at the Port of New York and New Jersey in February 2019 and 17,956 kilograms of cocaine — with a street value of over $1 billion — aboard the MSC Gayane at the Port of Philadelphia in June 2019.
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