For those of you following the Miami trial of Fabio Ochoa, charged with rejoining the Medellin drug cartel after leaving prison and receiving amnesty, the jury found him guilty today.

A leader of a mighty 1980s Colombian cocaine cartel was convicted Wednesday of charges he rejoined a smuggling network after he was released from prison in his homeland and given amnesty.

Fabio Ochoa faces a possible life prison sentence on two federal drug conspiracy charges alleging he joined a 30-ton-a-month smuggling network from 1997 to 1999. Sentencing was set for Aug. 19. Ochoa, 46, made a sign of the cross, closed his eyes and dropped to his knees in the courtroom after the verdict was read. Jurors reached their verdict after spending five hours on deliberations over two days. The defense said an appeal was planned.

....''The government was able to spend half of the trial on the exploits of the Medellin cartel,'' Black said after the verdict. The jury found Ochoa ''guilty by history or association or something other than what he was charged with.''

Here's a wrap-up of the case:

The New York Times reports that the medical examiner in New York has ruled the heart attack death of 57 year old Alberta Spruill a homicide. Spruill suffered the heart attack when the police threw a grenade into her apartment during a drug raid. They had the wrong house. [link via FourthAmendment.com]

Here is a report from today's hearing in the Scott Peterson case:

Prosecution Must Turn Over Taped Conversations to the Defense

A judge today ordered prosecutors to turn over to Scott Peterson's attorneys records of wiretapped conversations between the accused wife killer and his previous attorney, as ABCNEWS learned that investigators believe Peterson had more than one affair during his marriage.

The judge also set a preliminary hearing, when the prosecution will have to lay out its case against Peterson, for July 15. Both the prosecution and Peterson's lawyers said they want all the evidence in the case to remain sealed, as both sides are continuing to investigate what happened to Laci Peterson, who was eight months pregnant when she disappeared on Christmas Eve.

Girolami ordered the prosecution to turn over records of 69 telephone conversations police taped between Peterson and his previous attorney.

Didn't these cops ever hear of minimization? Was anybody monitoring these tapes as the conversations were being recorded?

Amber Frey's tapes will also be turned over. She secretly taped Scott after his wife disappeared. A Sacremento news station, KOVR-TV, reports that Scott has continued to write Frey from jail.

No decision was made on change of venue or on the sealing of autopsy reports and search warrants.

Update: corrected to show lack of ruling on document sealing. CNN reports:

Judge Al Girolami did not, however, rule on a request by California newspapers to release autopsy reports, the arrest warrant, a search warrant and the affidavits that accompany them -- and he suggested he might impose a gag order on participants in the case.

NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg has accepted blame for the death of a woman who died when the police raided her apartment by mistake and set off a flash grenade. The family has filed a $500 million lawsuit against the city.

In an interview outside the church before the funeral began, Representative Charles B. Rangel, Democrat of New York, who did not address the congregation, said that Ms. Spruill's death was part of a pattern of violence by police officers against members of minority groups. "This community sees far too many grenade-type incidents," Mr. Rangel said. "Grenades are not made for Harlem."

A giant raspberry for the Chicago Tribune, which in an editorial Saturday, uses the Laci Peterson case as a springboard to call for greater attention to domestic violence as a leading cause of murder of pregnant women.

How is it domestic violence if her husband, who is presumed innocent, didn't do it? It is outrageous for a national newspaper to make Laci Peterson the poster child for this issue.

Greater awareness of spouse abuse and other domestic violence has helped many victims to improve their home life or relocate to a safer place. The Laci Peterson case underscores the need for a similar awareness about the danger that can rise up during what should be a time of joy.

Shame, shame on the Tribune.

This tale of alleged police abuse comes from Detroit, where an officer has been charged in federal court with supplying drugs to one group of people and then charging other people to watch the first group use the drugs on a website. Even we couldn't make this one up.

A police officer who officials say supplied narcotics to people, filmed them and ran a Web site where people paid to watch them use drugs was arraigned Friday on federal charges.

Police say Campbell, who had been with the Detroit department for eight years, supplied narcotics to individuals and secured their approval to film them while they used the drugs.

The cop is charged with conspiracy to distribute controlled substances. If he's convicted, maybe a webcam can be installed in his cell so we all can watch him do his time.

From Fox News:

A source who has seen the 25-page autopsy report and does not work for either the defense or the prosecution told Fox News that the body of the 8-months-pregnant woman was missing the head and neck, and both arms are cut off at the elbows.

The right leg is severed at the knee; the left foot is missing; the heart, lungs and other internal organs are gone and there is a hole in the upper abdomen above the belly button that may be a knife wound, said the source, who asked not to be identified.

The womb, however, is intact -- suggesting that the nearly full-term baby was not cut out of Laci’s body but was expelled naturally after she was killed.

Hmmm....Who would have seen the autopsy report that is not working for the defense or the prosecution? How about a medical examiner who was consulted by the prosecutior or defense and asked to take on the case but either declined or was not extended an offer after rendering their opinion?

Here's more:

The source said X-rays weren’t included in the autopsy report, which maintains that the limbs showed no sign of having been sawed off. The document indicates that instead, they were probably lost naturally after the still-intact body was dumped into San Francisco Bay.

But Fox News’ source disagrees, believing it’s much more likely that a knife was used to dismember the corpse. “It’s been cut at the joints, much as you would carve a turkey,” the source said.

The source also told Fox that the condition of the body did not point to a ritual slaying, but instead indicates that it was cut up to aid in its disposal.

From Fox News :

Scott Peterson's defense team says they have found the mystery woman who can provide information about the real killers of the California murder suspect's 8-months-pregnant wife, Laci, and their unborn child.

Now, the defense team says they are only days – if not hours – from locating the people who they believe are responsible for the killing. "We would not go out on such a limb if we weren't confident we could deliver,” a defense source told Fox News. “We believe in a matter of days, the real killer may be found and police investigators will have egg on their face."

So who did it? A satanic cult, originally questioned by police and let go.

... Peterson's lawyers contend that the real killers are still out there. They say the murderers are linked to a Satanic cult in Central Valley, Calif., and to a suspicious brown van that was spotted near the Petersons’ home on the day Laci disappeared. Sources say one of the people in the van, which was carrying men and women, had a "666" devil-worshipping tattoo.

In addition to the mystery woman, the defense team sources say they have hard evidence to back up her claims. They say that all the information together proves someone other than Scott committed the crime. Police were apparently told about this woman early in the investigation, the sources say, but authorities never interviewed her because they believed the Satanic cult theory was "bogus."

It's not really that far-fetched. Who would have believed a group of young women would follow Charlie Manson like the pied piper and murder 8 month pregnant Sharon Tate over 30 years ago? Also in California.

Mark Geragos is not about to get egg on his face. If he says he's got the goods, we believe him.

Update: We are watching Greta, and laughing out loud at the makeover lawyer Gloria Allred arranged for Amber Frey. We don't agree with Gloria on a lot of issues, but we like her personally and she sure is a pro at making her clients more presentable.

Update: As of now, we will be discussing the case and these new developments with Gloria Allred and Geraldo Sunday night on Fox News.

Word reaches us that Amber Frey, the woman with whom Scott Peterson had an affair and who went on national television after Laci's disappearance to announce that she did not know Scott was married, has retained counsel--High-profile women's rights attorney Gloria Allred, who also has been a frequent commentator on the case.

We wonder why Amber needs an attorney. It may be that she just wants a lawyer to be her public spokesperson. We've watched Amber's s father on tv sticking up for her, and while he is heartfelt in his comments, he's still her father. Mr. Frey also has said Amber doesn't want to talk to the media herself

Amber should have someone watching out for her interests in the media fest other than a relative. If that's the reason for her needing an attorney, she couldn't have made a better choice than Gloria Allred.

Comedian and satirist Tommy Chong became the first defendant to plead guilty in federal court to selling drug paraphernalia as part of Operation Pipe Dreams. The maximum penalty is 3 years, but federal sentencing guidelines provide for 6 months to 1 year. He is also eligible for home detention rather than prison. His lawyer, Richard Hirsch (an excellent lawyer and friend of ours who practices in LA with another terrific lawyer, Michael Nasitir) said:

Chong's attorneys said he was accepting responsibility, but noted he was careful not to sell to minors. "This isn't his work. His work is that of a comedian and satirist," said attorney Richard G. Hirsch. After the hearing, Chong said he did not use drugs. "I don't smoke; I quit," he said.

This is the first federal prosecution in a decade for drug paraphernalia sales. As usual, Ashcroft is out of step, moving backwards. Putting bong sellers out of business and in jail is hardly going to equate to fewer people smoking pot.

Here's more about Operation Pipe Dreams.

Reporters learned today that their phone conversations with Scott Peterson, accused of killing his pregnant wife Laci Peterson, were tapped between January 10 and Feb. 4. They don't like it. We empathize with them but also welcome their being exposed to the unsettling, violative feeling, that comes with having a private conversation taped via Big Brother.

The tap was on Scott Peterson's phone, so anyone who had a conversation using that telephone line for that period was taped.

The Prosecutor said they were using the wiretap as an investigatory tool, hoping for a confession. We doubt they got one. They did intercept calls between Scott and his lawyer, which they said they "minimized" (stopped recording and listening) once they knew it was a legal call. That should have been right away--as soon as they heard, "Scott, this is Kirk). Or as soon as the call was connected to Kirk McAllister, his then lawyer, if Scott initiated the call. Time will tell if they really minimized the calls the way they were supposed to.

One point: wiretapping in an extremely intrusive measure. Wiretap orders are not supposed to be granted unless the proseuctors satisfy a neutral judge that other investigative techniques have been tried and failed or are unlikely to succeed. Wiretaps are used frequently in drug cases because they allow police to identify buyers and sources of the suspected drug dealer target. We will watch closely to see what probable cause the police had to bug Scott's phone, why they believed incriminating evidence would be revealed in his conversations on that phone line, and why good old fashioned physical surveillance combined with their 8 search warrants weren't enough. This sounds like a fishing expedition to us.

We also doubt Scott confessed on the phone--if he had, we suspect we would have seen an arrest a lot sooner.

At least one of the FBI's prior Chinese spy investigations is going to be re-examined as a result of the Katrina Leung/ Agent Smith arrests.

From 1991 to 1997, a physicist named Peter Lee was investigated by the FBI, under the direction of FBI agents James J. Smith and William Cleveland, Jr, the two agents with whom accused double agent Katrina Leung had romantic affairs. The operation lasted six years and was called "Royal Tourist."