During the 3½-week trial, prosecutors had little evidence connecting Ochoa to the Bogota-based network led by Alejandro Bernal. In a case with 1,500 hours of Colombian police tapes, Ochoa's voice was caught on only one three-hour segment in Bernal's bugged office June 16, 1999.

The defense said Ochoa socialized with traffickers but insisted he did not return to the life he abandoned in 1990 by joining the Colombian amnesty program. They said it was not Ochoa's voice on the tapes from Bernal's office, and taps on two of Ochoa's phones produced no evidence for trial.

The strongest evidence against Ochoa came from Bernal and three other co-defendants, who cooperated with prosecutors in hopes of getting lighter sentences.

They said Ochoa attended key meetings at what prosecutors said was ''the Wal-Mart of drug trafficking,'' and was set to receive profits on two cocaine shipments, suggesting air drops as a safe way of getting drug profits back to Colombia.

Defense attorney Roy Black maintained the government was desperate to get its hands on a man it blames for smuggling tons of cocaine into the United States in the 1970s and 1980s.

Black begged jurors in closing arguments not to convict Ochoa for his past, saying: ''He's paid the price for that. He should not be convicted again for something he's already been convicted of, punished for and put in prison.''