SMUGGLER: Barry Seal

During the summer of 1985, Barry Seal testified for the government in several high-profile drug cases in Nevada and Florida, and before the President's Commission on Organized Crime in Washington, D.C. He was hoping his cooperation would help him with his pending legal troubles in Louisiana.

In Colombia, Pablo Escobar was working to solve his legal problems, too. In July, five gunman walked up to a cab stuck in traffic on a Bogotá street and shot to death Superior Court Judge Tulio Castro, who had indicted Escobar the previous year for the April 1984 assassination of Justice Minister Rodrigo Lara.

In November, members of the Colombian Marxist rebel group known as M-19 stormed the Palace of Justice. During a day-long gun battle with police that left nearly 100 people dead, the rebels killed 11 of the country's 24 high court justices and destroyed many of the records relating to the criminal cases against the leaders of the Medellin cartel. Many people in Colombia were certain the rebels were acting at the behest of the cartel, specifically Pablo Escobar.

In December 1985, Seal pleaded guilty to the two-count indictment in Baton Rouge. He believed his lawyers had worked out a deal that bound Judge Polozola to sentence him to no more than what he had been sentenced to in Florida, which was probation.

Judge Polozola, who had indeed agreed to a Justice Department deal that required him to sentence Seal to probation, nevertheless surprised Barry and his attorneys when he ordered Seal to spend six months in a halfway house as a condition of his probation.

Seal objected and his lawyers appealed the sentence. Barry hoped his friends in the Miami office of the DEA would once again rescue him from a zealous judge.