Fire's Shadow: Operation Skymaster

By Domingo Soto

What was formerly the United States Customs Service initiated Operation Skymaster, an undercover operation headquartered in the seemingly quiet Southern city of Mobile, Alabama. The agency recruited some major league players, gangsters associated with some of the most notorious names in the dope world. They pardoned their previous sins and gave them a sanitized new start on life. They were given generous living stipends, promised cash rewards based upon results and let loose.

And that was the rub. The Skymaster operatives were essentially US-certified “made men”; their pasts had been obscured, they were impervious, they could lie on the stand and be rewarded for it, they could do what they wanted and, because they were part of a governmental crime family, they were protected. Sooner or later this mix was destined to become a recipe for disaster.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Domingo Soto
• Release date: Oct 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463133743

Domingo Soto

Domingo Soto is a criminal defense lawyer practicing in Alabama. He has been a Western Union bicycle messenger, taxicab driver, candlemaker, graphics designer, freelance writer, itinerant photographer, teacher of U.S. and Puerto Rican history, an apprentice printer, a stringer, reporter and a copy editor for both underground and mainstream newspapers. He also founded and published a now-defunct weekly. Before attending law school, he worked as a Legal Services paralegal and now writes about the law and crime.

Book preview

FIRE=S SHADOW

Operation Skymaster

Copyright 2019

By Domingo Soto

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Preface

Prologue

The Unusual Suspects

Alfredo

Ricardo

Alfredo II

Yeah, Lucky Me

Brian

Sting

Marino

Ellis McKenzie

Don Pedro

El Tio

Alejandro

Alfredo III

Alfredo IV

Jake and Ernie

Alfredo V

Alfredo VI

Alfredo VII

Marino II

Sting II

Alejandro II

Carlos and Frank

Fire's Shadow

Chronology

References

About Me

Acknowledgements

I can’t say enough about the folks that selflessly gave of their time and insights in helping me formulate this book. First of all, a big thank you to the public servants, my friends: David Lowe of the University of Alabama Law School Library, who helped me track down some primary sources; and Roy Isbell and Jeff Reinert of the United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama for their assistance in obtaining old documents and files.

To my lifelong coterie - Michael Smith, Lynda Smith Touart and Vernon Fowlkes - who have always had my back, a humongous hug. You encourage my paltry efforts as if they are golden and I love you for that.

A shout-out to my lawyer friends. They not only proofread, they double-checked my law. Thank you, Pascal Bruijn, John Furman, and Angela Walker.

David Spear, Brian Jacobs, Gin Arnold, Joe Eiland, Cassandre Young, and Jim Walker, were the first responders. They jumped immediately into my project and gave me some valuable insights along with catching a bunch of my gaffs. A very special thank you to Gideon Kennedy and Jay Olivier, both of whom brought their film-making sense to the editorial process.

Finally, there’s my muse, Hollie Patterson, to whom I dedicate this effort. Her confidence in me never ceases to at once humble and inspire me. There are times when I sputter, but not her. While most would be centered on confronting the obstacles life has thrown at her - which she does - she manages to carry me along in her contagion of encouragement and chronic optimism. She overcomes me, consumes my doubts and comforts me. She prods me with love taps and makes me feel like I discovered fire. Thank you, sweetie.

Preface

The framework of this story is United States v. Alfredo Garcia and something called Operation Skymaster, an undercover special operation of the United States Customs Service (now, United States Department of Homeland Security). I hope to put flesh on the skeleton of what is basically just a war story with details that paint a jaundiced look at the criminal justice system’s operations.

And of mine. This is a bit self-confessional, my misgivings about the on-the-fly process of a novice lawyer’s education and a peek through the looking glass at the actual practice of law and my odyssey through its maze. It’s a retrospective regret about critical skills and confidence, of acumen and appropriate wariness not yet acquired.

It’s about the danger of misplaced trust. The trains, of course, must run on time. But gatekeepers sometimes obstruct. Champions are charged with keeping black secrets that might be at best only gray. Details are hidden or obscured or only partially revealed, and the damage is done. Review is limited, corrections circumscribed, and apologies nonexistent. This is the reality of criminal law practice and of a justice system that rightfully touts itself as the best, but which can often be imperfect.

Even now, with my acuity polished by hindsight, it still seems unclear why it took me - ME! - so long to catch on. Me, the skinny runt raised in the rough and tumble of the mean streets. I am by nature vigilant, cautious and suspicious. My mother, strict and overbearing, most certainly influenced my resentment of authority figures. Along the way, I had rejected countless political and religious belief systems and fancied myself a complete contrarian. I had been a reporter and the publisher of a newspaper. I directed others, scrutinized and criticized their work, made suggestions. My undergraduate, postgraduate, and law school studies demanded critical thinking and analysis. I had cut my teeth as an antiwar and civil rights organizer. I was a social critic. And yet?

I am. Now. Here. Professionally, I am a constellation of some lucky accidents and a cynicism borne of progressive revelations that have effectively killed my naiveté. Some of the things I have learned about criminal law and trial practice came too late for some but they helped further educate me and eventually the information benefited others. Alfredo’s case was my third federal court case and its timing - one of those lucky accidents - was completely fortuitous on so many levels both for him and for me.

At the time I was appointed to represent him, I was barely out of law school. I was no youngster, having graduated from law school at the age of 40. I spent almost five years as a Legal Services Public Benefits Specialist paralegal before taking that big step. I made my way through law school doing the same kind of work for a disability advocacy agency.

After graduation, I moved to Austin, Texas and then to Mobile with intentions of having a Progressive civil practice centered around equal opportunity, anti-discrimination, labor, or civil rights law. Becoming a lawyer was my rejuvenation. With now a new career, I was full of excitement and energy and itching to flex my new set of forensic skills.

I never intended to practice criminal law. I fell into it. It was part of my partner’s practice. I would sometimes have to cover cases for him. A newly-minted lawyer, I needed to get some cash flow and work experience so I signed up for indigent defense work.

There wasn’t any comparison. I hated civil law. I was bored and shocked at having to sit for hours in pointless depositions, hours that were wasted as I watched a defense lawyer run out a billing clock - juicing the bill my partner derisively called it. Social Security Disability Law is basically records collection, file tending, and the rare administrative hearing. It was even less exciting or challenging.

Criminal law, on the other hand, was alluring and addictive. It had juice and a voyeuristic quality to it. It had scenarios and protagonists exotic. But most importantly, it appealed to my Social Justice Warrior side. I could champion a constituency without representation. They are hated, abandoned, dispossessed, shunned, and helpless. My law school concentration on Constitutional Law, my activist college background, Spanish language skills and demographics, all were a perfect fit.

I can’t imagine that a doctor right out of med school would be handed a coronary bypass operation, but here I was. My first state trial was a double murder involving a ninja assassin. A few months of taking depositions and arguing with the miserable characters in civil law clinched the deal. With no hesitations, I dedicated my practice to criminal defense work.

For many years I was the area’s only Spanish-speaking lawyer. I was often appointed to cases involving Latinos and most of those were drug cases. The United States District Court for the Southern District of Alabama sits on a pipeline fed by Interstate 10. Mobile is an international shipping port. Consequently, the district had more than its fair share of drug cases, many of them importations. That’s how I stumbled on to Operation Skymaster and had my fortuitous encounter with a defendant who would become my friend, Alfredo Garcia.

My second major federal trial had been United States v. Lynn, a RICO (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act) case involving the importation of literally 16 tons of cocaine. I represented a very minor character. My job was to hide in the weeds and not get trampled while the big elephants fought. I watched some of the country’s best lawyers defend a case whose negative outcome was preordained but who nonetheless represented their clients with a resilient passion and diligence. They had an aggressive and relentless style that was leavened by high professional standards of courtesy and demeanor. There was an organic feel to their presence and presentation and they never lost sight of the big picture. Talented and not hobbled by a lack of financial resources, they were well-prepared for trial but always with an eye out for the inevitability of an appeal. Motions were thoroughly researched, issues - exotic and mundane - were explored and preserved. At later points in the trial, they would hammer away, revisiting issues that had been adversely decided.

I had spent nearly five years arguing cases before administrative tribunals, had taken trial advocacy courses in law school, and had a few successful state trials under my belt. What I had been missing was the practice and nuance of big time legal combat. It was a priceless five week tutorial. I came out primed to try my next case. The opportunity to hone these new skills presented itself with my appointment to represent Alfredo.

In preparing his defense, I ran into what had been in a prior case just a curious fact. It would grow into a nagging hunch that sometime was amiss. Alfredo’s case convinced me that there was something going on with Customs, that it wasn’t always aboveboard, that there was something sketchy about it. Whatever the hell was going on, it became my full-fledged obsession. At first, I just wanted to figure it out. The more I got into it, the more it became a mission.

I was Saul on the road to Damascus, a convert to a new crusade. I fly-specked everything Skymaster did. I became a burr in their saddle. I didn’t have the wonderful tool that the Internet has become but college had left me well-trained in academic forensics. I had also been a journalist. I snooped. I kept a database of Customs cases. I cross-referenced informants, kept track of their CI (confidential informant) code numbers, internal case numbers, docket names, etc.

I was full-on proactive. I monitored other cases even if they weren’t mine. Lawyers are competitive and treat information as proprietary. I didn’t do that. I would set traps by sharing my information with other lawyers, prepping them on the things that I found out, especially when it didn’t conform with what the government had provided. I would get and study the transcripts of the testimony the witnesses gave.

I time-lined the dope shipments, kind and quantity. (I would joke that most of the dope in our cases was just Customs reusing it. It turned out I was not far from wrong.) I did Westlaw searches on the snitches and the agents. I became Mobile’s version of Mark Lane, constantly railing to an unconvinced and disinterested audience about some ethereal government conspiracy. I started out as this lone voice in the wilderness, the nut that sees a conspiracy everywhere. I’ve been condescended to by prosecutors and slapped down by judges, told to keep what they deem to be my unpatriotic and outlandish ideas to myself. I have been threatened to the point that for awhile I carried a gun. I have seen my efforts where I exhaustively lay out governmental machinations only to be met with no more than a ho hum or a callous reply that the judge was not offended. I credit Skymaster with helping to lessen my naivety and with showing me that it’s part of my job to be fearless, to fight, question, educate, and learn.

At about the same time that I started defending Alfredo, I also represented one of four Portuguese fish mongers. Residents of Canada, they had just been arrested in Alabama and brought to Mobile for an initial appearance. The criminal complaint laid it out. Three days before the stop, the four men had traveled to Atlanta and rented a van. The entourage drove to Montgomery and spent the night. Both that evening and the next day, they made several telephone calls to coordinate their purchase of cocaine in Mobile.

They drove to a local truck stop where they met their connection and were handed the keys to a rented Lincoln Town Car which contained the contraband. Arrangements for payment of the balance of the purchase price were made. The van and the town car left Mobile in tandem. After about 100 miles, in Owassa, Alabama, a rural place not much larger than the interstate rest area, the car stalled. The van went ahead to wait. A passing Alabama State Trooper stopped to assist them.

The complaint, attested by an affidavit from a DEA agent, painted a picture of a routine traffic stop, a consent search based on the driver’s nervousness, and a spontaneous outpouring of confessional statements by two of the defendants. The defendants were held pending a detention hearing.

But, again, another lucky accident. The previous week, that same Trooper had given me a ticket in Mobile. I questioned what he was doing so far away from his post? It turned out that the car had been equipped with a kill switch and the Trooper was part of a Skymaster investigation. But both he and the DEA agent had given sworn testimony to the sanguine version of what had happened. I was only beginning to get a taste of the duplicity that agents are willing to perpetuate on the judicial system.

At times, it’s the client who educates. My client, a Bandido Motorcycle Club member was to be sentenced. He had, in the days prior to the shake and bake method of making methamphetamine, been caught red handed with a host of chemicals and some triple neck flasks worthy of Frankenstein’s lab. Facially teardrop-tattooed and with a less than pristine record, I expected the judge to light him up. I cautioned him: This judge hands out draconian sentences like they are gumdrops. Be cool.

He didn’t listen to me. You are a disappointment to me, he told the judge.

If there’s one intangible that a lawyer brings to the table it is knowing who the other players are, most importantly, the judge. What issues sets him or her off? Where is he or she most susceptible to compromise or more likely to mete out mercy rather than justice? What are the hot button issues for that person? You get to know their tics, too. This judge fiddled with his glasses when something bad was