Chapter 12
Over the next three months, Maher met a number of drug dealers. In virtually every home he entered there were telltale signs of illegal activity. A scale. Residue on a coffee table. Ledgers. Stacks of cash or piles of plastic-wrapped coke. Kilo after kilo. Maher had no idea that there was so much cocaine in New York City.
Maher distanced himself from the actual distribution and sale of cocaine. If cocaine were being transported –even by Uribe – Maher made sure he wasn’t in the car. And since Uribe never charged Maher for coke, Maher was never engaged in a drug buy. It was, of course, a fine line, yet he was in a safer position that Uribe. Should the walls of the Uribe cartel crumble around him, the most Maher could be charged with was cocaine possession and whatever the district attorney could come up with regarding the changing of money. It wasn’t really laundering, Maher kept telling himself. Laundering involved the conversion of illegal money into legal assets. All Maher was doing was transforming illegal money into illegal money with a larger denomination. Maher felt reasonably safe from any prosecution that would lead to jail time. And there was no way he was going back to jail. That’s why, when Uribe once asked Maher if he’d like to get into dealing drugs, Maher made it clear that he wanted no part of sales or distribution.
“I’ll change money for you, John,” Maher had said, his voice firm, “but there’s no way I’m dealing. No fucking way.”
“That’s cool,” Uribe responded.
The subject was never broached again.
Despite the convoluted reasoning and his propped-up bravado, Maher sometimes found himself getting scared. What if I do get caught? And what if I get a tough bastard of a judge and get sentenced to jail time? The scenario made Maher shiver. Maybe it’s time to quit. Maybe I should tell Uribe that I’m out. But Maher never seemed able to mouth the words “John, I ain’t doing this anymore.” And so he kept picking up trash bags full of cash – often as much as twenty thousand in a bag – and exchanging George Washington’s likeness for portraits of other presidents.
Most of the drug dealers didn’t mind when Maher accompanied Uribe. Maher met Jose. Carlos. Louis. Usmelia, Uribe’s drug-dealing girlfriend. They were all satisfied that if Maher were with Uribe, he must be okay. A few dealers seemed suspicious, but when Uribe vouched for Maher, they backed off. And then there was Hector Comancha. (Not his real name.)
Hector reacted violently the first time Uribe and Maher arrived at his Queens Boulevard apartment. He grabbed Uribe by the arm and took him to the corner of the room, where they screamed at each other in Spanish. Maher didn’t understand Spanish, but he got the drift of the conversation. Once in a while, Hector motioned toward Maher and shrieked “!Federale!” Each time, Uribe shook his head no. The confrontation ended when an exasperated Uribe exclaimed in English:
“You don’t like it, I’ll take my shit elsewhere.”
Hector threw up his hands in resignation. But, as first impressions go, neither Maher nor Hector had created a good one.
Before getting down to business, Hector pointed out his new large-screened television. It was one of the first large-screen televisions on the market, and Hector was proud of it. He also made much of his new gray marble table.
“Cost me six thousand,” Hector boasted as he lovingly ran his hands over the smooth marble surface.
Uribe and Hector set about negotiating a drug deal. While they talked, Maher noticed a large safe in the corner of the living room. At one point, Uribe, not Hector, went to safe and spun out the combination, opening to reveal several kilos of cocaine and stacks of cash. Maher found it odd that Uribe was the one who seemed in control of a safe in someone else’s apartment. So when they left Hector’s place, Maher asked Uribe about the safe.
“That’s my safe house,” Uribe said. Maher had heard the phrase “safe house” before – in spy movies. It was a place to hide. To Uribe, however, the term “safe house” represented a more literal description. As Uribe explained it, high-level dealers never kept cash and cocaine in their own apartments. Instead, they would find someone like Hector who would agree to the placement of a safe in their apartment. The residents of the apartment did not know the combination to the safe; he merely provided the space. For his trouble – and risk – the “safe keeper” was either paid in cash or, if he were a dealer himself like Hector, was given steep discounts on purchases.
A week later, Uribe and Maher stopped by Hector’s apartment again. Maher trying to be friendly, greeted Hector.
“Hey! Hector! How ya doin’?”
Maher who was carrying his car keys, tossed them on the marble table as he entered the apartment. Hector exploded in rage.
“You motherfucker! You scratched my table!”
Hector got in Maher’s face. Uribe stepped in and pushed Maher and Hector apart.
“Hey,” Uribe said with a laugh. “You guys cool it, okay?”
Maher and Hector stared at each other. Maher held his ground. Hector backed off. But Maher’s emotions churned. I’m going to bang the fucker. I’m going to lock up this little bastard.
Maher grabbed his keys and headed for the door.
“I’ll wait for you outside,” Maher told Uribe.
Maher exited the apartment, slamming the door as he left. Once outside, he paced on the sidewalk and fumed. He walked over to where Hector’s car was parked, took a pen out of his pocket, and wronte down the license number on a book of matches.
Maher fumed all the way home. Fuck this. Fuck changing money. Fuck hanging out with dope dealers. Suddenly it hit him. And he knew exactly what he had to do.
Maher rushed into his house, pulled a phone book from the closet, and looked up the number of the Drug Enforcement Agency. He dialed the number. After explaining to a receptionist that he needed to talk an agent, Maher’s call was put through to the duty agent at the time, Tom Slavanki.
“Agent Slavanki. How can I help you?”
“My name is Kevin Maher. I’m a confidential informant.”
“Are you registered with us?”
“No. But I’ve worked with the NYPD and the FBI. And I have got some information you might be interested in.”
Maher offered Detective Tom Harkins as a reference.
“Why don’t you come in tomorrow,” Slavanki suggested. “Twelve o’clock.”
“I’ll be there,” Maher said and hung up the receiver.
Maher fell back on the couch and thought about all the drug dealers he knew. I can put a dent in the New York City cocaine business. And the truth was, he could. And I can put that little fucker Hector in jail. He could do that, too.
The next day, at twelve noon, Maher entered a high-rise building at 555 West 57th Street and proceeded to the twenty-eighth floor, where the offices of Drug Enforcement Agency Group 43 were located. He was directed to a large open room lined with desks. Agent Tom Slavanki was sitting at one of the desks. Slavanki was more than six feet tall, blond, and blue-eyed. Maher thought he looked like a German.
“Hi,” Slavanki said as he stood to greet Maher. “I’m pleased to meet you.”
(Slavanki had called Harkins earlier that day, and Harkins had characterized Maher as the “ultimate informant to the point of being reckless.” Then Harkins added a few words of caution: “If you don’t have a long of experience working with informants, you’re in for an awakening. You might think you’re the dog wagging the tail, bit with Kevin, the tail wags the dog.” Harkins offered a bit of advice: “There’s only one way to work with Kevin. Let him think he is running the show.” Finally Harkins told Slavanki that Maher always acted on instinct. “He won’t work with anyone he doesn’t trust.”)
Maher took a seat across the desk.
“You guys pay?” Maher asked abruptly.
“Yes. We pay.”
Maher leaned in on Slavanki. “I just got screwed by the NYPD.”
“Detective Harkins told me what happened.”
“I’m doing this for pay, just like you are. I don’t have some charge I’m trying to work off, no court cases pending, no sentence to reduce. I don’t want to be jerked around. I want to be paid.”
Slavanki smiled. “You won’t get screwed here. I guarantee it. You do right by me and I’ll watch your back like you were my own brother.”
Maher pressed. “When do I get paid? On arrest or on conviction?”
“Forget all that,” Slavanki said. “This is going to be like a business.”
Maher challenged him. “Even if there is no court case, I get paid.”
Slavanki had the right answer. “You bring us cocaine, you bring us arrests and seizures of money, you’ll get paid.”
“How much?” Maher fired back.
Slavanki paused a moment before answering.
“A thousand dollars per kilo of cocaine up to ten per case. Three thousand dollars per arrest up to five per case. And twenty-five percent of all cash seized up to one hundred and twenty-five thousand per case.”
Maher thought about all the dealers he had met over the past year, all the kilos of cocaine he had seen, all the cash that was stacked in endless rows.
“I could be rich in six months,” Maher exclaimed.
“Slow down,” Slavanki said with a laugh. “If you do it right, you could make a career out of this.”
Maher mulled over what Slavanki said for a moment, then frowned.
“Agent Slavanki, I have steady job with New Jersey Transit. I own my own home. I have a child. I do not want to be uprooted and relocated.”
“Don’t worry,” Slavanki said. “You won’t have to be a witness.”
“If I am not going to be a witness, how are you going to make the arrests stick?”
“For now,” Slavanki insisted, “all I want you to do is observe and get the information to me.”
“Then what?” Maher pressed.
“At some point,” Slavanki answered, “I’ll sear out a warrant.”
“Isn’t my name going to be on the warrant?”
“No. Just your CI number.”
Maher still wasn’t convinced.
“But if you go in the next day, the guy will know I was the one who told you.”
Slavanki had an answer for that as well.
“A warrant is good for fourteen days. We’ll wait the full fourteen days if we have to. The legal work will read ‘on or about such and such a date SCI number such-and-such observed cocaine residue, large amounts of money, and, based on his observations, a search warrant was obtained.’ They’ll never know it was you.”
“And another thing,” Maher said. “If I do this there’s one dealer I don’t want arrested: John Uribe.”
Slavanki leaned back in his chair. “We will not take off John Uribe.”
Maher felt in control. Slavanki seized it back.”
“I’ve got a couple of conditions, too. You can’t be selling drugs or engaging in any illegal activity.”
Maher seemed uncomfortable.
“Occasionally I have to take a snort,” Maher confessed. “When a Colombian offers you a present, it’s an insult to refuse.
Slavanki looked away for a moment, his lack of response neither condemning nor condoning the “occasional snort,” as Maher characterized it.
“Any other illegal activity you have in the past or are now currently engaged in?” Slavanki asked.
Maher told Slavanki he had been “changing money.”
Again, Slavanki responded with silence.
“So where I do sign?” Maher asked.
Slavanki took Maher to the next room, where Maher’s fingerprints and photographs were taken. The Maher filled out paperwork and became registered DEA informant number 000128.
“Now what?” Maher asked.
“The next step,” Slavanki said, “is to ID all the suspects. We can’t make an arrest until each suspect is identified, whether it be through police or immigration records.”
Slavanki stressed that the DEA had a policy of checking with all federal bureaus and appropriate local police departments to ascertain whether the suspect was the subject of another investigation.
“Just like the FBI,” Maher said, showing off his knowledge of procedure among federal agencies. And then: “can give you one guy right now: Hector.”
“Hector who?”
“Comancha. Hector Comancha.”
“You got an address?”
Maher gave Slavanki Hector’s address on Queens Boulevard. And then he pulled out the matchbook with Hector’s license plate number on it.
“Here’s the license plate number on his car.”
Slavanki was impressed.
The ID cam back immediately – not because Hector had a record, but because he had taken a police test two years earlier.
Maher shook his head. “The little bastard wanted to be a cop.”
Maher told Slavanki about the safe.
“Last night I saw a large amount of cash several kilos of cocaine in the safe.”
“Okay,” Slavanki said. “I’ll get a warrant.”
Slavanki started for the door.
“Agent Slavanki?”
Slavanki turned and faced Maher.
Maher finished his question. “Don’t you have the power to seize property?”
“Yes,” Slavanki said. “If it was acquired with drug money.”
Maher smiled. “Hector has a new television and a marble table. Can you do me a favor and seize those things along with the safe?”
“Sure, Kevin,” Slavanki said. “We do that anyway.”
The following day, Maher met with Slavanki again. Slavanki introduced Maher to Agent Jerome “Jerry” Becker, with whom Slavanki had been teamed. Becker was five feet, nine inches tall, with brown eyes and red hair. The tall, blond Slavanki and the carrottop Becker were referred to around DEA Group 43 as “Tom and Jerry.”
“We want to start a list of dealers,” Becker said. “Addresses. License plate numbers.”
“I don’t know the addresses offhand,” Maher said shrugging. “But I can take you there.”
Maher and Becker rode the elevator down to the garage where Becker’s car, a Chevy Camaro Z-28, was parked.
“Nice car,” Maher observed.
“Fastest car in Group 43,” Becker boasted.
“The Porsche was seized in a drug bust,” Becker explained. “The group supervisor uses it now.”
Maher smiled. Big paydays. Fancy cars. I’m definitely in the right place.
Maher and Becker climbed into the Camaro and went hunting for drug locations.
“That’s Carlos’ house,” Maher said as they slowed on a Queens street. He pointed to a brownstone.
In another section of Queens, Maher motioned toward a small four-story building. “That’s Louis’s apartment,” Maher said. “And that’s his car. The BMW with Florida plates.”
Dealers would often register cars in Florida under phony name to thwart, or at least delay, being identified.
Becker jotted down Louis’s address and the license plate number of the BMW. Maher imagined that he was Becker’s partner. Agent Kevin Maher. Me and my partner are going to bank these motherfuckers.
Maher and Becker returned to the DEA offices in late afternoon with a list of a dozen addresses and license plate numbers.
“Nice work,” Slavanki noted as a perused the list.
Maher shook Slavanki’s and Becker’s hands.
“Good working with you guys,” Maher said, then walked out of the DEA offices with the jaunt of a federal agent.
A few days later, Slavanki, Becker, and several DEA agents waited outside Hector’s apartment. Hector emerged at about 8:00 P.M., climbed into his car, and drove away. The DEA agents then swooped into the apartment and seized the safe, the television, and the marble table. As they were leaving, they taped a search warrant on the door. The warrant itemized what had been confiscated.
The seizure proved to be a good one. Inside the safe were $64,000 and eight kilos of cocaine. Based on the pay scale that Slavanki had previously outlined, Maher’s payday would be $24,000-$1,000 each for the eight kilos of cocaine, and $16,000, which represented 25 percent of the $64,000 seized.
When Hector returned home an hour later and saw the search warrant on the door, he panicked and drove to Uribe’s house, where he found Maher and Uribe sharing a hit of coke.
Maher had called Uribe earlier and said he was stopping by. Indeed, Maher knew Hector would run straight to Uribe after the DEA seizure, and he didn’t want to miss the fun.
“Look at this,” Hector screamed, waving the search warrant in the air. “They raided my fucking apartment.”
Maher fought back a smile. And they took your fucking marble table, didn’t they?
“They took my fucking marble table,” Hector said with a moan.
Maher stared at Hector. And they took your fucking television too, didn’t they, you little fuckhead?
“And they took my television,” Hector said gasping.
“The safe!” Uribe screamed. “What about the safe?”
“They took it, man. They took the fucking safe.”
Hector – holding his head with both hands – paced in a little circle.
“I talked to a lawyer,” Hector said. “He wants a ten-thousand-dollar retainer.”
Uribe stared off for a long moment. Then: “I’ll have the money for you tomorrow. Where you gonna be?”
“I had my girlfriend rent a room at a hotel on the East Side,” Hector said.
“Beep me tomorrow,” Uribe told Hector, “and we’ll arrange a place to meet.”
Hector, a little calmer than when he arrived, scurried out the door.
Uribe looked at Maher: “What do you think?”
Maher could barely contain himself. This’ll teach that little prick to get in my face.
“You gotta do something,” Maher said. “Otherwise he’ll rat you out the minute the cops pick him up.”
“So I should give him the money?”
“No. Don’t give him the money. What if his attorney gets him to rat you out? You wouldn’t know until it’s too late.”
Uribe was angry. What was left? A contract hit on Hector’s life?
Maher offered the perfect solution.
“You’ve got a lawyer, don’t you, John?”
“Yeah. One of the best.”
“Okay, tomorrow when Hector beeps you, show up with your lawyer’s business card. That way, if Hector is going to flip, you’ll know right away.”
Uribe relaxed.
“Good idea, Kevin.”
The next morning Maher and Uribe met Hector at the corner of First Avenue and 57th Street in Manhattan. Uribe handed Hector a business card.
“This is your lawyer,” Uribe said.
“Wait a minute,” Hector reacted. “I told you. I already have a lawyer.”
“This is your lawyer,” Uribe repeated.
Uribe’s eyes were narrowed and suspicious. Hector’s eyes were widened and full of fear.
“Okay,” Hector relented, “I’ll go see this lawyer.”
A day passed, and the lawyer called to tell Uribe that Hector had not contacted the office. Uribe was concerned. Maher fueled the fire.
“I told you about that little bastard,” Maher said. “He’s probably sitting somewhere ratting you out right now.”
But Hector was not informing on Uribe, he was hiding in a hotel room trying to summon up a little courage. On the third day following the DEA seizure, Hector finally went to see Uribe’s lawyer. And after meeting with Hector, the lawyer called Uribe.
“I spoke to the lawyer,” Uribe told Maher. “Hector came in.”
“Just watch him closely,” Maher warned.
Four days passed before Hector surfaced again at the lawyer’s office. In a tense meeting, it was decided that Hector should surrender. So the lawyer dialed Slavanki, whose name was at the bottom of the DEA search warrant.
The lawyer identified himself and then told Slananki: “I’d like to make arrangements for my client to surrender.”
Slavanki waited a beat before answering. “What makes you think we are planning to arrest your client?”
The lawyer was stunned. “Are you saying you have no planes to arrest Hector Comancha?”
“None whatsoever,” Slavanki said and hung up the receiver.
Indeed, Slavanki was happy to have the cash and have the drugs off the street. Arresting Hector was meaningless at this stage of the investigation into the Uribe family. But now Hector had a serious problem that was for more consequential than if he were facing a jail term. Maher put it most succinctly.
“If they don’t want to arrest him,” Maher told Uribe, “maybe there was nothing in the safe. Of else he’d be at Twenty-six Federal Plaza right now being arraigned.”
“He didn’t have the combination.”
Maher shrugged. “What? A hundred gees’ worth of coke and cash won’t buy you a safecracker?”
Uribe began to take long, measured breaths. Maher piled it on.
“The only other reason they wouldn’t arrest him would be if Hector was cooperating.”
“I’m going to talk to Tia,” Uribe said.
Maher savored his revenge. That little fuck is in big trouble now. Tia’s going to have him killed.
As fearless as Maher was, he was terrified of Uribe’s Aunt Maria. She had the coldest eyes Maher had ever seen. No drug dealer, no street punk, no hired killer had such compassionless, vacant eyes. She’d kill you as soon as look at you, Maher had thought when he met her.
Maher suddenly felt sorry for Hector. All Maher had wanted to do was teach Hector a lesson. He certainly didn’t intend to get him killed.
Hector, demonstrating little sense, dropped out of sight. Maher and Uribe tracked down Hector’s girlfriend. She related how a trembling Hector stopped by the hotel room to say goodbye then went directly to the airport, where he boarded a plane for Puerto Rico.
Maher’s first collaboration with the DEA had been an unqualified success.
“I still don’t like what you are doing,” Beth said when Maher spread dozens of hundred dollar bills across the dinning room table. “I worry about you.”
“Slavanki and Becker are going to look out for me,” Maher insisted. “So there’s nothing to worry about. And if I do this for a year – just a year – we’ll be set for life.”
Beth didn’t argue. She knew it wouldn’t do any good.
Maher fanned the stack of hundred dollar bills.
“Now we can buy a really nice house,” Maher noted. “And now that I’m making all this money, I can buy a Porsche.”
Beth half smiled. So much for being set for life.
Maher and Beth contacted a realtor who showed them a house in Wood-Ridge at 30 4th Street. A wood frame house built in the 1920s, the exterior was vinyl blue siding trimmed in white vinyl. The interior was filled with dark wood – molding, windowsills, door frames. There were two bedrooms downstairs and one large bedroom upstairs.
“This could be Bobby’s room,” Beth said as they toured the second floor.
There was a detached garage about fifty feet from the residence, a perfect home for Maher’s Corvette. And there was a land around the house – a half acre. Samantha the German shepherd would like that.
“This is the house we want,” Maher announced.
The next day, Maher and Beth went to the Boiling Springs Bank and applied for a loan as Mr. and Mrs. Edward Maher. Maher chose to use the name and social security number the FBI had arranged for him following the Hand bank robbery because neither would show a felony conviction. When the loan was approved a few days later, Maher and Beth went to see an attorney James Lappin, who was handling the closing.
Maher and Beth looked at each other.
“We’re not actually married,” Beth said. “We’re common law.”
Lappin reacted. “The loan was approved based on the fact that you were married. Since you’re not married, it could effect your eligibility.”
“I can’t see where that matters so much,” Maher said.
“You lied on your application,” Lappin said with a sigh. “There’s a good chance you won’t get the loan.”
Maher and Beth were crestfallen.
“Of course, you could get married,” Lappin said, laughing.
Maher and Beth looked at each other. Why not get married? But then they both realized why not.
“My husband is contesting the divorce,” Beth said.
Beth gave Lappin the full story of her hired-killer husband. Lappin’s eyebrows raised more than a few times.
“Since he’s in prison,” Lappin offered, “why don’t you try abandonment?”
It was almost too obvious a solution.
In mid-May, Maher stopped off at DEA Group 43 and told Slavanki that he had been making rounds with Uribe and had compiled a list of unpublished phone numbers used by dealers. (Whenever Maher stopped by the dealer’s house, he would ask to use the phone. Before making an actual call, he would dial 958, which was a code used by telephone repairmen to determine if they were on the correct line. That code returned a recording that announced the telephone number.)
Based on what Maher had observed in various apartments, a conservative estimate yielded a potential payoff well into six figures. Maher felt like a cop again. And he was going to get rich. What could be better? What could go wrong?
But something did go wrong, and it had nothing to do with the DEA. Maher returned home one eveing to a ringing phone. He grabbed the receiver. It was Frank DelPrete.
“Kevin,” DelPrete said, “I need to talk to you.”
DelPrete arrived at Maher’s house an hour later and brough Maher up to date on what had turned out to be five-year struggle to bring Molese to trial for the triple murders in Fair Lawn. DelPrete explained that Molese had been convicted of fraud in New York two years earlier, served his time, and now had been extradited to New Jersey to stand trial for the triple murders in Fair Lawn.
“The trial is scheduled to start on June fourth,” DelPrete said. “If you’re willing to testify, I think it would help the case against Brian Molese a great deal.”
Maher didn’t hesitate. “Sure I’ll testify against the fucking baby killer.”
Then – like a hammer to the side of his head – Maher was stuck with a realization: The grand jury testimony was sealed. The testimony in the trial would be public record.
“I’d like you to get together with the prosecutor,” DelPrete said.
“Sure,” Maher answered, his voice flat. “Let me know when.”
DelPrete handed Maher the transcripts from the grand jury hearing.
“I want you to study these transcripts before you meet with the prosecutor.”
Maher nodded and took the transcripts from DelPrete as he left.
“What was that all about?” Beth asked as she entered the room.
Maher explained the situation to Beth, adding: “When I testify against Molese, it’s bound to come out that I’ve worked as an informant. Uribe hears that, I’m dead.”
The smart thing to do would be to decline to take the stand and continue to work with the DEA. But Maher couldn’t countenance the possibility that Molese might get away with murder. Even when Maher factored in all the money he would lose if he stopped working with the DEA, it didn’t tilt the scale. In Maher’s mind, the deaths of Alice Molese, Marcia Ferrell, and Harold Ferrell had to be avenged. He would testify. As far as Uribe was concerned, Maher decided he would handle the problem the way he always handled a problem: head-on. And then Maher walked out of the house and went in search of John Uribe.
Maher drove around Queens telling himself over and over that Uribe was a friend and that somehow he would make Uribe understand. After stopping by Uribe’s house and cruising by his favorite hangouts, Maher finally spotted Uribe’s Silver Corvette under the Triborough Bridge in Astoria Park. Maher rolled his Vette to a stop and climbed out. Uribe was standing a few feet away.
“Hey, Kevin,” Uribe said, happy to see him.
Uribe made his usual offer.
“A present for you,” Uribe said, holding out a plastic bag of coke.
Maher held up his hands in gesture of refusal. Uribe seemed vaguely hurt. Maher didn’t care.
“I gotta tell you something,” Maher said.
Uribe sensed Maher’s anxiety and became anxious himself.
“what?” Uribe asked, his voice rising. “What do you have to tell me?”
“You and I have been friends for a long time,” Maher said. “And you know there is nothing I would do to hurt you or your family.”
Uribe’s face morphed in fear. Something was very wrong.
Maher paused for a moment, then went on.
“There’s something about me you don’t know. I haven’t told you this up to now because if you or any members of your family had been arrested, you’d think I was involved.”
Uribe laughed, “You’re a cop?!”
“I do undercover work for the FBI,” Maher stated somberly. “And I work for the cops as an informant.”
Uribe staggered back a step. He stopped laughing.
Maher reached into his pocket and produced court transcripts from the grand jury hearing case against Molese. He flipped to a page and held it so Uribe could see.
“The man on trial is Brian Molese,” Maher explained. “He killed a baby. He needs to be convicted.”
Maher related the sad tale of Alice, Marcia, and Harold, but Uribe wasn’t listening. His eyes were fixed on the bottom section of the transcript.
DA: Have you ever been an informant here?
Maher: Yes.
“Oh man, no!” Uribe finally said, his hand pressed to his forehead. “I can’t believe this! No, Man! I can’t believe this!”
Maher grabbed Uribe by the shoulders. “Look. John. If I wanted you and your family locked up, you’d be in jail by now. Don’t you see that?”
Uribe stepped back. He looked at Maher for a moment, then looked away. Maher tried to reestablish eye contact, but Uribe refused to look at him.
“I’m being straight up with you, John,” Maher said. “Man to man. Whatever you do, don’t go back and tell your aunt, because she’ll kill me.”
Uribe, his diverted, started toward his Corvette. Maher followed him.
“John!”
“I gotta go, Kevin.”
“John! Listen to me, will you? I’m not going to do anything to hurt you.”
Uribe jumped in his Silver Corvette and cranked the engine. Maher ran up to the open car window.
“John. Will you stop a minute?”
Maher leaned down, his face even with Uribe’s profile. Uribe stared straight ahead, still refusing to look Maher in the eye.
“I gotta go, Kevin. I gotta go.”
Uribe pressed the accelerator, and the Vette almost catapulted down the street. Maher stared at the taillights until they disappeared into the night. Please, John, Maher thought, desperately hoping to float a telepathic message into the ether, don’t go run to Tia. Do whatever you want, but don’t go running to Tia.
When Slavanki had emphasized the importance of identifying suspects and for the various federal law enforcement bureaus to be in constant communication with each other, Maher wasn’t paying much attention. Yet because of the open lines of communication among bureaus, a parallel U.S. Customs investigation of the Uribe family provided the DEA with critical piece of information. Customs officials had bugged Maria Uribe’s home and were in the process of taping conversations between Maria and her dealers. So when John Uribe burst into his aunt’s house, the electronic ears of U.S. Customs were listening.
Custom officials first heard Uribe scream something in Spanish about a meeting with “Kevin.” And then came the following exchange, also in Spanish:
MARIA: I knew he was a fucking cop.
URIBE: He’s not a cop.
MARIA: I want that motherfucker dead.
URIBE: (agitated): No! No! Please.
MARIA: He’ll ruin our business. He’ll take everything I own.
URIBE: No! Don’t do it!
Then came the sound of a rotary phone being dialed. As the dial clicked around with each number, Uribe continued pleading with his aunt.
URIBE (crying): Please, Tia! Don’t do this.
Tia ignored him. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click. Pause. Click, click, click, click, click, click, click. Pause. Finally the last digit of the phone number was entered. There was a tense moment of silence, during which John Uribe could be heard crying, gasping for breath between sobs. Then Maria Uribe, speaking slowly into the receiver, ordered the immediate execution of Kevin Maher.
