Drug King’s Pilot Won’t Have to Serve 10-Year Term

A pilot who testified against his boss--convicted Colombian drug kingpin Carlos Lehder Rivas--was sentenced Monday to 10 years in prison on a drug conspiracy charge, but he will not have to serve any time because of his cooperation with federal authorities.

U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian Jr. said he was suspending the jail term against John Fenley Robinson of Los Angeles because his testimony “helped break up” part of Lehder’s drug-trafficking operation.

Lehder has been described by U.S. authorities as a leader of the violent Medellin drug cartel that is responsible for 80% of all cocaine smuggled into the United States.

Lehder, 38, was convicted last month in Jacksonville, Fla., federal court on charges that he smuggled 3.3 million tons of cocaine from Colombia into the United States from 1978 to 1980.

Federal prosecutors voiced no objections when Tevrizian suspended the 10-year prison term. But the judge fined Robinson $5,000 and placed him on five years’ probation.

Monday’s sentencing hearing in Los Angeles federal court was brief, and federal prosecutors were tight-lipped about the extent of Robinson’s cooperation.

Wearing a baseball-style aviator’s cap, Robinson gave short answers, “Yes sir,” to questions on whether he understood the sentence being imposed on him.

But in testifying last year against Lehder, Robinson provided a rare glimpse into the cartel’s drug-trafficking operations.

He said that Lehder paid him $80,000 a shipment to fly cocaine into Miami and later on to Los Angeles.

He testified that he established a bank account in the Bahamas for his payments and later set up a Swiss corporation and bank account to launder drug money for Lehder.

Robinson also testified that Lehder hated American police officers, saying that “if they got in his way, he would kill them.”

Bulletproof Vehicle

He also described how Lehder once bribed a Colombian military commander with $35,000.

“He (Lehder) told me that he gave a bulletproof limousine to the president of Colombia,” Robinson said.

But Robinson did not say which Colombian president was involved, nor did he identify any of the officials he said Lehder had bribed.

Robinson pleaded guilty late last year to one count of conspiracy to import cocaine, but the sentencing was put off until after Lehder’s trial ended.