Attempted Bribery in Drug Trafficking Trial Causes Uproar
In an unexpected turn of events, a drug trial in Brooklyn was abruptly halted on Monday due to an attempt to bribe a juror. Three individuals were arrested for allegedly offering a considerable sum of money in exchange for a favorable verdict for the defendant, a former heavyweight boxer.
Judge Joan Azrack made the decision to dismiss the original jury just before the opening statements began. The trial of Goran Gogic, accused of conspiring to traffic 20 tons of cocaine from Colombia to Europe through US ports, will resume in a month with a new anonymous jury, according to John Marzulli, spokesman for the federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. The conference is scheduled for December 17.
Gogic, from Montenegro, pleaded not guilty to the charges. His lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The three individuals arrested, identified as Mustafa Fteja, Valmir Krasniqi, and Afrim Kupa, approached a juror and offered him up to $100,000 dollars to secure a not guilty verdict, according to prosecutor Francisco Navarro.
The prosecution suggested that the defendants might have obtained information from the jury through “individuals connected to this trial.” Gogic’s lawyer, Joseph Corozzo, informed the former boxer about the suspension of the trial on Monday.
Mustafa Fteja was released on a $150,000 bail after a court hearing on Tuesday, while Krasniqi and Kupa remain in custody. The three did not enter a plea during their initial appearances.
Authorities have described Gogic as a “major drug trafficker” who operated on a “large scale”.
Gogic, who was a professional boxer in Germany from 2001 to 2012, accumulated a record of 21-4-2. He was 6 feet 5 inches tall and weighed between 227 and 250 pounds.
According to a criminal complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court, the bribery scheme unfolded between Thursday and Sunday. Mustafa Fteja, one of the defendants, already knew a juror, described as “John Doe #1”, and contacted him several times by phone on Thursday, agreeing to meet in Staten Island.
During the meeting, Fteja informed the jury that associates in the Bronx were willing to pay him for a not guilty verdict. Two days later, Fteja informed the jury that the sum would range between $50,000 and $100,000 dollars.
The authorities obtained recordings of the defendants’ conversations planning the bribe, speaking in Albanian and English.
In the trial, Gogic faces charges for violating and conspiring to violate the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act. If found guilty, he could be sentenced to between 10 years and life in prison.
Prosecutors allege that Gogic and his accomplices, with the help of crew members of the ships, smuggled cocaine in shipping containers, loading the drug from speedboats that approached the cargo ships offshore, near ports in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
U.S. authorities intercepted three shipments, including 1,437 kilograms of cocaine aboard the MSC Carlotta at the Port of New York and New Jersey in February 2019, and 17,956 kilograms of cocaine, with a street value of over one billion dollars, aboard the MSC Gayane at the Port of Philadelphia in June 2019. The seizure in Philadelphia was one of the largest in U.S. history.
