Attempted Bribery in Ex-Boxer’s Trial: Three Men Arrested
In an unexpected turn of events, three individuals were arrested on Monday for allegedly attempting to bribe a juror in the drug trial of Goran Gogic, a former heavyweight boxing champion. The bribery attempt, which involved a sum of up to $100,000 in cash, led Judge Joan Azrack to abruptly dismiss the jury before opening statements began.
John Marzulli, a spokesman for federal prosecutors in Brooklyn, reported that an anonymous jury will be selected when Gogic’s trial resumes in a month. Judge Azrack scheduled a conference for December 17th.
Gogic, originally from Montenegro, was about to be tried for allegedly conspiring to smuggle 20 tons of cocaine into Europe from Colombia, using commercial cargo ships passing through U.S. ports. He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The three individuals were arrested after approaching a juror and offering them $100,000 in exchange for a not guilty verdict, according to Assistant District Attorney Francisco Navarro before Judge Azrack.
The prosecutor suggested that the three men may have obtained information from the jury from “individuals related to this trial”.
Gogic’s lawyer, Joseph Corozzo, informed the judge that he told the former boxer that the trial would not continue on Monday.
Mustafa Fteja, one of the accused, was released on a $150,000 bail after a court hearing on Tuesday. The other two, Valmir Krasniqi and Afrim Kupa, remain in pre-trial detention awaiting further proceedings.
Fteja, Krasniqi, and Kupa were not required to enter pleas during their initial court appearances. Messages were left for their attorneys seeking comment.
The authorities have described Gogic as an “important drug trafficker” who operated on a “massive scale”.
Gogic, who was a professional heavyweight boxer, competed in Germany from 2001 to 2012, accumulating a record of 21-4-2, according to the boxing website Sport & Note. He was 1.95 meters tall and weighed between 103 and 113 kg.
In a criminal complaint filed in Brooklyn federal court, an FBI agent detailed that the bribery scheme unfolded between Thursday and Sunday.
According to court documents, Mustafa Fteja, one of the accused men, already knew a juror, described as “John Doe #1” in the complaint, and called him several times by phone on the Thursday before the jury agreed to meet with him in Staten Island.
During the meeting, which took place on Thursday, Fteja told the jury that associates in the Bronx were willing to pay him to issue a not guilty verdict, according to the complaint.
Two days later, Fteja informed the jury, during a second meeting, that they were willing to pay him between $50,000 and $100,000 to corrupt the trial, according to the complaint.
According to the complaint, investigators obtained several recorded conversations of the defendants planning the jury corruption scheme, in which they spoke in Albanian and English.
In his trial, Gogic faces charges for violating and conspiring to violate the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act. If convicted, he could face a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.
According to prosecutors, Gogic and his accomplices collaborated with crew members of the ships to smuggle cocaine in shipping containers, loading the drug from speedboats that approached the cargo ships along their route, including near ports in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
U.S. law enforcement agents intercepted three shipments, prosecutors said, 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 more than one billion dollars, aboard the MSC Gayane at the Port of Philadelphia in June 2019.
The Philadelphia seizure was one of the largest cocaine seizures in U.S. history, according to prosecutors.
