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Illegal aliens face drug charges


PUBLISHED: November 30, 2006

By Jameson Cook
Macomb Daily Staff Writer

Four men -- three of them illegal aliens who don't speak English -- are accused of trying to sell more than $3 million in cocaine and are being prosecuted together in Macomb County Circuit Court, a trial that includes four defense attorneys and three interpreters.
The trial of Rigoberto Cardenas-Borbon, Antonio Perez-Chica, Jose Martinez, all of Mexico, and Hugo Moran-Dopico, a U.S. resident with Detroit connections, began Tuesday with jury selection and continued Wednesday with opening statements by an assistant Macomb prosecutor and two of the four defense attorneys.

The foursome is charged with the life offenses of delivery of more than 1,000 grams of cocaine and conspiracy to deliver it.

"They were working in concert," assistant Macomb prosecutor Jurij Fedorak told a 14-person jury, in front of Judge Peter J. Maceroni.

The prosecution alleges the four men intended to sell the 22 pounds of cocaine, which originated from South America or Mexico and was found by police in April 2005 in a hidden compartment of a Ford Explorer on Interstate-94 in Roseville.

Moran-Dopico, who has lived in southwest Detroit, was the alleged drug ring's point man for selling the drugs to smaller dealers in that area of Detroit, according to Fedorak. Moran-Dopico was "fronted" the drugs, Fedorak said, and would pay his suppliers as he sold the drugs.

The Explorer was driven by a fifth man, Candelario Herrera, an illegal alien who is expected to testify against the four defendants during the trial, in exchange for a sentence recommendation.

After seizing the cocaine April 26, 2005, police quickly arrested Perez-Chica and Martinez who were in the Red Roof Inn in Roseville, from where Herrera picked up the Explorer. An investigator from the Oakland Macomb Interdiction Team had been conducting surveillance of the two men at the motel.

Four other illegal aliens from Mexico who were staying at the Red Roof and had no connection to the drugs were arrested and turned over to the U.S. Border Patrol. The three females and one male -- all Mexicans -- paid Perez-Chica and Martinez to drive them in the Explorer from Arizona to the Midwest, where they hoped to find jobs.

Moran-Dopico and Cardenas-Borbon were arrested two days later driving a Dodge Durango southbound in Missouri, in or near St. Louis, although no drugs or large sums of money were found.

In the trial, all of the defendants except Moran-Dopico are wearing headsets, on which they can listen to an interpreter from Worldwide Interpreters Inc. in Grosse Pointe Woods recite the verbal action in the courtroom. Three interpreters are rotating the duties in the crowded courtroom, which features a second defense table due to the many participants.

"It looks like the United Nations," one court observer said.

Fedorak said the situation is having little or no effect on the trial.

Defense attorney Mark Haddad, who represents Martinez, said his client was unaware that drugs were in the Explorer and was merely earning money to transport four people from Arizona to the Midwest, with a possible final destination of Chicago.

Defense attorney Ramone Flores, who represents Cardenas-Borbon, criticized the prosecution's case for relying on the "faulty foundation" of Herrera's testimony.

Flores said Herrera is not a credible witness because he has lied eight times in statements to police and has used several aliases in the past, including his current name. In exchange for his testimony prosecutors have agreed to recommend he receive a 7-year sentence, with possible further reduction if he works with the Drug Enforcement Administration in the future.

Fedorak acknowledged that Herrera "has been deceitful," but told the jury they will have to "pick out the lies."

Fedorak said other people were involved in the drug ring but police have not located them.

"There will be pieces missing in the jigsaw puzzle," he said. "But there are enough pieces to find the defendants guilty."