Colombian drug trafficker gets prison time in Tampa case

Fabio Enrique Ochoa-Vasco spent three decades running Colombian drugs into this country. He will spend the next couple in a federal prison.

Ochoa was sentenced today to 17 1/2 years behind bars for conspiring to smuggle 5 tons of cocaine between 1978 and his surrender in January 2009.

U.S. District Judge James S. Moody Jr. tacked on two more years for Ochoa violating his probation in a 1981 marijuana distribution case in Miami. Moody refused to let that sentence be served at the same time as the cocaine conspiracy term.

It could have been worse. Prosecutors agreed to a reduction in the federal sentencing guidelines because Ochoa has cooperated with authorities, although they refused to go any lower.

"He's in the upper echelon of the world's cocaine traffickers," Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Perry said.

Ochoa previously agreed to relinquish $15 million in assets to the government - including property in Miami, Mexico and Venezuela, as well as the contract of a professional soccer player.

Investigators said Ochoa had headed a Medellin-based organization since 1986; a group they claim smuggled 6 to 8 tons of cocaine monthly from Colombia to the United States by cargo ship, speedboat and airplane through Jamaica, Honduras, Belize and Mexico.

Ochoa pleaded guilty to three counts of conspiracy - two Miami cases from 1989 and 1990, and a Tampa case brought in 2004.

He apologized to the court and to his relatives, who filled the first two rows of the courtroom, including his wife, two children, mother, three brothers and two sisters.

"My life is full of mistakes," he said. "I knew the only way to fix the problem was to surrender."

Ochoa said he began negotiating his surrender in 1999. Defense attorney Roy Kahn said his client's desire to stay with his family and his fear of a long prison sentence scuttled earlier surrender attempts.

"I am sorry and ashamed for being in front of you today," Ochoa said. "I ask for forgiveness."

Ochoa was born in Colombia but raised in Miami. He fled in 1987, before the first of the federal cocaine indictments.

He said he struggled making his way in his native land because he couldn't speak Spanish and that he continued in the drug trade to make ends meet.

Moody agreed to Ochoa's request for a recommendation that the prison term be served in Florida so Ochoa can be close to his family. The federal Bureau of Prisons will decide where Ochoa serves his time.