NEW YORK (AP) — Three men were arrested Monday for allegedly offering to pay $100,000 in cash to a juror at the Brooklyn drug trial of former heavyweight boxer Goran Gogic, leading a federal judge to abruptly dismiss the jury just as it was about to hear opening statements.
An anonymous jury will be chosen when Gogic's trial resumes after a 30-day break, said John Marzulli, a spokesperson for federal prosecutors in Brooklyn. Judge Joan Azrack scheduled a Dec. 17 conference.
Gogic, of Montenegro, was set to stand trial for allegedly conspiring to smuggle 20 tons (18.1 metric tons) of cocaine to Europe from Colombia through U.S. ports using commercial cargo ships. He has pleaded not guilty. His lawyer did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Three individuals were arrested after they approached a juror and offered to pay $100,000 to return a not guilty verdict, Assistant U.S. Attorney Francisco Navarro told Azrack.
The three men may have obtained a copy of the jury list or jury information from “individuals connected to this trial,” the prosecutor said.
Gogic’s lawyer, Joseph Corozzo, told the judge that he informed the ex-fighter the trial would not proceed on Monday.
One of the men charged, Mustafa Fteja, was released on a $150,000 bond after a court hearing Tuesday. The two others, Valmir Krasniqi and Afrim Kupa, were jailed pending further proceedings.
Fteja, Krasniqi and Kupa were not required to enter pleas during their initial court appearances. Messages seeking comment were left for their lawyers.
Law enforcement officials have described Gogic as a “major drug trafficker” and said he operated on a “mammoth scale.”
Gogic fought professionally in Germany from 2001 to 2012, compiling a 21-4-2 record, according to boxing website Sport & Note. He was listed as 6-foot-5 (1.96 meters) and weighed in at anywhere from 227 pounds (103 kilograms) to 250 pounds (113 kilograms).
In a criminal complaint in Brooklyn federal court, an FBI agent wrote that the bribery scheme unfolded between Thursday and Sunday.
According to the court papers, Fteja already knew a juror described in the complaint as “John Doe #1” and called him multiple times on his cellphone Thursday before the juror agreed to meet him on Staten Island.
During the meeting, which took place Thursday, Fteja told the juror that associates in the Bronx were willing to pay him to return a not guilty verdict, the complaint said.
Two days later, Fteja told the juror during a second meeting that they were willing to pay him between $50,000 and $100,000 to corrupt the trial, the complaint said.
According to the complaint, investigators secured several recorded conversations of the defendants planning the juror corruption plot as the men spoke in Albanian and English. The court papers contained some quotes from the recorded conversations.
At his trial, Gogic is charged with violating and conspiring to violate the Maritime Drug Law Enforcement Act. If convicted, he faces a sentence of 10 years to life in prison.
According to prosecutors, Gogic and his co-conspirators worked with the ships’ crew members to smuggle cocaine in shipping containers, hoisting loads of the drug from speedboats that approached the cargo vessels along their route, including near ports in Colombia, Ecuador, and Peru.
Three shipments were intercepted by U.S. law enforcement agents, prosecutors said, including 1,437 kilograms (3,168 pounds) of cocaine aboard the MSC Carlotta at the Port of New York and New Jersey in February 2019 and 17,956 kilograms (39,586 pounds) of cocaine — with a street value of over $1 billion — aboard the MSC Gayane at the Port of Philadelphia in June 2019.
The Philadelphia bust was one of the largest cocaine seizures in U.S. history, prosecutors said.
FILE - The New York Police Department has extra security in place in front of the Brooklyn Federal Courthouse for the start of jury selection in the trial of Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman, Nov. 5, 2018, in New York. (AP Photo/Mark Lennihan, File)
