Prosecutors suddenly drop case against Miami attorney accused of bribing DEA agents

NEW YORK (AP) — Prosecutors have agreed to drop criminal charges against a prominent Miami defense attorney accused of orchestrating a bribery conspiracy involving two former U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration supervisors who leaked confidential information.

Charges will be dismissed against David Macey in a year as long as he does not break any laws, according to a deferred prosecution agreement announced Thursday in Manhattan federal court.

Prosecutors offered no explanation for the sudden reversal. But Judge Jennifer H. Rearden said the “extraordinary opportunity” for Macey to avoid trial was in part the result of his experienced legal team.

“I feel great. I’m elated,” Macey said, grinning as he walked out of the courthouse and embraced his attorneys.

The rare move would appear to end to a multi-year investigation into corruption inside the DEA that has resulted in the conviction of two former agents. The probe recently widened to focus on Miami’s “white powder bar,” high-priced defense lawyers who negotiate surrender deals for Latin American drug traffickers by converting them into government cooperators.

One of the most successful of those attorneys was Macey, a former state prosecutor. In February, Macey, 54, was accused of lavishing two former DEA agents with cash and gifts, including Yankees-Red Sox baseball tickets and a down payment for a condo in suburban Coral Gables, in exchange for sensitive information about the timing of federal indictments and other leads that authorities said put cases and investigators at risk.

Macey’s attorneys don’t deny payments and purchases totaling $73,000 ended up in the hands of the veteran lawman, John Costanzo, and a retired DEA supervisor, Manny Recio, who was working as a private investigator for Macey and other attorneys. However, they said Macey made no specific ask of Costanzo, describing him as a “good friend” with whom he shared meals, holidays and vacations.

“The indictment fails to allege any quid pro quo,” Macey’s attorneys said in a motion to dismiss the indictment earlier this month. “It instead describes, at best, a formless arrangement of alleged payments as quids (many entirely unliked to Mr. Macey) and so-called ‘requests’ as quos with no apparent connection between them.”

As part of the agreement announced Thursday, Macey acknowledged that his financial transactions with Costanzo “created at minimum a risk of perceived conflicts of interests.” In a statement through his attorney, Shawn Crowley, he said he was grateful the “government looked at the facts and determined justice would not be served by continuing this prosecution.”

It’s unclear why the case against fell apart and a spokesperson for the U.S. attorney’s office in Manhattan declined to comment. But the main prosecutor who one handled the case, Sheb Swett, no longer works at the U.S. Attorney Office. Meanwhile, a key informant who recorded conversations with Recio and another Miami attorney has himself since been indicted in Tampa, Florida, in an alleged plot to extort major cocaine traffickers facing extradition from Colombia and the Dominican Republic.

Macey has always denied wrongdoing. Recio and Costanzo were sentenced to prison terms of three and four years respectively. Their Manhattan trial followed a flurry of misconduct cases involving other DEA agents accused of corruption and other federal crimes.

Recio repeatedly asked Costanzo to search a confidential database for investigations of interest to the attorneys he worked for, including Macey, according to wiretapped phone calls that prosecutors cited during the two lawmen’s trial.

The two agents also discussed the timing of high-profile arrests and charges, including for a man suspected of acting as an intermediary for Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro.

Recio and Costanzo also discussed confidential DEA plans to arrest a high-level trafficker in the Dominican Republic whom Macey was trying to recruit as a client.

Defense attorneys said the government had no proof that Macey had any knowledge of the DEA policy he allegedly induced Costanzo to violate, nor the required intent.

The gifts and payments by Macey included a dinner in Manhattan’s West Village for Costanzo, himself and another then-high-ranking DEA official in Mexico.

The DEA agents relied on middlemen such as Costanzo’s now-deceased father, a decorated DEA agent, to disguise payments, prosecutors said. They also used sham invoices and a company listing its address as a UPS store while deleting hundreds of messages and calls to a burner phone, prosecutors said.

DEA task force officer Edwin Pagan was accused of being an intermediary and faces a November trial on charges including bribery and perjury. He’s pleaded not guilty.

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Goodman reported from Miami