NEW YORK: An American woman whose conviction for smuggling cocaine from the Caribbean was set aside by a US federal judge concerned that the original verdict was a miscarriage of justice, has been acquitted of all charges by a second jury.
Marcia Minaya Diaz, of Danbury, Connecticut could have faced up to 20 years in prison for the nearly one kilo of cocaine that US Customs and Border Protection (CPB) officers found in the lining of a cooler tote bag during an inspection at John F Kennedy International Airport in New York last November.
Diaz, 51, was returning from a one-month visit to the Dominican Republic, where she had visited her husband and other family.
Defense lawyer Chase Scolnick contended that the tote bag, along with bottles of rum, cheese balls and candy were gifts she was taking back to the US and she had no idea that someone had secretly placed drugs inside the bag.
She was found guilty in March of importing cocaine and possession with intent to distribute cocaine.But Brooklyn, New York Federal Judge Jack Weinstein tossed out the verdict in June, explaining that “there remains a substantial question about whether an innocent person has been convicted.”
In Diaz’s retrial last week, prosecutors argued that drug traffickers would not have stashed such a large amount of coke valued at more than US$30,000 in a bag of an unwitting traveler.
But Scolnick said his client wasn’t duped by a stranger; it was a friend of her husband’s who had given her the items.
“She believed him and trusted him when she told he told her it would be rum, cheese, gifts,” Scolnick told the jury. “After all, these are the very same type of gifts that her family was giving her on the same trip.”
After deliberating for two hours, the jury on Friday cleared Diaz of the charges.
“Judge Weinstein’s ruling and the jury’s verdict restored my faith in our criminal justice system,” Scolnick said.
“An innocent woman was acquitted, and another wrongful conviction was averted.”
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