U.S. anti-drug official snared in racket faces 18-month term

 BY TIM JOHNSON

 BOGOTA, Colombia -- Some prominent Colombians are outraged that a U.S.
 Army colonel who helped his wife hide drug-trafficking profits last year while he
 headed U.S. counter-drug operations in Colombia may get only a slap on the
 wrist -- an 18-month jail term or less.

 SHAME screamed the cover of a recent Semana news magazine. A lengthy
 article inside lashed out at U.S. ``double standards'' on drug issues.

 Colombia's top crime fighter, Prosecutor General Alfonso Gomez Mendez,
 accused Washington of hypocrisy.

 ``This would surely be a scandal for Colombia if a sentence of this magnitude
 were handed down for a crime of this nature,'' Gomez Mendez said.

 Federal Judge Edward R. Korman told U.S. Army Col. James C. Hiett at a
 hearing last week in New York City that he will follow federal sentencing rules and
 give Hiett a 12- to 18-month prison term June 23.

 Hiett was the senior military officer at the U.S. Embassy in Bogota last June
 when U.S. prosecutors accused his wife, Laurie Anne Hiett, of using the U.S.
 Embassy mail system to send six packages of cocaine and heroin to an accused
 drug dealer in Brooklyn. The packages contained narcotics with a total street
 value of $750,000.

 At the time, U.S. military officials said Hiett told them he knew nothing of his
 wife's activities.

 COLONEL CONFESSES

 But at a hearing last week, Hiett dropped the denials and admitted to the federal
 judge that his wife had given him ``in excess of $25,000'' in the spring of 1999
 after making several quick trips to New York City and that he failed to tell
 investigators about the cash.

 ``In April and May of 1999, I used approximately $14,000 of cash to pay various
 personal bills. The remaining $11,000 in cash remained in my possession in
 Bogota,'' Hiett told the judge.

 Hiett, 48, said he did not suspect the money was dirty until Army investigators
 told him in early June that his wife had sent drugs from Colombia to New York
 City.

 Even so, Hiett told the judge, ``I then took steps to dissipate this cash by paying
 bills . . . and depositing some of the cash in our accounts.''

 Hiett admitted to using some of the drug cash to pay hotel bills in June in Boca
 Raton and in Myrtle Beach, S.C., a Visa card bill and to buy several money
 orders to deposit the funds in bank accounts in his name and his wife's.

 At the hearing, Hiett pleaded guilty to a crime known as misprision of a felony,
 which is the criminal failure to tell authorities that his wife was laundering
 drug-trafficking profits by carrying cash from the United States to Colombia.

 PERCEIVED IMBALANCE

 Why Hiett was not charged with a more serious felony is not clear.

 ``I can't comment on what the charging options were,'' assistant U.S. Attorney
 Lee G. Dunst said in a telephone interview from his New York City office.

 Laurie Hiett faces sentencing May 5 on 13 counts of drug trafficking, and may
 receive between seven and nine years in prison.

 Over the past decade, Washington has often criticized Colombia for sentences as
 low as six years given to leaders of the Medellin and Cali cartels, although prison
 terms were stiffened in 1997.

 Gomez Mendez, the Colombian prosecutor, said he respects U.S. sovereignty in
 giving prison terms to confessed felons but that the two nations should maintain
 ``a principle of reciprocity'' in jail terms.

 ``The case is disgraceful,'' wrote columnist Antonio Caballero, who said he
 believes Colombian authorities are biting their tongues in anger as they await
 approval of a $1.3 billion proposed U.S. counter-narcotics package currently tied
 up on Capitol Hill.

 POLICE CHIEF ANGRY

 National police chief Rosso Jose Serrano, praised by Washington as a valiant
 drug fighter, also lashed out at the sentence, describing it as discouraging.

 Gen. Charles Wilhelm, head of the Miami-based U.S. Southern Command,
 declined to discuss the controversy Wednesday during a visit to Bogota.

 ``That's a matter between the Hietts and the civil courts,'' Wilhelm said. ``I think
 it's inappropriate for me to comment.''

 A U.S. congressional staffer, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said he found
 it embarrassing to respond to Colombian officials asking about the case during a
 recent trip.

 ``I can certainly see where the Colombians would be mad,'' he said. ``I'd be mad if
 it were the other way around.''