Go Dore Go!

Nice win today for friend of blog Dore Louis (as well as Joe Rosenbaum and Marcia Silvers) before Judge Cooke. Jay Weaver has the details on this crazy case:

In October, his criminal case on cigarette smuggling charges ended in a mistrial when the FBI arrested a juror who tried to extort money from the defendant’s family in exchange for the promise of a “not guilty’’ verdict. On Monday, a federal judge threw out the charges altogether, saying prosecutors failed to make their case against the Davie construction executive at his second jury trial. Marrero’s two-step journey rarely, if ever, happens in Miami federal court. “They were prosecuting an alleged fraud that occurred in Europe in a U.S. court,” said Marrero’s attorney, Joseph Rosenbaum. “They never should have charged him in the first place.” A year ago, Marrero, 48, was charged with conspiracy and money laundering. The indictment accused him of trying to “enrich himself” by buying cigarettes overseas, hiding the cartons inside cargo containers at the Port of Miami and shipping them to Portugal, Ireland and Germany — without attaching proper documents or paying customs duties. But U.S. District Judge Marcia Cooke granted Rosenbaum’s motion for acquittal after the prosecution rested its case, saying the statute of limitation in the conspiracy case dating back to 2001 had expired. Cooke’s judgment of acquittal followed a guilty plea earlier this month by one-time juror Italo Campagna, just as Marrero’s second trial was getting underway. Campagna, 55, of Miami, was charged with soliciting a bribe after demanding between $50,000 and $100,000 from Marrero’s relatives to sway the 12-person jury during the first trial in October. Marrero and his family immediately contacted authorities.