New York District Judge Gerard E. Lynch declined to rule on the petition for change in the solitary confinement (SHU) at the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York of arrested former Dominican army captain Quirino Ernesto Paulino Castillo. He said he would leave the decision up to the Judge Kimba Woods who has been in charge of the case.
Quirino Ernesto Paulino’s lawyers had requested a change to regular prison status. But the MCC prison facility director, Les Owen said that Paulino was not an ordinary prisoner.
During the hearing, Les Owen argued against the change of status and told the judge that Paulino was given special status in the jail based on his personal fortune, estimated at US$1 billion that includes helicopters, cars and hotels.
Furthermore, he stated in court that Paulino had a direct connection with the former President of the Republic and mentioned that it was the then President himself, according to his reports, who had reincorporated Paulino into the army. Owen also linked Paulino to the director of a jail who was arrested in a major drug bust. In his recommendations to maintain the solitary confinement status, he cautions that Paulino would be capable of giving the jail serious problems, mentions the possibility of an escape.
The Quirino Paulino case vs. the United States government is heard at the United States District Court of the Southern District of New York. John O’Donnell, assistant lawyer, explained to Judge Lynch that Paulino was accused of being the head of an important and large drug smuggling organization that had imported tons of cocaine to the US, and that two of the shipments, of which they have two taped conversations regarding a shipment of hundreds of kilograms of cocaine, had been stolen from another smuggler in New York.
For more background on the case, see dr1 news archives at http://dr1.com/news/2005/ or
http://www.caribbeannetnews.com/2005/02/04/drug.shtml and
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