01x05 - Femme Fatale

[bunniefuu]

[thunder crashing]

[dramatic music playing]

[Marilyn] It had been raining for days.

And I'm going down 57.

And all of a sudden,

I see sirens behind me.

[sirens wailing]

I thought, "What did I do? How strange."

Because I knew I wasn't speeding.

I wasn't in my BMW,

and the car I was in didn't go past 30.

I was like, "I'm not speeding."

I said, "Whatever", you know?

"Whatever it is, let's get it over with,

so I can get to the office."

Then I see another cop car

and another cop car.

And I said,

"That's an awful lot of cop cars."

[laughing]

I thought maybe I had a broken taillight.

I said, "That's a lot of cop cars."

I pulled over.

You know, one of these, like,

state trooper, you know,

he comes and says to me,

"You were speeding."

I said, "If you say I'm speeding,"

'cause I didn't care.

I just wanted the ticket,

so I could take off.

And I see two more cop cars.

So now I got like six cars behind me,

and I'm beginning to think,

"Oh man, I got that ledger book

and everything in the trunk."

The ledger book showed bribery payoffs.

All the money that

I paid out to people for Sal.

And they're gonna find out

just about everything.

And I was like, "Oh, man."

[laughing]

"I am so f*cked."

["Blood Sport" by Pitbull playing]

Woo!

Sniff, co- ♪

Snort, -caine ♪

Deal, cow- ♪

Extort, -boys ♪

Will, will, k*ll, k*ll ♪

For the love of the blood sport ♪

They'll do 25 to life ♪

For the love of the blood sport ♪

[atmospheric music playing]

[Marilyn] Sal was living

at his parents' house.

He had been badgering me

for months with the ledger book.

"I want the ledger book."

"You're not getting the ledger book."

I said, "Why do you want it?"

"All it's gonna do is bring trouble."

And then one day, I told him,

"I burnt it." And I hadn't burnt it.

He says, "I know you didn't burn it."

I wanted to burn the book,

but at the same time,

I felt if something goes wrong,

I have that book to back me up

and help me get out of trouble.

One day we got into a big fight about it

and I said,

"You want the ledger book? I'm gonna

publish it in the Miami Herald."

I said, "Go read the paper."

"You can't talk to me like that."

"Whatever."

One day, he starts calling me

really early in the morning.

"Why don't you come over

to Richard's office? I wanna see you."

Richard Martinez is Sal's brother-in-law.

I thought, "Okay, that sounds strange.

Something's up."

I said, "Well, what do you need?"

I said, "It's raining."

He says,

"I want you to bring the ledger book."

And then we went at it again.

On and on 'til, like, I just said,

"Sal, I really don't care."

"You want the ledger book?"

I say, "You can have it."

My BMW was in repair,

and I had rented a car from Alamo.

So I took the book

and the papers and everything,

I wrapped it up in a garbage bag,

and I just threw it

in the trunk of the car.

And I took off.

[dramatic music building]

We had some information from a source

that there was a box with drug ledgers.

They were possessed by

some woman named Marilyn Bonachea.

[Pat] We had known she had been

a longtime paramour of Sal Magluta.

We knew she had been one of the people

going to federal prison in South Dade

to pull Sal and Willy out of segregations.

[Robert] The source told me

that at some point,

she's gonna wind up

at some lawyer's office in downtown Miami.

[Marilyn] I was headed

towards Richard Martinez's office

which Sal called his office.

Everybody who needed something,

you know, needed money or favors

would actually go

to that office to see Sal.

Sal would sit in Rich's chair

and be like he was the attorney.

Like The Godfather thing.

"What do you need? What can I do for you?"

Someday,

and that day may never come,

I'll call upon you to do a service for me.

[laughs] Just like the old days.

And I said, "It sounds to me

like somebody's got some pretty

valuable evidence and contraband

they're riding with.

Let me see what I can do."

I'm not even ten miles from my house,

less, like seven.

It was 180th Street.

I had the windshield wipers on,

and I said,

"Son of a b*tch. There goes a car

that looks like the one I'm looking for."

I contacted two troopers. I said,

"I think I just saw the car going

northbound on Old Cutler Road."

"Keep an eye out for it."

One of the troopers called me and said,

"We got the car stopped."

"She was going too fast

for existing conditions in the rain."

I said, "Good job."

I told the troopers,

"Go about whatever you're doing."

"I'm gonna lay back

for a few minutes til you do that."

"I don't want to make it

too obvious that I'm involved in this."

[Marilyn] I said, "Look, I gotta go.

I'm on my way to work."

"Gimme my ticket so I can go."

And then he says, "You know, I think I saw

some marijuana seeds in your ashtray."

I thought, "How odd he would say that."

'Cause the ashtray was closed.

And then I start thinking,

"This is just getting

more and more, like, weird."

Cop says, "Well, can we search

the inside of the car?"

And I said, "Go ahead."

So then he got a dog

and they put me in a van, a white van.

I'm sitting there

waiting, waiting, waiting.

And then the guy said, "Bingo!"

I said, "Now what?"

Right before I left the house,

I wanted to smoke

on the way back from Rich's office.

So I grabbed, like, a little piece,

but I didn't have time

to roll the whole joint.

He comes with that little piece of paper

and said, "We got her! We got her!"

I'm like, "You got me on what?"

"On this piece of paper

you're holding in your hand?"

And they arrested me right there.

And they told me she had been placed

under arrest for possession of marijuana,

which at that time was a crime.

I'm thinking, "Well, maybe

they won't go into the trunk."

Y'know? I'm still having hope,

so they handcuff me

and they put me in the car.

[Robert] When I came up,

she was already seated in the backseat.

I open the back door and introduce myself.

He says,

"Can we take a look in your trunk?"

And I said, "No."

[Robert]

"Don't go in the trunk of that car."

She goes, "There's a box back there

and records back there."

"They're attorney-client privilege."

"Because I'm a paralegal

and everything in my trunk right now

is attorney-client privilege,

and you cannot go into my trunk."

Obviously, there weren't any records

in there that were privileged at all.

And I could see his smile like, "We know."

You know?

[laughs]

[Robert] So I got the keys

from the trooper,

went and popped the trunk,

and sure enough,

there were drug ledgers.

Heck no it wasn't any kind

of attorney-client privileged information.

It was all payoffs.

Sal was taking Bible study classes

when he was released.

And all they left in the trunk

were his little Bible study pamphlets.

Like tests and things,

that's all they left in the bag.

I get taken to TGK

and they stick you in a cell.

In about 40 minutes, Richard Martinez

was there with a bondsman.

And I get pulled out.

So I called Sal.

And then I started crying.

"Oh, they got the ledger book.

Now we're all f*cked."

Sal said, "I cannot believe this."

He says, "It's all over."

He says, "We're all done."

[Robert] When Marilyn was busted,

the phone lines lit up

like a Christmas tree.

[Marilyn] Richard called

somebody in Sullivan's office

and asked where the stuff was

from the car.

And Pat Sullivan told him

"If you want it, come see me."

It was a nightmare.

[Pat] The ledger book

tended to confirm everything

we had suspected up to that point

about the movements

of drug monies to inmates,

lawyers, and private investigators.

That ledger book was a ledger book

that literally contained

a roster of seven million dollars

of payments to different people

for favors to the organization.

[Jim] Prosecutors didn't know

what they had when they looked at it.

I think they sorta knew,

but there was a weird sorta code to it.

You know, that had to be decrypted

and tried to figure out.

We sent the ledger book to the FBI lab.

And they had a very difficult time

deciphering the codes in the ledger book.

This was kind of her own little code,

so only she could decipher

what was in that book.

They have all these names and numbers.

But they can't figure it out

because they don't have me to decipher it.

We could see

that the ledgers were payments

from our experiences as agents,

but we needed to know

who these nicknames were,

and whether she could provide

more information

that it was drug-related

and connected to Willy and Sal.

We needed her.

[Marilyn] Sal sent for me.

Told them to pick me up

and stop in three different places,

change cars three different times

to get to where he was.

He was on South Beach.

So, I get there,

and he's drinking aguardiente,

which he doesn't usually drink

because he has some type

of ulcer or something.

So he's drunk

and he's just putting cocaine up his nose.

Not his usual style

of little bits, but, like, lots of it.

And then he starts telling me,

you know, what the plan is.

I said, "What do you want me to do?"

He says, "Well, I want you

to go away for five years."

I said, "What?"

I said, "I'm not leaving my son

for five years. You're crazy."

"I'm not going."

He says, "You have to go."

He says, "If you don't go,

you're gonna hurt not only me,

but everybody who's in that book,"

and he says, "including your family."

And I said, "Damn, you know, like, this is

a hard one. What am I gonna do now?"

Marty Weinberg.

He's the first person

that Sal calls upon for advice.

Marty told him, "Look, you've known

this girl since you were 15 years old."

"You love her. Why don't you get married

and both go away?"

Sal said, "But I wouldn't have

the spousal privilege

because the book was found

before we got married."

If the crime was committed

before you were married,

you have to testify and tell the truth.

So that wasn't gonna work.

I don't think he really wanted

to go away with me forever either.

You know, I don't think

that's what he was thinking about.

Willy Falcon got out of drug charges,

but he won't walk away from g*n charges.

Yesterday, the federal jury convicted him

for violating US g*n laws.

With this conviction,

Falcon is now facing 30 years in prison.

[Chris] Following the acquittal

of the drug case,

I and Pat Sullivan successfully prosecuted

Falcon for two separate firearms cases.

Then I and Pat Sullivan

prosecuted Sal Magluta

for the host of false identification

documents he possessed

at the time he was arrested

in 1991 at La Gorce.

[Jim] Sal's got one charge now facing

against him on a passport charge.

[reporter] Magluta, who lives

in the Westchester section of West Dade,

is on trial this week on charges of using

forged passports and identity documents.

These charges of passport fraud

against the acquitted cocaine kingpin,

could be the first to stick.

"Passport, fine. Whatever we can find.

Jaywalking, fine."

Anything they could find to keep

these guys in jail, they were gonna do.

[salsa music playing]

[reporter] On the last day

of testimony today,

Magluta, who had been free

on $25,000 bond,

reportedly showed up in the seventh floor

courtroom of Judge Joan Leonard.

At about nine o'clock February 6, he came

to the courtroom and he saw some people

who he thought were marshals,

and he thought he'd get arrested.

He told his lawyers he was gonna go

downstairs for a cup of coffee.

And he got in a car and he bolted.

[salsa music playing]

What was he thinking?

I have no idea what he was thinking.

The man once considered South Florida's

biggest drug dealer, Sal Magluta,

pulling a disappearing act

while in federal court.

[reporter] A court security officer says

he left by this exit

and then walked up the street telling

the security officer over his shoulder:

Roy Black quipped earlier today:

You laughed at the government for years,

running boats and being fancy

and then you laugh at 'em

by fixing a juror and then you win,

and you have the opportunity

to make it right and you don't,

and then you run away

from the middle of a hearing.

What the hell do you think's gonna happen?

[reporter] Tonight, Federal Marshals

are in an all-out manhunt for Magluta.

[in Spanish]

Sal Magluta has become a fugitive.

[reporter in English] Sal Magluta

is once again a wanted man.

[reporter 2] Officials did find his car

today in a parking lot,

but no sign of Magluta.

This doesn't add up.

This is a guy who beat a rap

that was unbelievable, involving

so many drugs, so many countries.

Why would he skip out on a

What is this? A passport fraud case?

[Jim] Sal was scared.

He knew the Feds

had Marilyn's ledger book.

And so if he goes back to jail,

he might never get out.

[Marilyn] Richard says, "You gotta go."

And I said, "Why? What's going on now?"

He says, "Well, you know, Sal jumped bail

on the passport fraud case."

And then I said, "What is he, crazy?

I mean, you know? Okay."

"You know, now I really do have to go."

They made her go into hiding.

[Marilyn] They couldn't get Sal.

They're gonna come after me now.

[Raquel] And so she fled.

I said, "I need a Winnebago,

'cause I'm taking my dogs with me."

"And I need space."

[laughs] So then I called Orlando,

of course.

[Marilyn] Ay, Let's go to bed, papa.

[Orlando] I miss that body, you know?

[Marilyn] I just got kinda horny.

- [Orlando] Wanna do it right now?

- Mm-hmm.

[Orlando] I'll do it right now.

Orlando Leyva wasa confidential informant

of the FBI.

[Marilyn] Orlando Leyva

was supposed to be a friend of mine.

But he had turned me over

to the FBI and I didn't know it.

He was recruited by Mario Tariche.

[Raquel] Orlando, he wore a wire.

And he was given specific instructions

as to what type of information to elicit.

[Marilyn] So, now it's gonna come down

heavy on me.

You know I'm gonna be leaving this place.

I'm gonna be going to another one.

[dramatic music building]

[Marilyn] We started driving north

and little did I know,

Mario Tariche was behind me.

[Mario] She's in a Winnebago,

which made it easy to follow.

At one point, I just go into this really

rinky-dink motel in New Jersey.

And then I start hearing weird noises

from the other rooms.

You know, for being a rinky-dink hotel,

this is like really busy.

It was because the FBI, the whole crew,

was checking in into all the other rooms.

[Mario] We surveilled her

from Miami into New Jersey.

[Marilyn] The plan was

that I was to go to New Jersey.

And I was supposed to call Culito.

His name is Antonio Garcia, his real name.

Finally, he shows up.

He says, "What do you need?"

"Well, I need an apartment."

He stuck me next to Elizabeth, New Jersey.

It's like ghetto land, Jersey City.

And he gives me $200.

The apartment has

no furniture, no TV, no nothing.

I said, "What am I supposed to do?"

[Mario] We had surveillance

on her location there.

And lo and behold,

one day an individual shows up

carrying a bag

in which we suspected was money.

We were able to follow this individual.

We identified him as Antonio Garcia.

He was known as Culito,

which is like "little a*s."

[laughs] That's what it is.

[Marilyn] He's a colombiano.

You know, he's very professional,

he meets me, he give me money.

And they kind of provided her

with an income

to kinda keep her away and hidden,

because they knew

that she could decipher that ledger,

should she decide to cooperate

with the government.

[Marilyn] They were watching.

I don't know what they were waiting for.

Actually, I know what they're waiting for.

The grand jury to indict me.

A man once charged with being one

of South Florida's cocaine kingpins

has been missing since February.

That's when Sal Magluta vanished,

while standing trial

in a Miami Federal Court.

[reporter] One of South Florida's most

elusive escapees is back in custody today.

Now facing more charges

than when he walked out of his trial,

two months ago.

Now this isn't the first time

he disappeared, but he never goes too far.

[salsa music playing]

[Marilyn] The first thing I said was,

"He's such a freaking idiot."

He was right there,

you know, in Palm Beach.

All I said was, "He deserves it."

[Marilyn] With him, like, I don't know

whatever, why he does the things he does.

[in Spanish] sh*t eater.

[in English] Yup.

[Marilyn] Why would he be in Palm Beach

at the Ritz-Carlton

when you're supposed

to be keeping a low profile?

Why are you doing that?

Doesn't make sense.

[Jim] You would have figured

he'd be in Venezuela.

He'd be in some country

without extradition.

Renting another mansion,

stocking it with the hookers and babes

and all the blow he ever needed

and just living out the rest of his life.

But no, he's up in Palm Beach

with a phony wig

driving a Lincoln town car around.

He thought that nobody

was gonna notice him with the wig.

[Jorge] It could've been

so much easier for Sal.

I know he could've gone to Colombia.

I know he could've gone to Spain.

I know he could've gone anywhere

in the world. He had a Learjet 55.

He didn't have to go to the airport.

He could've got on his own airplane

and disappear.

Look at Taby.

[Jim] Since 1991,

Willy's brother Taby was still at large.

[Jorge] Taby was just a kid.

You know, so Taby was not a financial

genius or anything like that.

He had common sense.

And if he was able to disappear

with his family, why couldn't Sal do it?

Why couldn't Sal leave Miami?

If he went to Omaha,

who was gonna praise him?

Who knew who Sal was in Omaha?

That would've been

the smart thing to do, right?

But I believe

that it gets to a moment in time

where you'd rather die than live

without the persona you have created.

[dramatic music building]

[reporter] With his parents quietly

crying in the courtroom,

fugitive Sal Magluta was back

in custody and facing new federal charges.

He's now indicted for bond jumping

and contempt of court

for failing to appear for trial.

- [reporter] How does he look to you?

- He seems in good spirits.

And we're ready to proceed ahead

with more legal proceedings.

[Mike] My job was to help Pat

on the sentencing.

My job was to come up with theories

that we can present to the court

on how it was the court could take

what people would characterize

as relatively minor offenses

and sentence him for really

the gravity of his conduct.

The man once accused in one

of the nation's biggest cocaine cases

out of Miami, learns his sentence.

Today, a federal judge

sentenced Sal Magluta

to nine years and four months in jail

on charges of

passport fraud and bond jumping.

The big accomplishment

was a substantial sentence for Sal Magluta

that kept him in jail long enough,

so that he could be re-indicted

on the more serious crimes

without the opportunity to flee.

As this is going on,

Pat Sullivan, Mario Tariche,

they're continuing to investigate

the vast array of criminal conduct

that is starting to be spelled out

in the ledger books

and through other witnesses

whose cooperation they're eliciting.

[Marilyn] Six months I'm in Jersey.

I've been miserable.

I've been trying to hide out,

and it's not working.

I don't have a car. I can't get around.

I don't have any money.

[Marilyn] I'm nervous because I don't have

money, I don't want to go to the store.

The dogs are, like, locked up in here

which bothers me a lot.

[Orlando] You must be taking a lot

of f*cking Xanax to deal with this sh*t.

sh*t is gonna hit the fan.

- [Marilyn] It has to.

- [Orlando] Yup.

[Marilyn]

'Cause they've been pushing me too far.

[melancholy music playing]

[Marilyn] I was tired of Culito.

I referred to him as the pervert,

'cause he was a pervert.

He'd go in there, grab my butt,

and he would say things like,

"Aren't you feeling romantic today?"

I'm like, "I'm gonna stab you."

And he was like, "You're crazy."

I said, "I'm crazy. I am crazy"

It's like, "Get the f*ck out of my house

'cause I'm gonna k*ll you one day."

- [Marilyn] I'm gonna k*ll this man.

- [Orlando laughs]

[Marilyn] I have this big butcher knife

that I sleep with.

[Orlando] Oye, don't f*ck around.

What's wrong with you?

I'm telling you,

you're getting f*cking nasty.

[Marilyn] Well, that's the way

that they treated me. Nasty.

[Marilyn] I made the decision myself.

I said, "I need to get away from here."

I'm going somewhere Sal doesn't even know,

where nobody knows where I am.

Because they only knew where I was.

I go to a pay phone.

Who do I call?

Orlando Leyva. [laughs]

[Orlando in Spanish] f*cking hard

to leave in this rush.

[Marilyn in English] I don't even wanna

stay one more day.

[Orlando] You always making things hard,

you know?

[Marilyn] He showed up and he says,

"What do you want to do?"

I said, "I don't know, just drive north."

[Orlando] I think there's a couple

of places at Lake George.

We'll go by a nice lake

or something, you know?

[Marilyn] And so, we kept going north,

and then I ran into Lake George

and it's in the Adirondack Mountains.

And I said,

"This is where I want to stay."

[Mario] For a period of time,

she escaped us.

We didn't know the exact location

where she was in Upstate New York.

[Marilyn] As soon as Orlando has a chance

[laughing]

he calls Mario Tariche and says,

"She made a move

and now she's up in the mountains."

[Orlando] Believe me, the most important

is we're together, scheming together.

And we're working together, you know?

So don't worry about sh*t.

[Mario] We knew we needed to build

a strong case against Marilyn Bonachea.

She's very loyal to Sal Magluta.

They had grown up together,

and they'd known each other

their whole lives.

So it took us a little bit of time

to go through her bank accounts.

And we were able to find

around 900,000 dollars in cash deposits

that she had made

over a five-to-ten-year period

with no income coming in.

So it was clear that she was

laundering money through her accounts.

[Marilyn] I knew he was looking for me.

And he had sent me

messages through my mom.

"Tell her we'll give her a good deal."

"We'll work with her."

And my mom took a liking to Mario

and she would even say,

"You should talk to him.

Maybe you could work something out."

"He's really nice and he's really cute."

And I'll be like, "Oh, Mom." You know?

[laughs]

"That's not what

I'm concerned about right now."

[Marilyn] I feel real bad for Sal

and everything that has happened to him.

But I also feel like I was

real loyal to Sal.

I want to know when that RICO indictment

comes down, what's gonna happen.

I wasn't out there selling drugs.

You know what I'm saying?

I wasn't out there doing any of that.

I wasn't out there doing anything

except like doing what he told me.

Drop off, you know, veinte to Quintero,

drop off cincuenta to Rubino, you know?

Dropping off his money.

That's all I was doing.

[Orlando] Why do you think

that that's gonna happen?

[Marilyn] Because of the book.

- It's racketeering.

- [Orlando] Okay, pero

[Marilyn] It's conspiracy.

And that worries me.

[Raquel] She was isolated from her family

and everything that she had known.

[Marilyn] I just want to know

what Sal is going to do.

So that I can get on with my life.

Am I gonna spend the rest of my life

in the mountains?

[Raquel] You could hear it

in her recordings

that she was tired of this life.

We realized that she was probably

ready for someone to come in

and help her get out of it.

We contacted the agents

out in the Albany field office of the FBI.

They were able to confirm

her location through air surveillance.

And we just put together a plan, myself

and the other agents assigned to the case,

to go to Upstate New York

and place her under arrest

and verify if she would cooperate

with the FBI in the case.

[Marilyn] April 25th of 1998.

It was about eleven o'clock maybe

'cause I was watching Jerry Springer.

I didn't mean to hurt you,

but I slept with your sister.

[laughs] I used to love Jerry Springer.

[crowd shouting]

All of a sudden,

I hear a megaphone or whatever.

"Marilyn Bonachea, you have 30 seconds

to come out of the house!"

I thought to myself,

"Man, that's a short amount of time."

So I said, "Okay, I better take advantage

of these 30 seconds."

So I had a joint I was smoking,

I said, "Let me finish it real quick."

"'Cause I'm gonna need it." [laughs]

There's all these people. I looked out

the window and saw, like, 15 people.

And my dogs were out there going,

[makes barking sounds]

And I heard one of the agents saying,

"Just sh**t the dogs! sh**t the dogs."

And I was like,

"Uh-uh. Nobody's sh**ting my dogs."

I said, "Let me take a couple of pills too

because I'm gonna need those."

And then I just walked out, and I said,

"Take it easy!"

"I'd just like to get my dogs and put them

in the room before they shot my"

They were gonna sh**t my dogs.

If Mario allowed them to sh**t my dogs,

he would never get a word out of me.

I was gonna say,

"I'm not talking to any of you idiots."

You know, "You k*lled my dogs."

Then he said,

"Do you have any weapons in there?"

I did. I had a loaded shotgun.

But not for people, for bears.

And then I looked at Mario and said,

"You want me to cooperate?"

He says, "Of course."

I said, "Then you better

not send me to jail tonight."

I said, "Just take me with you

to your hotel room."

I said, "I'll be real quiet.

I won't make any trouble."

I said, "In the morning,

we'll go to the courthouse."

I said, "Please." I was like pleading,

"Please, please, please."

And he said, "Okay."

[Raquel] She didn't resist.

She looked relieved.

She was in hiding almost two years.

She really did look like, "Okay."

"Finally."

"It's over."

I knew that they were gonna come for me

'cause I knew they couldn't do anything

with the ledger book without me.

[Mario] We needed her to cooperate.

But she warned me that she needed

to take her Xanax.

I need to, you know, take my medicine,

at least bring the bottle with me.

[Mario] I told her,

"I absolutely cannot let you take

any medications

not prescribed by a doctor."

"When we get to the Albany FBI office,

we'll have a nurse or a doctor see you."

I noticed that she started turning pale.

"If you don't give me my medicine,"

I said, "I'm gonna go into withdrawals."

Me being the FBI agent,

tough guy that I am, I said,

"Well, you can wait

until we get to the office."

And I said, "Okay."

You know, "You're gonna see

what's gonna happen real soon." [laughs]

[Mario] Sure enough,

she started throwing up

all over an Albany FBI agent's car.

We had to pull over

to the side of the road.

And Mario starts screaming

at the guy, "Uncuff her! Uncuff her!"

[laughs] I mean, it was terrible.

[Raquel] Marilyn was on a lot

of medication for depression.

Bipolar.

[Mario] At that point,

she wasn't of any value to us.

First thing we had to do

was take her to a rehab center,

and get her cleaned up,

and get her thinking clearly again.

[Marilyn] They put a big chart

in the kitchen,

which all the agents had to follow.

"Eight o'clock she takes,"

let's say Effexor.

"8:30 she takes a Klonopin."

[laughs]

You know, "At twelve o'clock

she takes Depakote." You know?

So, that's the way it was.

[Marilyn] So how do you think

this is all gonna end up?

All of us are going to end up in jail?

We're all going to be indicted.

[laughs]

At least.

[dramatic music playing]

[Marilyn] I got charged with perjury,

obstruction of justice, smuggling cocaine.

Everything that Sal had,

they throw one on my list.

And I'm like, "When did I ever

smuggle cocaine?" [laughs]

And then the judge, he adds up the years.

And it adds up to 205.

"I don't know what you've done,"

he says, "but you must be

a very important person."

And I'm thinking,

"I ain't feel very important."

Had it not been for that ledger book,

when I got arrested, what did I have?

I was being charged

with the things Sal had done.

And I didn't have the money

and the resources he had

to hire all these attorneys,

and he wasn't gonna pay for it.

[Mario] We knew that her family members

had been taking money

for at least five or ten years

from the organization.

And we could also go after her family

if she didn't cooperate in the case.

[Marilyn] They were threatening my mom,

because of money laundering.

And the same with my dad.

I was never able to speak to Sal.

Sal was already in jail.

I was never able to tell him,

"Look, they're threatening my family."

"What do I do?"

I never got a chance

to relay that message to Sal.

I decided I was going to tell the truth.

I was just going to face the music

and see where, you know, everything fell.

We were able to convince her

to cooperate with the investigation.

[Marilyn] Slowly, they start,

like, asking questions.

Marilyn Bonachea obviously was

the linchpin for the government.

Hours and hours going through

the ledger book, all the evidence.

And you know, I was just being debriefed.

[Pat] Money leaves a trail.

There's no way to disguise

where money comes from

if you have somebody like Marilyn Bonachea

who can tell you where it comes from.

Okay. On this page, it says,

"DJ and Intelligence."

Those two were prison guards

that were being paid off.

I named him DJ

because he was a DJ at night

and a prison guard during the day.

All of the payments according to Marilyn,

through that ledger were done in cash.

The next one, I named him Intelligence.

because he was gonna go

and try and be a CIA agent.

So, I didn't want to write his real name,

which I think I started to do

and then I crossed it off.

The next entry is "Maestro."

Maestro is Richard Martinez.

And I put $50,000 down for August of '93.

The next one is Perros.

He's a prison guard.

He didn't want money. He wanted cocaine.

I wasn't gonna bring him

cocaine to the prison.

So he was crazy

if he thought I was gonna do that.

Sal said, "Send him over to the ranch."

And since the ranch was all full of dogs,

I just put him under "perros,"

which means dogs.

The next one is [bleep]. He's an attorney.

And he deals with getting you

into a good prison.

The warden was the one getting the money.

[Bleep] would meet with the warden

and pay him $5,000

and profit the rest of the money.

[Raquel] By the time

we added up everything in the ledger,

it was over seven million dollars that

had been funneled through that ledger.

[Mario] Nobody knows she's cooperating

with the FBI. As far as they know,

she's still hiding out

in Upstate New York.

[Marilyn] When I was on the run,

I had called Miami.

They knew I had no money to survive.

They said,

"You're going to meet a Colombian."

And you're gonna meet him

at the Amtrak station in Albany.

[bell ringing]

"And he's gonna deliver

$6,000 a month for you."

And I said,

"Good, you know, I can use it."

Mario got really nervous

because they wanted me

to meet a Colombian.

We knew that witnesses

who were gonna testify

against Sal Magluta and Willy Falcon

had been m*rder*d by Colombian hit men.

We had hit team members in custody.

Although none of them ever had any direct

contact with Salvador Magluta.

Mario thought,

"They're really gonna k*ll her."

But I have to show up,

because nobody knows I'm under arrest.

And Mario wants to keep it that way,

so that I can keep operating as normal.

So when it was pickup time,

we take a plane up to Albany.

[Mario] This is Special Agent

Mario Tariche.

Wednesday, September 2nd.

The time of the arrival

of the train is 12:20 pm.

[Marilyn] There's about six agents

in different areas.

There's two inside the station

before I even go in.

There's two, like,

in a little, like, minivan.

[Mario] Testing one, two, three.

- [Marilyn] This is on?

- [Mario] Yeah, it's on.

- [Marilyn] Wish me luck.

- [Mario] Yep.

- [Marilyn] It's showtime.

- [Mario] Showtime.

[Marilyn] That's him.

The one with the blue shirt.

[Mario] Okay, he's here, guys.

He's got a blue shirt on.

He's carrying a brown backpack.

He's walking right in front

of the place right now.

Okay, he's headed over to the car.

He's gonna get in right now.

- [man in Spanish] How are things, good?

- [Marilyn in English] All right.

[man in Spanish] Look. Fifty.

[Marilyn] Thank you.

[man in English]

If they start moving, let me know.

[Marilyn] I got no problems.

I got paid.

[Marilyn] Thank you. Bye.

[Mario] This is Special Agent

Mario Tariche. The meeting ended.

At 1:16, the recorder is being shut off.

[Marilyn] In my heart, I believed

that Sal would never k*ll me.

I don't think he could live with that.

I might be wrong.

I mean, it might have occurred to him.

He might have planned it. I don't know.

But in my heart, I felt he couldn't do it.

I just don't see it happening.

Now, I was thinking other people might

have the idea, "Let's get rid of her."

So the government decided that I needed

to go into the Witness Protection Program.

[Mario] For Marilyn Bonachea,

it was just this game.

I don't think she fully realized

the magnitude, you know,

of what they were involved in.

We didn't want to see

another witness being m*rder*d.

[Raquel] Marilyn was being debriefed

about Sal.

Shesaid that, during a moment of

their time together,

they were talking about trials

and his problems and what have you.

And they got into religion,

going to heaven,

and sins and things like that.

[uneasy music playing]

[Marilyn] Before Sal's first trial.

I was out to see him one day.

It was just me and Sal.

There were no attorney's present.

Rarely would that happen,

That me and Sal ever got a chance

to sit there and talk for hours

without anybody coming in.

And he was in his,

I'll call it a down mood.

You know, "I did something really bad."

And I was thinking,

"Well, you're always doing something bad."

"What could you possibly have done now

that's going to shock me?"

[dramatic music playing]

He said, "Well, you know

about the attorney that got k*lled."

I said, "Well, I read about in the paper

and I've seen his name on your list."

He said, "Well, I had him k*lled."

I said, "Sal. You know, why?

You know, how far have you gone now?"

And he said, "Well, I had to do it because

he was on his way to testify against me."

Sal had a potential witness list.

I didn't think they were people

that he was thinking of murdering

if they decided to cooperate.

But then one time,

I looked at the yellow pad,

and I saw a line across Acosta,

and I was like, "Just cross 'em off."

I knew. I knew then.

It was a hit list.

[music builds]

The shootings last night appear

to be the work of a professional hit man.

And that may have a tie-in

with drug traffickers

Willy Falcon and Sal Magluta.

[reporter 2] One of the largest

drug case s in federal history.

But potential witnesses

keep getting in the way of b*ll*ts.

[reporter 3] The Gonzalez Brothers

at their South Dade home.

[reporter 2] Luis Escobedo

k*lled outside a Miami disco.

And I said to him,"Sal, what are you

gonna do? k*ll all these people?"

"How far is this list gonna go?

"Aren't you afraid

that they're going to find out,

and you're gonna be, you know,

put in jail for m*rder?"

And he said, "Oh no, no, no.

No way they can trace that back to me."

And I said, "Are you sure?"

"I'm positive.

They'll never find out it was me."

It was like, "Wow!"

He admitted that he was responsible for

these government witnesses being k*lled.

[reporter] The FBI's been after these guys

for 20 years now.

Prosecutors now say they've got 'em.

[closing theme music playing]