by I A Thompson
Wilson took a few big gulps and then continued, “So, I went, more out of curiosity than anything else. That bar of his, that’s one beautiful place. I was there on a Thursday afternoon and the place was packed with what looked like well to do patrons.”
Nick interrupted. “So, who was it that told Mondello about you and when did you find out you were supposed to transport drugs?”
“It was Felix Rutherford. His family owns a car dealership in Pensacola. Rutherford and Mondello had been working together for several years already when I was brought in. The thing that was weird about that is that I never had any business with Rutherford. I only later learned about the connection to Jackson Birmingham.”
“Jackson Birmingham, as in the U.S. Congressman for Florida’s 1st District?” Shelby asked.
“That’s correct. Birmingham has a minority interest, whatever that means, in a fish whole-seller in Pensacola, De Luna Seafood, to whom I deliver on a regular basis. My name had come up as one of the most reliable suppliers in the region. I never miss a deadline, I always deliver top quality, and there are never any issues with my crew.”
“So, Birmingham tells Rutherford who tells Mondello and there you are.” Nick followed up. “When did they approach you about transporting drugs?”
“At that first meeting, Mondello asked me to pick up a package 100 miles south of Apalachicola, bring it to my house and a courier would come pick it up. He said it was a South American antiquity that a family friend was handing over to him and that he didn’t want to run it through customs because the fee would ruin him. He offered me $10,000 for the quick run. I needed the money desperately, my boat needed a new bilge pump, and my son needed orthodontics; so, I did it. Everything went well and I was $10,000 richer.”
He took another sip from his water. “The next time I was asked to pick up five hundred pounds of cocaine that was going to be dropped off by a freighter. Mondello gave me the coordinates, I picked up the cargo, brought it to my boathouse and the same day, a cooling truck showed up to pick up the drugs.”
“Wouldn’t that attract attention if a cooling truck rolls up in your neighborhood?” Brad asked.
“Not at all. All my local customers pick up at my house. I have a forklift and can easily move pallets of goods around, and as you probably noticed, the driveway to my house and the boathouse is paved, so even a larger truck can easily make it there and back. I got $50,000 for that load. Over the course of the last two years, I’ve shuttled various sizes of shipments ranging from five hundred pounds to three tons with a $100 payment per pound. My children’s college fund and my retirement account grew. I paid the house off, overhauled my boat and started to treat my family to nicer things. All gradually, so nobody would get suspicious.”
“The cooling truck, do you know who owns it?” Shelby stopped taking notes and looked at Wilson.
“I’m not sure, there were a variety of businesses. I don’t know if these guys just slapped different stickers on a standard white truck or if they were all different trucks. Sure, looked like the same model to me each time. The only thing constant was the driver, a young kid by the name of Jay-Jay. Tall, black, with a lot of gold in his mouth.”
Zach whistled through his teeth. “Doesn’t that description remind you of someone, Livingston?”
Regina nodded, still focused on the pictures and audio of the interrogation. “Ella Jackson’s grandson, who just so happens to have a good job at Rutherford Motors. Oh my God, this will break Miss Ella’s heart, poor woman. I know it’s a long shot, but I do hope Jay-Jay has no clue what he was transporting.” Regina blinked to suppress the tears that welled up in her eyes.
21
Within hours, District Court Chief Justice Miles Shaw issued arrest warrants for Jackson Birmingham, Antonio Mondello and Felix Rutherford IV along with search warrants for their homes and businesses. Mondello and Rutherford were picked up at their places of work, Birmingham at a fundraiser at the Pensacola Country Club. Crime scene investigation teams, CSIs, were busy for days scouring through the homes and offices of the three suspects, along with Jack’s home and boathouse.
A media firestorm ensued. TV, print and social media were all over the case of these three staples of the community being arrested at the same time. It allowed Zach to mingle with the rest of the press and get the official statements from law enforcement first hand, and Regina was glad to see him go. She had endless hours of watching interrogation footage ahead of her, along with analysis of transcripts and evidence logs. Work she preferred to do alone, without interruptions.
She looked at Jackson Birmingham’s arrest picture. A man in his late fifties, he had soft creases at the corner of his blue eyes, and thick brown hair that looked well taken care of; he was very good looking. The Birmingham’s could trace their lineage back to early colonial days with ancestry including British and Dutch nobility. Their beautiful sprawling estate in Beulah was featured repeatedly in fine living magazines. At the tender age of 22, right out of college, Birmingham became the youngest County Commissioner ever elected in Escambia County. Eight years later he moved on to the Florida State Senate and another ten years later turned into the U.S. Congressman for Florida’s 1st District. Almost fifteen years later, Birmingham still served in that capacity.
Regina’s eyes browsed through the photos taken at Birmingham’s home. She stopped at a picture of the sizeable pool in the backyard, against the backdrop of the large house. Weathered brick, slate roof, white columns supporting a second story balcony and providing shade for the first-floor porch. It brought back memories of lazy summer days, when she, her brother Adam and the then State Senator’s girls, Annabelle and Lacey, were in high school. Looking back, it seemed to Regina that she had spent more time that summer at the Birmingham’s house than her own. Elizabeth Birmingham, the ever-gracious hostess, made every one of the many teenagers that paraded through her home feel welcome like a long-lost family member.
“What in the world were you thinking, getting involved with drug trafficking?” Regina whispered. “Didn’t you already have everything a man could want?”
She sighed and began watching the first of three videos of Birmingham’s interrogations, led by Nick and Shelby, fast-forwarding through the introductory questions that she knew wouldn’t give her any information she didn’t already know.
Nick: “Congressman, please tell us how you know Felix Rutherford IV.”
Birmingham: “The Rutherford family has supported my political career for the last 35 plus years, and we have been buying cars from their dealership for just as long. That’s about it.”
Shelby: “So, no personal relationship with the family?”
Birmingham: “No, not beyond the usual social obligations that come with my line of work such as conversations after church, or at parties we all happen to attend.”
Nick: “Tell us about De Luna Seafood.”
Birmingham: “What about it? I hold a small number of shares, worth about $100,000. And I hold a seat on their board; I’m not involved in the day to day operations.”
Shelby: “So, you don’t know anything about the people that work there or how the company conducts business? How does that reconcile with your duties of fiduciary oversight as a board member?”
Birmingham: “Well, the board reports provide highlights of the reporting period’s activities and notable staff events, such as anniversaries, life events and the likes, are included.”
Shelby: “Is that how you learned about Jack Wilson?”
Birmingham: “Who?”
On and on it went; Nick and Shelby probing, Birmingham denying, deflecting or simply refusing to answer. Then it dawned on him that he was up the creek without a paddle, and he clammed up, invoking his right to an attorney.
Regina didn’t expect much from the rest of the recording and decided to take a break. She ordered food from room service, grabbed a soda from the fridge and looked through the transcript of the first recording while she waited. There wasn’t any
thing that added value to the case, so she sifted through the second transcript, which had a different, and less defensive tone to it.
“I smell a rat,” she said to herself. “He’s going to turn on his accomplices. Can’t wait to see what’s in that third recording.”
Her food arrived; a heaping plate of crispy potato skins filled with molten cheese, bacon, chives, sour cream and potatoes. She took a bite. “Oh my God, this is heavenly. I’ll be a size bigger tomorrow, but today, I’m going to enjoy every morsel of this yummy, crispy-gooey goodness.” She took her plate over to her laptop and pressed play on the third recording.
This one was filmed in a different room, more like an office and less like an interrogation room. Birmingham and his attorney sat on one side of a rectangular wooden table, while Nick and Shelby sat on the opposite side.
“Congressman,” Nick began. “Please tell us all about your involvement with Antonio Mondello and Felix Rutherford IV. From the beginning.”
Birmingham looked pale but composed. “I met Tony Mondello three years ago when he hosted a fundraiser for me at his wine bar. I was impressed with his impeccable style and taste in wine. He had this beautiful impressionistic painting hanging in his bar, flanked by shelves of wine, almost like the centerpiece in a library or gallery. While it wasn’t painted by one of the masters of impressionism, it was nonetheless breathtaking and undoubtedly expensive. I made a comment to him and we struck up a conversation about art which quickly turned to antiquities, one of my great passions. Turned out he had the same sentiments. He invited me to his house so I could see his collection. While this isn’t something I would usually entertain, I was intrigued. If the painting was an indication of what he had at his house, I wanted to see it.”
“Tell us about that visit,” Shelby instructed.
Birmingham nodded. “It exceeded my wildest expectations. The man lives in a house full of museum grade South American artifacts going back to the Incas and Mayans. I couldn’t imagine how his wine bar would support such an extravagant hobby. He explained to me that his sister Emilia had married into a very rich and influential Surinamese family. They owned a large plantation and Emilia’s father-in-law was a high-ranking minister in Suriname. Tony took care of his in-law’s lucrative interests in the U.S. The wine bar was more of a hobby than a business. Well, I expressed my interest in purchasing some antiquities, should the opportunity present itself.”
Nick looked up from his notes. “Did it?”
“Yes, a few months after my first meeting with Tony, he called me to let me know that he was getting a few statuettes of Peruvian origin and asked if I was interested in going in on the deal. Of course, I was. The pieces were exquisite and the price very reasonable, which was good, since Tony insisted on cash payment. So, I drove over to Navarre and picked up my goods.”
“And you had no idea that these items were illegally brought into the country?” Shelby asked
“Not until Felix approached me at a Rotary Club meeting in Pensacola a few weeks after that purchase. He told me he worked with Tony on some import/export deals and wanted to know if I knew any reliable trawler captains. I remembered Jack Wilson’s name from a De Luna Seafood board report and passed it along to Felix. Two weeks later, Tony called me to let me know he had a present for me. It was a beautiful antique mask, priceless. He said it was his way of saying thank you for recommending an excellent new business partner. I knew right there and then.”
Regina stopped the video. “Well then, let’s have a closer look at what Mister Mondello has to say.
22
To save time, Regina fed the transcripts of Mondello’s interrogations to CP and just minutes later looked at a summary of Mondello’s life along with his most recent passport picture.
Antonio Mondello was born 4/23/68 at St. Vincent Hospital in Paramaribo, Suriname, to a local mother and an American father. Antonio had a sheltered upper-middle-class childhood in Suriname and later attended the University of Texas at San Antonio where he graduated at the top of his class with a major in international studies. At 24, he married his college sweetheart, Mariella Del Monico. Two years later they had their first child, Sophia, now a Junior at the University of Florida. In 1996, their son Marco was born.
There wasn’t anything of interest in Mondello’s early years in business. He held various jobs at import/export companies in San Antonio, slowly moving up the corporate ladder. Public records and tax returns matched company records. They lived in a modest three-bedroom house with a 30-year mortgage which they paid on time and every quarter, they made an extra payment on the principal. Everything was in perfect order, a normal all-American life.
Then, in 1999, the family relocated to Navarre, FL and he opened ‘Mondello’s Wine Bar’. He purchased a prime piece of waterfront real estate in an-all cash transaction, commissioned extensive renovations, also paid in cash, and set up shop. The new venture was an immediate success. A high-end venue in a place frequented by tourists and locals looking for a more upscale experience than the usual beach dives.
“So, let’s have a look where you got that much cash from, shall we?” Regina asked out loud. She dug into the wine bar’s business records; Mondello had issued shares for his company, half of which he held, the other half was evenly split between his parents and his sister, Emilia. The total value of the shares was $100,000.
Regina frowned when she found a promissory note for a loan made by Emilia to her brother for 2 million dollars for ten years at zero interest, repayable in a lump sum. “That’s a lot of dough,” she murmured. “What are you getting out of this deal, princess?”
She searched for information on Emilia Mondello and whistled aloud when the screen populated with thumbnails of hundreds of glossy magazine pictures. Emilia in her wedding gown, Emilia visiting a school, Emilia smiling brightly into the camera at a party. Regina clicked on the wedding picture to read the associated tag line.
“Suriname’s very own Cinderella story. Dominic Amante, heir to the Amante fortune, to wed Emilia Mondello, a miner’s daughter.”
Clicking through a series of pictures, Regina learned about Emilia and her ascent into Surinamese high society where she almost immediately became everybody’s darling due to her kind and caring nature. She wondered if Emilia knew that her brother had turned his business into a drug trafficking hotspot.
She kept flipping through the pictures until she landed on a picture of Emilia, dressed in a dazzling floor-length evening gown, standing next to her husband. Where had she seen this guy before?
Keying in his name, she found another flurry of pictures. The life of a privileged child growing up to be a privileged man. There was a picture of him as a boy, walking behind a tiny casket, holding the hand of his mother. The tag line was “Amante family’s tragic loss. Olivia Amante is the latest victim of a piranha attack. Young Dominic witnessed the attack but was unable to save his sister.”
Regina couldn’t hold back tears when she imagined having to watch her own brother die; her heart went out to the little boy in the picture. What an awful thing to have to go through.
She clicked through a few more pictures until another one caught her eye; Dominic as a teenager. The picture showed him leaving a beautiful Dutch Colonial building, smiling and holding up two raised thumbs. The tag line read “Amante cleared of all charges in the slaying of Anjel Van Baak.”
Regina stared at the tag line for a good thirty seconds until her brain, still processing the tragedy of Olivia Amante, made the connection to another man with the last name Van Baak.
“Holy shit!” Regina jumped up from her seat, eyes fixed on the computer screen. “That’s got to be Hardy’s brother. The one that got killed by a drug kingpin.” Still standing, she bent over, typing feverishly another set of queries, cross-referencing Hardy and Anjel Van Baak. Sure enough, both birth certificates listed Helouise and Martin Van Baak as parents.
She took a deep breath, swaying slightly, her mind racing at warp speed. Dominic Amante w
as the same guy Hardy had talked about back in DC, and he was married to the sister of the guy the HIDTA had just nabbed for smuggling two tons of Niseko. The guy whose business was largely financed by said sister.
“There is simply no way this is a coincidence.” She reached for her phone and called Zach. He picked up after the third ring and before he had a chance to say a word, she blurted out, “You’ve got to come and see this! You’re not gonna believe it!”
Zach laughed. “Slow down, sweetheart. What’s going on?”
“I can’t tell you over the phone, but I’m telling you, it’s worth coming back out to the beach. I’ll give you a hint; Remember Hardy?”
“Sure, what about him? Did he find something?”
“Yes and no. It was something he said that helped me put a few pieces together. There’s a six-degree connection to his brother if you know what I’m trying to say.”
Zach was quiet for a few seconds, then whispered, “No way…”
“Yes, way! That’s why I’m telling you, you’ve got to come.”
“On my way.” Zach hung up the phone and thirty minutes later he walked in the door, dropped his gear on the floor and strolled over to Regina and her computer.
“Before we get started,” he said. “I wanted to let you know Nick invited us to meet him and a few others from the team for drinks at ‘Snappers’ later tonight. Now, tell me what you got.” He stretched his long frame out on the couch, folded his hands behind his head and looked expectantly up to Regina.
She summarized her findings, explaining her approach and how the dots ended up connecting. “So,” she said after reaching the end. “My thoughts on the whole thing are; I can’t imagine that Amante gave his wife a multi-million-dollar slush fund to help her family. Ergo, the money that went into Mondello’s business must be coming from Amante, and in my humble opinion, there is no way the guy is not expecting something in return, like his brother-in-law taking care of his interests in the U.S. for example.”