Judge writes book about drug-smuggling case that led to dictator's downfall

The end of dictator Manuel Noriega of Panama began on the shores of eastern North Carolina with two New Bern men and a Carteret County man playing major roles, but the men did not know it at the time.

In the early 1980s, New Bern's  Gary Clemmons was an assistant U.S. attorney and Charles Ken McCotter Jr. was a U.S. Magistrate Judge.  Doug McCullough of Carteret County, now an N.C. Court of Appeals judge, was a first assistant, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District. .

Clemmons and McCullough were the government prosecutors when the Coast Guard stopped a Gulf Coast shrimp trawler near Cape Lookout in the Beaufort Inlet on the July 4th weekend of 1982.

That routine stop by the Coast Guard set in motion events that ended with the U.S. invasion of Panama, the overthrow of Noriega and one of the largest drug hauls in America's history.

McCullough has written a book about the case, which involved shrimp boats, cruise ships, Lear jets, Caribbean hookers, Detroit teamsters, Hollywood stars, Vegas nights, bribed U.S. customs agents, offshore banks, and millions of dollars, all with the goal of smuggling tons of high-grade Colombian marijuana into the Carolinas, Georgia and Louisiana.

The book is titled Sea of Greed. McCullough said the book is nonfiction with transcripts of interviews and court testimony woven in. McCotter, who read a draft of the book, calls it compelling. "It was hard to put down," he said.

The three men recalled the mood of the country after Ronald Regan was elected president.

Clemmons said marijuana smugglers faced stiffer civil and criminal penalties because of congressional action in the late 1970s.

The creeks in Pamlico County and areas then undeveloped such as Adams Creek and Mesic were havens for drug smugglers.

McCullough writes in the first chapter of Sea of Greed about the captain of the Bobby M, wearing a leisure suit, dressed as if he were about to go to a disco. The Coast Guard knew this was not an average shrimp trawler. It was a boat formerly known as  the Lady Mauicette.

Apart from the leisure-suited captain, the Coast Guard found nonsalt-water rods and reels. A cooler aboard could hold a six-pack, not thousand of pounds of shrimp. In the hull, the Coast Guard found more than 50 bales of marijuana. Each bale weighed 50 to 100 pounds. The marijuana came to 29,000 pounds.

The wheels were in motion and in two years the federal courtroom in New Bern would see the case unfold.

One hundred twenty people were indicted, with some of them eventually sentenced to prison.  

Clemmons remembers representing the government in the civil suit over the seized trawler, which was docked in Wilmington for two years after being seized by the government.

The owners of the Lady Mauricette were Carl and Stephen Ellender of Wilmington. They wanted the 42-foot trawler back.

Clemmons had the burden to show probable cause that the vessel was being used for criminal activity.

The civil trial went on for a week. After Clemmons presented the government's case, McCotter ruled from the bench that the trawler belonged to the government.

"The trawler was sold at public auction. The government put listening devices on the boat. The boat was seized a second time by the government," Clemmons said.

The third owners of the boat saw it seized a third time. Clemmons is unsure of the whereabouts of the boat today.

Clemmons also recalls witnesses who rolled over for the government. He did not tell McCotter until Monday that he was threatened by a witness for the government who was transferred from a federal prison in Texas to testify.

"It was my duty to report the threat to Judge McCotter. I wanted the man to testify; I never reported him. I got the testimony I needed," Clemmons said.

The Sea of Greed, about 250 pages, is an account of the arrest on the July 4th weekend.

McCullough said the book was a labor of love, and for now he is keeping his day job as a judge on the state Court of Appeals.

He said the book is important because Noriega is the only head of state arrested and sentenced to prison in the United States.

"I concentrated on one story and stopped at the arrest. My next book will likely be about drug smuggling cases from 1975 to 1989," he said.

"Noriega is a man who could not be bought, but could be rented," McCullough said.

The book will be published Friday by Fish Towne Press of Beaufort.  

McCullough will be at a book signing this weekend in Beaufort at the restored Beaufort Train Depot as part of the Beaufort Old Homes Tour. He and his book, along with other local and regional writers, will be at the depot Friday from 10 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. and Saturday from 1:30 to 5 p.m.

To learn more about McCullough and his book, go to www.seaofgreedbook.com.