Testimony begins in cocaine trial

Staff and wire reports

A story of stalking and robbing victims and conspiracy to import drugs unfolded in federal court today as testimony began in the case of a multi-million dollar cocaine seizure in Sumter County last December.

The testimony came from Wilbur Rutledge Corvette Jr., who pleaded guilty to conspiracy charges last week and agreed to testify for the government.

Corvette, 29, said he met defendant Newby Love at the Upper Deck Club a night Love owned in the St. Andrews area.

At a later date, the witness said, Love called him come to the club to be present when Loved talked “to a guy who had coke,” Corvette said Love told him.

Corvette said the man who came in was named Bruce Bannister.

He said Love told him that he and Bannister should get to know each other and “he would have some work for us.”

It was at this point that Corvette described the robbery of six men who were playing poker at the White Pines Country Club in Kershaw County.

Money taken from the victims amounted to $4,500 or $5,000, the witness said.

He told the jury that he and Bannister split the money between them and each of them gave Love $500 to give to “the inside man” who tipped them off about the card game.

(See Trial 3-A)

Trial

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The man Love sent them specifically to rob was not in the game that night, according to Corvette.

The witness also described the armed robbery of a man named Gary Page at his home off the Sumter highway.

Corvette said Page “dealt in marijuana” and would be unable to report a robbery to the police.

He described how they entered Page’s home, robbed him and roughed him up.

“We got $4,000 or $4,500, but no marijuana,” Corvette said.

After these robberies, the witness said he continued working for Love, first picking up money after drug deals and then later distributing cocaine to the dealers.

After this initiation, the witness said, he went with Love to Hollywood, Fla., after agreeing to ride as a passenger in a plane which was to go to South America to get a load of marijuana.

Corvette said that he first met one of the defendants, Sue Youngblood, in Florida.

Corvette told the jury that Love supplied him with fried chicken and his own water and instructed him not to get out of the airplane while it was being loaded and refueled in South America.

“I was to be paid $7,500,” Corvette said.

The flight to South America at that time was scrubbed and Corvette said he drove Love’s Cadillac back to Columbia from Florida.

The witness also described a later attempt to smuggle in marijuana in a plane which was to land at the Blaney Drag Strip near Elgin.

Corvette said he and Love were at the drag strip about midnight that night and were prepared to signal the pilot to land.

The witness said they could hear the pilot over the radio they were using but the pilot could not hear Love telling him that it was safe to land.

The pilot was running low on fuel and landed his plane at Owens Field in Columbia.

Corvette said after the pilot landed at Owens Field, he threw two bags of marijuana over the fence and “he just left.”

In opening arguments Saturday, the defense attorney Jack Swerling said prosecution witnesses are unsavory types who agreed to testify to save themselves.

“You will see some of the greatest thugs South Carolina has ever known,” Swerling said.

But, Assistant U. S. Attorney Cam Littlejohn promised jurors they would be given a “guided tour of the underworld of crime, of drug smuggling.”

Swerling represents Ms. Youngblood, 40, of Stone Mountain, Ga. She is accused with Love, 47, of master-minding various schemes to import drugs from South American since 1980. They face possible life sentences.

“What we’re all interested in is what is the truth,” Love’s attorney, Bobby Kneece, said in questioning the credibility of the state’s witnesses.

Seven men and Ms. Youngblood are accused of operating a massive cocaine and marijuana smuggling ring that was interrupted last December with the seizure of 955 pounds of cocaine at the Sumter County Municipal Airport.

The haul was valued at $350 million. It was the biggest cocaine bust in South Carolina history and is believed to be the third or fourth largest such seizure in the nation.

Six men have pleased guilty in the case and agreed to testify against the defendants. Four of them have prior criminal records.

An attorney for former Sumter auto dealer Robert Edward Lee, 48, told the jury that he would prove Lee is innocent. Lee is charged with flying the cocaine-laden airplane from Colombia, South America, to Sumter last December.

“Mr. Lee was not flying that airplane that night, ” attorney Ed Bell said, “and he has been falsely accused.

“This man was thrown into what has been called the underworld through innocent acts which he readily admits,” Bell said, arguing that the prosecution’s case “does not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he was involved.”

Attorneys for three Latin nationals charged in the case say the evidence against their clients also is inconclusive. The three were arrested in a motor home near Lee’s farm, which was under surveillance in case the plane landed there instead of at the airport.

“This is the evidence,” attorney Louis Casuso said. “This is it.”

Attorneys for two Charleston brothers, Paul and Thaddeus Mazzell, focused on the fact that the crime their clients are charge with – attempting to import, posses and distribute marijuana – never occurred.

Dan Bowling said client Thaddeus Mazzell “is charged with attempting to import a load of marijuana by someone saying they saw him at a certain place when that was supposed to be happening. But nothing did.”