Many here have worked at one or more Honda dealerships during the wonderful era when our favorite bikes were new and on the roads of America in huge numbers. The recent discussion about Honda Village in Tampa FL and my time there, and @RobMan's subsequent discovery of a Honda Village sticker on the rusted rear fender of his CL450K5, was a blast from the past I never expected to see. Rob was kind enough to cut the bottom off that heavily rusted fender and send it to me for my garage. I found a temporary place for it on top of a shelf, leaning against my Hodaka stein and a "chain" coffee mug.
I'd always known that the owner got into another way of making money while running the dealership, and a few years after I left I started hearing a little more about it. The guy who took my CBX wheelie picture was his parts manager at the salvage yard he started after the dealership closed, and he alluded to a bit more of it over a few beers in visits to his house at that time.
So it got me thinking about it again a few days ago, and this time I did some deep digging to see what more I could learn. Turns out my former boss was very immersed in high stakes importing of weed and cocaine which resulted in him doing the better part of 10 years in prison after he and an associate made significant plea deals.
These are screenshots from Florida public records.
and his resume from LinkedIn, showing his start in the Honda business as a salesman at Barney's Outboard Marine and Honda dealership, and showing him as a real estate developer later in life.
But somewhere along the way after starting Honda Village he got involved with people who were bringing in drugs. I discovered an interview with a guy named Steven Kalish (aka the Gentleman Smuggler because he never carried firearms) who was named in court records as one of Fortna's associates during that time, and the connections to organized crime outside of the US reveals some big names - General Noriega of Panama for use of Panamanian banks to help launder their money, and the Medellin cartel at some level because of their involvement with Noriega as well. Here is the interview with Kalish, a long and interesting listen (despite a hot sauce sponsor's commercial in the middle of it)
and a few passages from court records describing those involved and their charges
"He now argues that certain evidence which came to light in the Fortna organization prosecution and trials, which began about two months before Mr. Hernandez's trial in Colorado and continued after the date of his conviction, might have exculpated him had it been introduced in his own trial. Mr. Hernandez explains in his brief, though he does not point to any support in the record, that during the course of those proceedings he was indicted and pleaded guilty, agreeing to testify for the government in exchange for a sentence concession in his then-pending Colorado case. All of the cited evidence is related to proceedings in the Middle District of Florida against the drug organization of Albert S. Fortna.
Mr. Hernandez believes that this evidence would have bolstered his defense that he acted under duress from the Fortna organization and that he was not a drug “kingpin.” Mr. Hernandez's claims focus on evidence that the Fortna organization was large, that individuals in the organization greatly feared ringleader “Chick” Fortna, and that a woman named Linda Whitman distributed $400,000 worth of cocaine in Colorado during the period covered by Mr. Hernandez's indictment.
Mr. Fortna was charged with attempting to distribute 40,000 pounds of marijuana and with conspiring to import 1,240 kilograms of cocaine. The record shows that one agent testified that Fortna was involved “[m]ostly [in] marijuana,” Rec. vol. 19, at 417, and the other testified that Fortna was “primarily focused on importing marijuana,” Rec. vol. 20, at 531.
The mere fact that Ms. Whitman distributed cocaine in Colorado for Fortna is irrelevant to the issue of whether Mr. Hernandez occupied a position of management in the organization."
And from a different link, this:
"On June 12, the grand jury for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, returned a twenty-six-count superseding indictment against Fortna and the others. The first count charged Fortna and his co-defendants with essentially the same conspiracy to import cocaine as did the complaint and the superseded May 1 indictment, except this time the quantity was 1,000 kilograms.
The court agreed with the magistrate that Fortna "was a principal actor in a sophisticated drug-dealing organization" and that if "released he would likely return to the illegal but lucrative business of drug dealing."
And from a web story about Kalish and his arrest by the FBI, from his book about it:
"I recognized the graffiti of names, Chic Fortna written at the top of one board and the list of his crew members stacked below. Some I knew, some I didn’t. I searched the board for my name, but I didn’t see Frank Brown or Steven Kalish or any of my other aliases. My first impression was they were running surveillance on Chic and his crew and tracking down leads."
Quite the story, and in hindsight it makes me wonder how long they were watching him and how often they might have seen either me or my father's comings and goings from the salvage yard at the height of his involvement.
I'd always known that the owner got into another way of making money while running the dealership, and a few years after I left I started hearing a little more about it. The guy who took my CBX wheelie picture was his parts manager at the salvage yard he started after the dealership closed, and he alluded to a bit more of it over a few beers in visits to his house at that time.
So it got me thinking about it again a few days ago, and this time I did some deep digging to see what more I could learn. Turns out my former boss was very immersed in high stakes importing of weed and cocaine which resulted in him doing the better part of 10 years in prison after he and an associate made significant plea deals.
These are screenshots from Florida public records.
and his resume from LinkedIn, showing his start in the Honda business as a salesman at Barney's Outboard Marine and Honda dealership, and showing him as a real estate developer later in life.
But somewhere along the way after starting Honda Village he got involved with people who were bringing in drugs. I discovered an interview with a guy named Steven Kalish (aka the Gentleman Smuggler because he never carried firearms) who was named in court records as one of Fortna's associates during that time, and the connections to organized crime outside of the US reveals some big names - General Noriega of Panama for use of Panamanian banks to help launder their money, and the Medellin cartel at some level because of their involvement with Noriega as well. Here is the interview with Kalish, a long and interesting listen (despite a hot sauce sponsor's commercial in the middle of it)
and a few passages from court records describing those involved and their charges
"He now argues that certain evidence which came to light in the Fortna organization prosecution and trials, which began about two months before Mr. Hernandez's trial in Colorado and continued after the date of his conviction, might have exculpated him had it been introduced in his own trial. Mr. Hernandez explains in his brief, though he does not point to any support in the record, that during the course of those proceedings he was indicted and pleaded guilty, agreeing to testify for the government in exchange for a sentence concession in his then-pending Colorado case. All of the cited evidence is related to proceedings in the Middle District of Florida against the drug organization of Albert S. Fortna.
Mr. Hernandez believes that this evidence would have bolstered his defense that he acted under duress from the Fortna organization and that he was not a drug “kingpin.” Mr. Hernandez's claims focus on evidence that the Fortna organization was large, that individuals in the organization greatly feared ringleader “Chick” Fortna, and that a woman named Linda Whitman distributed $400,000 worth of cocaine in Colorado during the period covered by Mr. Hernandez's indictment.
Mr. Fortna was charged with attempting to distribute 40,000 pounds of marijuana and with conspiring to import 1,240 kilograms of cocaine. The record shows that one agent testified that Fortna was involved “[m]ostly [in] marijuana,” Rec. vol. 19, at 417, and the other testified that Fortna was “primarily focused on importing marijuana,” Rec. vol. 20, at 531.
The mere fact that Ms. Whitman distributed cocaine in Colorado for Fortna is irrelevant to the issue of whether Mr. Hernandez occupied a position of management in the organization."
And from a different link, this:
"On June 12, the grand jury for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, returned a twenty-six-count superseding indictment against Fortna and the others. The first count charged Fortna and his co-defendants with essentially the same conspiracy to import cocaine as did the complaint and the superseded May 1 indictment, except this time the quantity was 1,000 kilograms.
The court agreed with the magistrate that Fortna "was a principal actor in a sophisticated drug-dealing organization" and that if "released he would likely return to the illegal but lucrative business of drug dealing."
And from a web story about Kalish and his arrest by the FBI, from his book about it:
"I recognized the graffiti of names, Chic Fortna written at the top of one board and the list of his crew members stacked below. Some I knew, some I didn’t. I searched the board for my name, but I didn’t see Frank Brown or Steven Kalish or any of my other aliases. My first impression was they were running surveillance on Chic and his crew and tracking down leads."
Quite the story, and in hindsight it makes me wonder how long they were watching him and how often they might have seen either me or my father's comings and goings from the salvage yard at the height of his involvement.
