Former Panamanian Dictator, General Manuel Noriega, took an all expense paid flight from Miami to Paris this week to go on trial for money laundering. His extradition gives me flashbacks of a journalistic nightmare two decades ago when I found myself in the middle of a pissing match between CNN and a U.S. District court  judge in Miami. The controversy stemmed from a story I reported during my first year as the cable network’s Senior Investigative Correspondent. It was an example of a story getting out of hand.

In a nutshell, CNN extended its middle finger at a federal judge and he overreacted. An excerpt from the book tells why.

My involvement in the story began after a young reporter for CNN’s Spanish language network acquired copies of audio tapes of Noriega telephone calls, which were routinely recorded by the Bureau of Prisons. The tapes were slipped to Marlene Fernandez by former Panamanian diplomat Jose Blandon. I’m not violating confidentiality in revealing his identity. He has since been identified as CNN’s source in newspaper stories and court testimony.

As a former Noriega confidante, he was recruited by DEA agents and prosecutors to identify voices on the tapes and evaluate the conversations. Unbeknownst to the feds, Blandon made his own copies of the recordings. Because lawmen are barred from listening to attorney-client discussions under any circumstances, I was assigned me to work with Marlene to authenticate the tapes.

 Thus began a whirlwind series of on-camera interviews beginning with New York University law professor, Stephen Gillers. He confirmed that monitoring lawyer/client discussions is prohibited. He said the tapes could seriously jeopardize the case. The next day, I flew to Miami for interviews with Noriega lawyer Frank Rubino, former Assistant U.S Attorney Dick Gregorie and Neal Sonnett, then President of the National Criminal Defense Lawyers Association. 

I had a long acquaintance with Gregorie. He successfully prosecuted drug traffickers indicted based on the testimony of my late Baton Rouge smuggler pal, Barry Seal. After hearing tape excerpts, Gregorie agreed with Gillers’ assessment. 

A couple of hours later, Neal Sonnett described the tapes as an appalling violation of Noriega’s rights. Following the Sonnett interview, I made what turned out to be an expensive goof. I hit the record button while turning off the tape machine. Excerpts we brought to Miami were erased. 

Already an hour late for the Rubino interview, I asked him to be patient while arranging for an Atlanta producer to play the original tape over the telephone. The quality was terrible. But Rubino and a Spanish-speaking paralegal understood enough to confirm the tape was authentic. The lawyer said he planned to report the violation to the trial judge. I was now confident we had information exposing government overstepping in an extremely high-profile case. Returning to Atlanta, we made plans to break the story during a Wednesday evening newscast. 

Early Tuesday afternoon, however, Rubino asked me to delay the story. He feared the on-camera confirmation of the tape could be interpreted as a waiver of Noriega’s attorney-client confidentiality. I explained that the focus of our story was government misconduct, not defense strategy. As a courtesy, though, I agreed to inform CNN’s legal department about his request for a delay.  

Given clearance to run the segment by our chief counsel, I called Rubino to tell him the story would air the next day. He angrily threatened to seek a restraining order. CNN’s lawyer recommended we beat him to the punch by running the story early Wednesday morning before the courthouse opened. Hence, we spent all-night writing a script, gathering archival video and editing the piece. The story ran at 7:00 a.m.

By hastening the report, I did something I’ve since condemned. I rushed a story to air to protect a scoop and in so doing failed to exercise proper caution, even though nobody else possessed the tapes. The decision would prove costly.

Exhausted, I went home to get some sleep. However, my snooze was interrupted by CNN President, Tom Johnson. He said the Justice Department denied recording any attorney-client conversations, perhaps because the quality of the tapes was inaudible due to my mistake in Miami. Tom wanted me back to the office. 

Meantime, Rubino had followed up on his threat. To the surprise of CNN lawyers, the judge granted a temporary restraining order. The ruling set off a series of Atlanta meetings involving Johnson, corporate eagles, and legal beagles from private firms. While they met, we put finishing touches on a follow-up report. I believed the Justice Department’s denial demanded a response. Our second story contained audible portions of the tape, as well as an on-screen translation of the conversation and the identity of the participants.

Friday afternoon while network lawyers were trying to overturn the restraining order, I sat in a conference room with CNN executives and lawyers waiting for the verdict. The updated version was scheduled to lead the 5:00 p.m. newscast. Thirty minutes prior to air time, one of the attorneys called from Miami. Not had the judge refused to lift the order, he demanded that CNN immediately turn over the tapes for his inspection. It was nut-cracking time. Tom looked around the room for dissent. “If anyone believes we should delay the report, speak now.”

There was silence. So he called the newsroom and gave the go-ahead. Watching the newscast, everyone in the conference room cringed when the story was introduced by anchor Bernard Shaw with words to the effect, “Today, a federal district court Judge in Miami, Florida ordered CNN not to air secret recordings of Manuel Noriega’s discussions with his legal defense team. F–k you, Judge.”

Federal judges do not react well to violations of their orders. Many have God-like complexes. From high above, they exercise absolute authority over their courtroom domains. The network’s defiance angered every God-like judge in the country. CNN was cited for criminal contempt, and when attorneys later tried to overturn the ruling at the appellate levels, they were treated like court jesters.

In my opinion, Tom made the right call, but made a tactical error. He should have gone on the air prior to the story and explained the reasons for our decision to defy the judge. Although the news media must abide by the nation’s laws,  journalists must have broad freedoms to expose government misconduct without interference from the courts. In this case, the restraining order shielded prosecutors under intense pressure to convict Noriega to justify the invasion of Panama.

Before all was said and done, CNN’s defiance would cost the network about a million dollars in legal fees, fines and related expenses. And we still lost on appeal. So did Noriega.

He was convicted based on the testimony of a line-up of drug-dealing criminal witnesses, who were given sweetheart deals. I’m not implying that Noriega was innocent. My criticism in the book directed at the overzealousness of prosecutors and their willingness to conceal evidence and make deals with characters whose stock in trade was deceit.

Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger gives details of the compromises—many of them outrageous and some borderline illegal. Worse, the invasion of Panama was probably unnecessary. 

But those are stories for folks who buy the book. I’m going to hit golf balls.

My memoir, Odyssey of a Derelict Gunslinger, is available at amazon.com and independent bookstores. It offers much more than $19.99 worth of laughs. It is an account of my illustrious (I choose the adjectives) career.