Now that it's all over, Remer and Griffin both admit that many, many members of the legal profession smoke fine cigars that have had the labels removed.
"Most judges would laugh at this thing," continues Remer. "I talked to a couple of FBI agents, they laughed themselves sick over this one."
Anthony Pidgeon
Details
Related Content
More About
The defense insists the case was an obvious stepping stone for agent Marshall Heeger, and accuse him of showboating. Heeger traveled all over the Bay Area, buying hundreds of dollars' worth of cigars. The government even flew him to Spain. After the arrests, he posed for press photographs, sitting in front of Hybl's confiscated cigars like a hunter with his bighorn sheep. (Heeger has since been promoted to a position in Moscow, and could not be reached for comment.)
The prosecution, naturally, believes the time and expense were justified. "I don't think the government was heavy-handed," says Griffin. "I would say this: Going into the investigation, Marshall knew it was an uphill climb. He worked on this case so much that he didn't take it personal. But it was his career case, if you will."
Now that Griffin is in private practice, would he ever defend a cigar smuggling case brought by the federal government? "If they see my name on the other side, beware!"
Sixty or so people lounge around a back yard in Atherton, a few minutes south of San Francisco. A handful of them dance to a blues band playing "Two Tickets to Paradise." A bartender hands a margarita to a young woman in a leopard-print bikini. A helicopter circles overhead, and everyone waves to the pilot.
Joe Hybl, still on probation, turned 44 in late September of this year, and this is his birthday bash.
"If I can't leave my house, might as well have a party," smiles Hybl, his dark, penetrating eyes sweeping the yard. He wears a black T-shirt and white tennis shorts, and looks comfortable, even if he did have to sell two cars and a motor home to pay off his attorneys. A few of his traveling companions are also at the party.
Dave Lampert is happy to talk about his cigar escapades in Cuba. He remembers the first meeting with the attorney on that fateful day out by the Hotel Nacional pool.
"He said he was doing the cigar thing," Lampert remembers. "Most guys are. He was into the girls, just like we were."
"I didn't want to make money," he continues, glancing at a young woman from Mexico City laughing with her friends. "I wanted the adventure."
Jack Bramy wears a bright yellow T-shirt that says Brazil. He says the only Cuban cigars he liked were the Montecristo Double Coronas, but will never forget his time working as a cigar pack mule, spending a week in Spain. He'd like to be included in an article, if it mentions that he's 51, he's handsome and in good health, and looking for a rich woman to take care of him. What irritates him still is that the Sacramento attorney got a free ride.
"The guy's still practicing law and a member of the bar," says Bramy. "That's just fuckin' rude."
And then girlish squeals come from the other side of the yard, where Joe Hybl, the first man in the United States ever to be convicted for trading cigars with the enemy, is tossed into his own swimming pool.
