Life Sucks

According to court records, that was Devia's only alleged drug transaction during the three-year operation.

By midsummer of 2004, the cell-phone chatter was turning urgent. Antle and Hernandez knew the police were following them. In late June, police trailed Lewis Lamonte Smith — a regular customer for large quantities of marijuana — after he'd visited the two Anaco owners. Smith tried to evade the cops by ramming a squad car, but they busted him with 300 pounds of weed in his trunk.

Antle and Hernandez were next.

On August 3, Hernandez called to let Antle know he was on his way to El Paso. "Everything is ready and people are desperate," he said. Antle headed for Texas, too. As soon as he got there, he bought a 1994 Jaguar convertible, loaded it onto a trailer behind his black Durango and started back toward Kansas City.

He didn't make it past Emporia. When the Kansas Highway Patrol pulled him over, Antle called one of his contacts in Kansas City and said he had a "big, big, big problem." The next day, he explained to Hernandez that officers had impounded the vehicles and were waiting for a search warrant.

Hernandez knew that the authorities wouldn't miss the 638 pounds of marijuana, 2 kilos of cocaine and $2,000 hidden in the two cars. He told Antle, "Man, are we fucked."

On August 22, Devia was heading home from the auto shop when federal agents stopped him. They said he was driving a stolen car and asked if he was from Colombia and if he was living legally in the United States. He said he was and that his immigration papers were at his mother's home. When the agents discovered that Devia was lying about his immigration status, they took him into custody.

Two weeks later, Hernandez's operation unraveled completely. Devia was one of 21 people indicted in U.S. District Court.

The bust had been "a top priority of the United States Department of Justice," U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren wrote in a press release.

In court documents, Devia appears to have played a minor role. His name appears once in a 53-point description of the operation. Among the more than 500 exhibits that prosecutors submitted into evidence, Devia had participated in five phone calls and appeared on one videotape. Still, a conviction would carry a minimum jail sentence of 10 years.

Key players earned sentences of up to 25 years in prison. Antle will spend nine years behind bars; Garces will serve 10.

Hernandez faces harsher punishment. He took a plea bargain last August, but prosecutors returned with a request for a tougher sentence, which attorneys are still negotiating.

Prosecutors charge that he was at the heart of an operation that was "as severe as drug trafficking crimes get" and that he caused "incalculable" harm. He will likely serve more than 25 years, if not a life sentence.

When he was arrested in 2004, Devia says, he was determined to fight the charges. Early hearings suggested that he might have to wait until January 2006 before the complex case was ready for trial.

Devia started acting in his own defense. He petitioned the judge for a transcript of the grand jury minutes. He filed for a list of the evidence against him.

More than 14 months after Devia was pulled over, Devia's attorney filed a motion to dismiss the charges, arguing that Devia's right to a speedy trial had been violated.

By then, though, Devia wasn't focused on proving his innocence. He was desperate to get to a doctor. The private, maximum-security Leavenworth Detention Center sits at the top of a gently rolling hill 5 miles north of Interstate 435. The watch tower at the center of the complex evokes a small, out-of-place airport. Herds of black cattle graze up to the tall, barbed-wire fence.

Prison officials there weren't especially sympathetic to Devia's head problems.

Since 1992, the Leavenworth Detention Center has been operated by the nation's first and largest private prison company, Corrections Corporation of America. With 65 facilities under its management, CCA's clients include dozens of federal, state and municipal corrections agencies that pay the Nashville company to house and care for more than 70,000 inmates. Starting in September 2004, Devia was one of 800 at the Leavenworth outpost.

When Devia arrived at Leavenworth in August 2004, he told officials about his harrowing medical history, which dated back to a motorcycle crash in 1997. Devia, then in the Colombian military, was heading home one evening when he heard gunshots. He started picking up speed toward the city, but then his brakes went out; he leaped from the moving vehicle and hit his head on a tree. When he woke up in the hospital, a chunk of bone was missing from his head.

Doctors in Colombia told him they'd had to remove some of the bones that make up the skull, because he had blood in his brain cavity. In 2001, when Devia was living in the United States, he had a second surgery at St. Luke's in Kansas City to reconstruct his skull with a prosthetic bone and fill the depression behind his right temple.

His condition required constant monitoring and visits to a neurosurgeon. He might need a third surgery.