Drug-smuggling suspect spent last 20 years on the run, playing golf and keeping secrets By ROB MARGETTA, Standard-Times staff writer
a sunny California morning, six members of the Los Angeles police fugitive task force got into their cruisers and drove to the city's Sun Valley district, looking for a phantom.
Officer Tony Egenias was working off information from a Massachusetts state trooper, who told him that if he checked out a couple of names and addresses in L.A., he just might find a big prize — a former Fairhaven, Mass., fishing boat captain who disappeared in 1986 as he was about to go to trial on charges of smuggling 20 tons of marijuana into New Bedford on the 75-foot fishing boat Southern Star.
When the police and U.S. marshals pulled up in front of a house in a pleasant suburban neighborhood at about 7:15 a.m., the 60-year-old man out watering the front yard looked shocked.
When Officer Egenias approached, the man introduced himself as Joe Davies, but he wouldn't show any ID.
The officer asked "Mr. Davies" to roll up his sleeve. His right bicep had a heart-shaped tattoo, with the word "Mom" emblazoned on it.
"I asked him, 'What's your real name?'" Officer Eugenias said. "He said, 'You got me. I'm Jerome Wedge. And I know why you're here.'"
Mr. Wedge didn't struggle. He didn't run. He got into the back seat of Officer Egenias' cruiser, and, on the way to his booking, said he knew he would be caught eventually, and was glad his life as a fugitive had ended.
"He said it was just a big weight off his shoulders," Officer Egenias said.
'He seemed like a regular Joe'
Officials are still trying to piece together where Mr. Wedge had been between Aug. 27, 1986 — when he left his sleeping wife weeks before he was due to go to trial and skipped town without a word of warning or goodbye to her, his nine brothers and sisters or his friends — and Sept. 22, when he was arrested in Sun Valley.
California authorities now know that Mr. Wedge, living under the name Joe Davies, was a semiprofessional golfer who played in non-PGA events in Las Vegas and across California. To make a little extra money, he worked as a handyman.
"He just said he was playing a lot of golf," said Deputy U.S. Marshal Andres Jimenez, a spokesman for the Southwest Regional Fugitive Task Force. "I guess he liked to travel."
A week before he was picked up, he played a tournament in Texas.
Investigators said he was living with a woman, described as a common-law wife, who apparently didn't know his true identity. She operated a small business that supplemented the couple's income.
"He was just laying low," Officer Egenias said. "She didn't even know."
Deputy Jimenez described Mr. Wedge's neighborhood as nearly rural. Several of his neighbors owned small horse stables.
"He was maintaining a decent lifestyle," he said.
The Web site AfroGolf.com has a picture of Mr. Wedge smiling and holding a plaque as a member of the winning foursome in the site's 2005 Business Networking Charity Golf Tournament, held at a course about 12 miles outside Los Angeles.
"He seemed like a regular Joe," said tournament organizer Reginald Grant, who confirmed that the Joe Davies pictured was the same one who was arrested. "He played in several of our tournaments. He was a real outgoing guy. This is totally out of the blue."
Mr. Grant said he understood that Mr. Davies worked in construction and played in other tournaments to raise money for disadvantaged children.
"I once donated sports memorabilia to a tournament he organized ... to benefit the Special Olympics," Mr. Grant said.
But a call to a Massachusetts State Police tip line brought the facade of Mr. Wedge's alter-ego crashing down.
"Basically, we got an anonymous tip on our 800 hotline," said Detective Lt. Kevin Horton of the Massachusetts violent fugitive apprehension section.
Trooper Colette Tamulevis followed up on the tip, and, when she felt it was solid, she sent a packet to Officer Egenias, whom she had met at a conference in August.
Officer Egenias was given two names: "Frank Buono" and "Davies." He found a Joe Davies living in Sun Valley who had something curious about his past — it seemed to be missing. There was no background information on the suspect: no driver's license, no work history, no personal financial history.
While the lack of documentation ultimately helped lead to Mr. Wedge's capture, it probably also allowed him avoid police while on the lam, Officer Egenias said.
"Maybe that's how he got away for so long," he said.
'Dropped off the face of the earth'
Perhaps the most striking aspect of Mr. Wedge's flight is how completely he seemed to have vanished.
"He basically disappeared without a trace, as far as I can remember," said Ronald Pina, the Bristol County district attorney in 1986, who now runs a private practice. "He just dropped off the face of the earth."
After he found out the defendant had skipped town, Mr. Pina had investigators question Mr. Wedge's family and friends. He brought in the state police for the search, and sent a bulletin to other states asking for their help. But every attempt to find information on the fugitive came up dry.
Mr. Wedge's brothers and sisters said they never heard from him during the 20 years he was gone.
Even his wife, Sonia Wedge, was clueless as to where he went.
While he was out on bail as his September 1986 trial date approached, the couple lived together in Fairhaven. But on the night of Aug. 27, 1986, Mrs. Wedge went to bed with her husband in the house. When she awoke, she was alone.
"I got up that day and he was gone," she said in an interview with The Standard-Times at that time. "No note. Nothing."
Mrs. Wedge stayed in Fairhaven for three months before leaving for Switzerland with her son. Ten years later, when she was seeking a divorce, the Swiss Consulate General in New York placed an advertisement in the Boston Globe on her behalf. The ad, which sought information about her vanished husband, did not help.
She could not be reached for this article, and the Consulate General said she hasn't contacted it since Mr. Wedge's arrest.
family Reacts
Wearing a green Los Angeles County prison jumpsuit, Mr. Wedge appeared in Los Angeles Municipal Court Oct. 13 for a rendition hearing, one step in the process of bringing him back to Massachusetts for prosecution.
At previous hearings, Mr. Wedge fought rendition, which usually takes weeks when contested. Massachusetts officials said the suspect was seeking to have his bail reduced from the original $500,000. The attorney Mr. Wedge hired, Anthony Phillip Brooklier, did not return more than two weeks' worth of calls from The Standard-Times on the matter.
But, on that Friday, Mr. Wedge waived his rights and agreed to come home, reportedly when the court refused to budge on bail. Late last week, the Bristol County District Attorney's Office was preparing a delegation to fly to California to pick him up. He is due for arraignment in New Bedford Superior Court this week.
Age has done its work on Mr. Wedge. The 40-year-old who sat through hearings in New Bedford's courts was chiseled in face and body, with dark, intense eyes; the 60-year-old has developed a paunch and wears eyeglasses. His hair has gone gray and is thinning in the front. A scruffy beard covers his now rounder features.
But he still has the sharp nose, furrowed forehead and arched eyebrows of the man friends and local law enforcement knew as Jerry Wedge.
The Standard-Times showed a picture taken of Mr. Wedge at the hearing to some of his siblings. It was the first time they had seen him in two decades.
"It's a disturbing picture for me," said Vaughn Wedge, who owns a towing company in Wareham. "It's been a long time, but of course I recognize
him. He's my brother.
"I wouldn't say this is a relief by any means," Vaughn said of his older brother's capture and the prosecution and possible jail time that await him in Massachusetts. "The wondering and the concern we had all this time, it's a relief from that, I guess. Otherwise, it's a disaster for us at this point. It's going to be a trying time for the family. We'll have to see how it goes. ... He was a well-liked guy."
Vaughn still believes his brother may be innocent. "There are no guarantees that he was any part of it. I hope he's innocent."
The Wedge siblings, of which Jerry was the oldest, were very close, Vaughn said. "He meant a great deal to us. He was sort of the father figure in the family."
Mr. Wedge's flight was a blow to the family, which already had been suffering. Three months before he left, their mother, Lillian C. Wedge, died of cancer at the age of 63.
"In the beginning, I was angry for what happened and what my mother had gone through," said Ada Burns, the youngest of the Wedge sisters. "But you have to let go of anger after a while. ... I know he did wrong, but he's still my brother."
Having a fugitive brother was a deep wound that was reopened every time he made the headlines over his 20 years on the lam, Ms. Burns said.
"Every time it comes out, you get questions, you get nasty remarks," she said. "It's almost like people ask how he thought he'd get away with it when no one else did."
But she seemed grateful to know that Mr. Wedge is well, at least.
"At least I know he's all right," she said. "I've always been worried that something happened to him, that he could have been hurt or killed, that he could have been alone, on the street."
And his occupation while he was on the run didn't come as a total surprise to Ms. Burns.
"All my brothers golfed," she said.
Both she and Vaughn Wedge say no one in the family had any contact with their elder brother.
"I wish he would have at least let me know he was OK. I missed him a lot," Ms. Burns said. Every so often, someone would pass along a rumor that Jerry was spotted in New Bedford, she said. "I was like 'I don't think so,' " she said. "If he was in New Bedford, he would have found a way to contact me."
Both Vaughn Wedge and Ms. Burns said they plan to visit their older brother when he's brought back to Massachusetts.
"The first possibility, I'll be there," Vaughn said. "He's my brother. I missed him."
Ms. Burns said the first thing she will tell him is, "just that I love him and I hope he's all right."
The raid on the docks
Ronald Cabral, now retired, was a New Bedford police sergeant in the early 1980s and one of the key investigators in the drug bust that led to the original charges against Mr. Wedge.
"Jesus, he changed," Mr. Cabral said, looking at the photo of Mr. Wedge in the Los Angeles court. "Oh my God, he got old."
He chuckled when told of Mr. Wedge's life as a golfer in California.
"I'll be damned," he said. "I wouldn't have thought he'd be doing that in a million years."
Mr. Cabral said he remembers the Jerry Wedge of 1983, when New Bedford had become a narcotics hub, with traffic to Boston, New Hampshire and Rhode Island, and suppliers trying to move drugs through in quantities that are almost unbelievable today.
The early '80s were a time when Colombian drug lords, flush with cash from their booming cocaine trades, grew tired of transporting small shipments of drugs across U.S. borders using couriers known as "mules."
They used their newfound wealth to attempt shipping in bulk, using sailboats, then fishing vessels and eventually airplanes, according to Louis Pacheco, a former member of District Attorney Ronald Pina's narcotics task force, which was created to stop high-volume trafficking at the New Bedford area's two most vulnerable spots — the waterfront and the municipal airport.
"Those were days when it was coming in 30, 40 tons at a time," Chief Pacheco said. "These boats were bringing in huge loads, and the marijuana was baled to fit the contours of secret rooms onboard."
The task force had its first big breakthrough on the muggy night of July 22, 1983, when they bagged a 75-foot swordfishing vessel called the Southern Star.
In May 1983, then-Sgt. Cabral had gotten an anonymous tip to watch out for a drug boat that would use a fire in New Bedford as a diversion while it unloaded its illegal cargo.
Three months later, he was checking into the old main police station on Spring Street with Detective Paul Boudreau when he heard that a vacant building at the corner of Acushnet Avenue and Walnut Street just two blocks away, was ablaze. Fire trucks were on their way and all available police were being called in for rescue duty and to help manage traffic, leaving other parts of the city vulnerable.
Sgt. Cabral turned to Detective Boudreau. "I said, 'We'd better get down to the docks.' " When they arrived, they saw the Southern Star being unloaded.
"It was a full moon that night, and you could see a boat at the docks, and you could see there was some kind of activity," said Mr. Boudreau, now retired and living in Florida.
Mr. Cabral said he called Detective Bruce Machado and Robert Jones, a special investigator with the DA's office, to investigate. In their unmarked Volkswagen Beetle, they tailed one of two rental trucks, a Ryder, to the old Whaler Motor Inn on Hathaway Road (which has since been converted to a Days Inn).
As they followed, Detective Machado and Mr. Jones noticed something that further aroused their suspicions — unlike most trucks carrying fish, water didn't slop out the back of the Ryder when it went over bumps. Usually, the melting ice leaks out the back.
When the truck stopped at the hotel, it was obvious that the cargo was marijuana, even before police searched it. "There was all that residue on the back step," Mr. Cabral said.
When they looked inside, they found the pot packed in 40-pound bales, "like the size of two giant bags of dog food stuck together," Mr. Boudreau said.
The officers returned to the South Terminal and shouted for the more than a dozen men still packing the other truck to freeze. The order didn't work.
"Guys started running in every direction. They were jumping into the water to try to get away," Mr. Boudreau said. "I grabbed one by his pant leg. His pockets were full of marijuana. There was marijuana in his hair. And he basically asked me, 'Why are you arresting me?' "
Police spent the next eight hours mopping up the scene and fishing men out of the water. Capt. Spirlet said one suspect broke an arm and a leg escaping and was only found later when he sought treatment at a local hospital.
When they searched below decks, they found welding equipment and realized that the cargo space was significantly smaller than the length of the boat.
The task force's former chief investigator, Robert St. Jean, said officers found a door hidden behind ice in the hold. When they opened it, they found a secret compartment — the storage area for the dope. When officers looked even deeper, they found cocaine stashed in the boat's pipes, former DA Pina said.
The ruse had been good enough to fool the Coast Guard, which had inspected the boat at sea July 13 but found nothing.
In total, police made 16 arrests the night of July 22.
The next day, they drove to the Raynham hotel where the Ryder was supposed to have been dropped off and nabbed a New Hampshire man as well as the alleged masterminds behind the smuggling operation: Two Florida men who were caught in possession of guns, knives, money and passports stamped in Bermuda and Panama.
The Ryder full of marijuana was impounded at the central police station, where its wheels were removed and it was placed under 24-hour guard. Eventually, police got a court order to destroy the bales, and the entire load was burnt in the Fall River incinerator.
'It's about time'
In a move that seems a bit ironic today, Mr. Wedge turned himself in three days after the Southern Star raid, after a grand jury indicted him and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
The skipper was visibly worried at his 1983 arraignment, slowly shaking his head with a cigarette dangling from his mouth as he waited for the judge. He faced charges of trafficking marijuana in excess of 10,000 pounds and conspiracy, which carry a sentence of up to 10 years.
His lawyer, Daniel T. George, successfully argued to have his bail dropped from a $1 million surety to a $100,000 surety or $10,000 cash.
"The whole issue on bail is, 'Is he going to run?' " Mr. George said during the proceeding. "Why would you set a million dollars on a guy like that? He's not going anywhere."
His case already had been linked to that of the Four-of-TheUs and Charly's Pride, a fishing boat impounded July 25, when police found traces of marijuana aboard. James Pauline, the skipper of The Four of Us and a friend of Mr. Wedge, was later convicted of trafficking and served time from 1986 to 1991.
In court, Assistant District Attorney Robert Kane (now a judge) argued that Mr. Wedge was "a principal sponsor and recruiter" in the pot smuggling operation and would have received $100,000 for his role in the delivery. During the next three years, he and other prosecutors painted the Southern Star case as a massive drug-running conspiracy.
But one of the men caught unloading the boat said last week that the fishermen never aspired to be kingpins. They were just men with unsatisfying jobs who couldn't resist the temptation of a quick buck, he said.
"I was a fisherman, and I hated what I was doing," he said. "There were times that I wanted to walk to walk through that water back home. You had these out-of-town people who made you an offer and you think, 'I'd have to work two years to make this kind of money.' You do foolish things."
The ex-fisherman was in his late 20s when he was picked up in the raid at the South Terminal. He's a grandfather now, and asked that his name not be used.
Like the 15 others arrested for unloading the Southern Star, the ex-fisherman pleaded guilty to a trafficking charge in 1986, and received far less than the mandatory 10 years dictated by Massachusetts' marijuana trafficking statute. He said he spent the next 42 months in state prison.
Still, he's not bitter that Mr. Wedge dodged those consequences for so long.
"There's no resentment," he said. "Wedge left before he went to trial. He's a good person. We all made a mistake. We were young. All I can say is I wish him the best. I hope the guy doesn't do any time."
The cops who worked to put Mr. Wedge behind bars feel differently.
Mr. Boudreau, the former narcotics detectives, moved to Florida after he retired, but still checks up on New Bedford news. In late September, he was skimming The Standard-Times' Web site when he saw the headline, "Fugitive caught 20 years later."
"I clicked on it and I was like, 'Oh my God, Jerry Wedge," he said. "It's about time he gets what's due to him."
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