Two of the three men charged last month with plotting to bribe a federal juror in the cocaine trafficking trial of former heavyweight boxer Goran Gogic have been indicted by a federal grand jury.
Afrim Kupa, who has a criminal backgroynd and purported ties to Balkan organized crime and the Gambino crime family, and Valmir Krasniqi were both indicted on obstruction of justice and conspiracy to obstruct justice charges Thursday.
A third man, Mustafa Fjeta, who was also arrested in connection with the plot last month, does not appear on the indictment. Information about his case was not immediately known and the U.S. Attorney’s office declined to comment. A call to Fjeta’s attorney for comment was not immediately returned.
The jury tampering plot, first reported by the Daily News, threw Gogic’s trial into disarray, when prosecutors announced on Nov 17, the day opening arguments were set to start, that someone offered a juror $100,000 to acquit the former boxer.
“The investigation revealed that the individuals who were involved in the plot may have obtained a copy of the jury list and/or jury information from individuals connected to this trial,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Francisco Navarro told Judge Joan Azrack at the time.
Azrak agreed to dismiss the entire jury in the wake of the tampering allegations. Gogic remains locked up in MDC Brooklyn, and is slated to return to court Dec. 17.
“These defendants obstructed a federal criminal trial in Brooklyn by attempting to bribe a juror,” U.S. Attorney Joseph Nocella said Friday. “The indictment sends a clear message to the public that jury tampering and other efforts to undermine and corrupt the criminal justice system will not be tolerated.”
The alleged tampering plot, and the subsequent arrests, unfolded over the course of a weekend. Fjeta was acquainted with one of the jurors and called him several times, convincing the juror to meet him on Staten Island on Thursday, Nov. 13, the feds said in a criminal complaint.
At that meeting, Fteja asked for a “favor” and offered to pay for a not-guilty verdict, the complaint alleges. He told the juror that Krasniqi and others directed him to make the offer, and that he’d be paid by people from the Bronx.
Phone records show Fteja and Krasniqi were in contact throughout the day Thursday, both before and after the meeting, the feds say.
Fteja got more specific during a second meeting with the juror on Saturday, Nov. 15, explaining that someone would give him between $50,000 and $100,000, the feds said. By then, the FBI was already clued in and listening to recordings of Fteja and Krasniqi’s calls. The next day the feds surveilled a meeting between the Fteja, Krasniqi and Kupa at Krasniqi’s Staten Island home.
Kupa and Krasniqi were ordered held without bail following their arrest, while prosecutor agreed to Fteja’s release on $150,000 bond.
Gogic, who remains held without bail in his case, was set to stand trial on charges he was a “critical link” in a massive drug trafficking chain, coordinating between cocaine suppliers in Colombia, cargo ship crew members who transported tons of the drug and port workers in Europe and the U.S.
Authorities in the U.S. seized more than 1,400 kilos at the Port of New York and New Jersey on Feb. 27, 2019; more than 500 kilos at the Port of Philadelphia on March 18, 2019; and nearly 18,000 kilos at the Port of Philadelphia on June 19, 2019, worth more than $1 billion, in what was described as one of the largest cocaine seizures in U.S. history.
Attorney Mathew Mari maintained Krasniqi’s innocence on Friday.
Krasniqi is a manager of Positano, a restaurant in Brooklyn, his attorney said. All he was asked to do was connect one of his bus boys, Fjeta, to someone else he knew, but he had no idea anyone was going to try to pay off a juror, Mari said.
“He’s got not reason for doing something like this knowingly,” Mari said. “Had he known (the plan), he never would have set up a meeting.”
With Thomas Tracy
