A Salt Lake County woman who allegedly fled to Colombia 21/2 years ago as her trial on drug charges neared has been arrested and will be returned to Utah.
Kay Kiger Velasquez was taken into custody earlier this month and flown to Florida, federal prosecutor Bruce Lubeck said.The charges against Velasquez are connected to an unusual cocaine-trafficking case against her 73-year-old mother, Marjorie Kiger, of Murray.
In December, Kiger was found not guilty by reason of insanity of drug-dealing charges stemming from a cocaine shipment in an old radio she received from South America in November 1993. That concealed shipment is part of a conspiracy prosecutors say Kay Velasquez and her still-fugitive husband, Jose, were engaged in since 1989.
When Kay Velasquez fled prosecution in November 1992 she was named in one indictment. Now she is charged in three.
In the original case, Kay and Jose Velasquez were accused of selling cocaine to a police informant. Jose Velasquez avoided arrest and fled to his native Colombia, authorities said. Kay Velasquez was arrested, posted $22,000 bond - then failed to appear for her 1992 federal trial.
Kay Velasquez then was charged with failing to appear.
And in January 1994, the Velasquezes and Kiger were indicted on drug and conspiracy charges that include the 1993 cocaine stashed in the radio sent to Kiger from Colombia.
Lubeck said on Tuesday that he intends to pursue the initial 1992 cocaine-trafficking charge against Kay Velasquez first. If convicted, she faces a minimum punishment of five years.
Neither Lubeck nor the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration in Miami, where Velasquez was taken from Colombia, had any information about her arrest.
Kay Velasquez's attorney, John O'Connell, said drug agents in 1992 tried to force Jose Velasquez's surrender by threatening the couple with never seeing their children again. The attorney said that is why Kay Velasquez fled to Colombia, after the children had been moved to the South American country.