Smuggler Wins Award From Government

By Bill Johnson Published Jan 20, 2002 05:00 pm Updated Jan 31, 2009 05:30 pm

The government will pay 254-thousand dollars plus attorney´s fees, to a convicted marijuana smuggler because it failed to properly notify him it seized his smuggling boat.

The award is the market value of the 55-foot motorized sailboat once owned by Gary Marolf.

Marolf is serving a ten-year prison sentence for smuggling the drug from Thailand.

The government sold the boat at auction for just 100-thousand dollars.

The three-judge panel on Thursday agreed unanimously Marolf should get the boat money back, but was divided over the lawyer´s fees, which are estimated at 150-thousand dollars.

The DEA seized the Asmara in July, 1991. Marolf was arrested two months later for conspiracy to import marijuana into the US. He was never sent the proper seizure letters.