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In this episode of American Greed, Jamie Bellagio is a billboard lawyer,

Texas style.

Go with the winning team.

He's got cowboy outfits, a silly nickname.

Hi, I'm Jamie Bellagio, the DWID.

And outrageous marketing stunts.

Two and a half drinks says I should be drunk. Cheap day. You'll never get to

jail that way.

Bellagio is well known as the DWI dude, representing clients accused of drunk

driving. He even runs for attorney general on a pro -marijuana platform.

Give me the stoners every day of the week.

But the feds say this cowboy lawyer is a criminal who runs a clever con

targeting his clients.

The insinuation was people.

would be paid off, but a lot of money apparently was needed for these bribes.

Things get dicey when Malaysia targets, of all people, international drug

cartels. It tells me he had a set on him.

And steps inside a prison in Colombia.

It's a very bad place.

American Greed has an exclusive interview with the prosecutor who led a

blockbuster narco case.

His greed struck them justice.

And notes from the dude himself who tells American Greed, what a dummy I

You cannot scam the cartel without them finding out.

In March of 2016, a highly unusual case lands on the desk of FBI Special Agent

Jason Rennie.

Inside a FedEx box sent from Columbia is a hidden camera video.

It purports to be evidence of a bribery scheme involving U .S. officials.

The very...

Beginning of the recording, you can see that the room that they're in is being

set up. There's cameras that are being put in. It's very apparent that the room

is being set up to be recorded.

But the man recording the video is not a cop.

He's a drug kingpin facing extradition to the United States and the possibility

of many years in prison.

This room that looks like a hotel is actually his jail cell in Bogota,

Together with his brother.

They produced more cocaine than anyone else in the world.

During the scope of the investigation, they produced and put into commerce

between 750 ,000 and a million kilos of cocaine.

In the video, the cartel boss is meeting with his legal team, including his

American lawyer, Jamie Belasia.

The feds allege the lawyers have taken seven figures in cash from the cartel.

promising to act as brokers of a bribe. They say they can pay off American

judges, prosecutors, and DEA agents.

He had hired Jamie Bellagio on the promise that the charges in the United

would go away.

We have people in the United States that can make your charges disappear,

essentially go away.

And in return for that, he paid them, the original number was $1 .5 million.

He wants to know exactly what has happened since the beginning when he

money. It gets even stranger.

Malaysia is not some high -flying international lawyer, the kind who

people like Pablo Escobar and El Chapo Guzman.

Far from it.

Back home in Austin, Texas, Belasia is a billboard lawyer with goofy ads known

as the DWI dude.

I'm Jamie Belasia, the DWI dude.

If stopped for DWI, never surrender your rights. You don't wander into these

waters and just do this like, hey, I just decided I want to go work high

extradition cases.

You're going to want the best at your side.

Belasia, just from his lack of experience with the fish out of water,

really played up his connections in Texas.

But are the connections a con?

The drug kingpin apparently has recorded this meeting because he thinks Malaysia

has stolen his bribe money.

Agent Rennie's first thought is, play me a sad song on the world's smallest

violin.

You might have a jury sympathy problem, right? Nonetheless, the allegations

related to public corruption, the FBI takes seriously.

Is Jamie Malaysia a criminal mastermind with corrupt judges in his pocket?

Or is he running a scam on an unsympathetic yet very dangerous victim?

It seems so outrageous that somebody would attempt to pull something over on

some of the top cocaine producers in Colombia.

Don't want to screw over someone who's got the resources that these guys have.

Jamie Malaysia has always been fearless. He starts his career on the other side

as a cop, banging down doors.

Sex for hire, gambling, tonography. This is the beat for the Austin Vice detail.

In 1986, he joins the Austin Police Department's Vice Squad, targeting

prostitution.

Gene Frydenberg is his boss.

You're fixing to get your ass put in jail. Do you understand that?

Nearby, the hooker's nightmare, Vice Squad Senior Sergeant Gene Frydenberg.

They're just going to have to clean up their act, and we just wish they'd go

somewhere else and do it.

They would be seven, eight, ten of them on the street corner. They would use

businesses parking lots to conduct their business.

Frydenberg says Belasia, seen here on plainclothes duty, is a well -liked and

valuable member of the team, though he definitely likes to have a good time.

You know, a lot of those guys would get paid on Friday and have a big weekend,

come in broke on Monday, live on the credit union for another 10 days.

Sure, there's a yellow flag or two, but nothing red.

That is, until one Sunday morning.

We got a call from DEA and said that one of our undercover cars had been seen in

Houston at a drug dealer's house.

Who do you think's driving this BMW?

I said, hell, I know who's driving it.

And that was when Jamie's name came up.

Turns out, Malaysia hasn't been keeping his nose clean.

He said something about, well, they went down to get an eight ball to party

with. Malaysia goes away to rehab, and when he returns to the PD, he's been

demoted.

He's now a glorified parking lot attendant, checking impounded cars in

of a lot.

It's a blow to your ego, you know, to...

Everybody's looking, you know, hey, look what he's doing now, you know.

Frydenberg visits his protege, crushed by boredom, who asks, what should I do?

And I said, well, if you enjoy checking cars in and out for the next 30 years, I

would stay here.

But if you don't want to do that, then you need to find something else.

And that's when he said, well, I've been thinking about law school.

A few years later, Belasia is a defense attorney.

And in a college town with a lively bar scene, there's no shortage of people

accused of drunk driving.

So Belasia decides to specialize in DWI.

There's just one problem. Those in need of his services often have trouble

remembering his name.

People couldn't spell Jamie Belasia to get me in a Google search, so I had to

find some way to get that marketing out there.

And I was... One day I was doodling, and I kept writing down DWI, DWI, and one

of my best friends calls me and says, hey, dude, he always called me dude.

That was his name for me. And I went DWI dude.

Hi, I'm Jamie Belasia, the DWI dude.

He's very creative, and he just decided DWI dude.

I'm going to be the DWI dude.

What should I do if I get pulled over for DWI?

And that's when it all changed.

We like to tell people when you get pulled over by the police, it's best to

what to do at that point.

Instead of business cards, Belasia passes out poker chips and koozies, even

the courtroom.

He'd be handing out the poker chips, pens, and the judge would be like, Mr.

Belasia, you know, you need to take it down a notch, but he would just keep

doing it.

Business takes off.

From his law office in the small town of Manor, east of Austin.

Malaysia takes on hundreds of DWI cases.

And his promise to get defendants off on charges isn't just a flashy sales

tactic. Malaysia is winning cases.

Created this niche for himself with DWI cases.

And he kind of portrayed himself as kind of like a man of the people.

You know, he was here to protect your rights, try to get these BS charges

dropped. Refuse the breath test.

If they get a blood search warrant, we can attack it in court.

He apparently was very successful.

His success in the courtroom spurs him to expand into San Antonio, where he

opens a second office.

The outrageous marketing continues.

Malaysia drives vehicles emblazoned with the DWI dude phone number.

I was an undercover officer with the Austin Police Department for a number of

years. He creates instructional YouTube videos like these.

If you begin the test before they tell you to start, that counts as a clue

against you.

And he sponsors events at local bars.

We're here with Jamie, the DWI dude.

He would go to bars in San Antonio and take that machine and hook it up. Go

ahead and blow.

And we would just let people blow in it. And they just think that's the funnest

thing. Two and a half drinks says I should be drunk.

Cheap day.

Then he would say, well, I was an ex -cop and I used to arrest DWIs.

Cops love to tell you, keep blowing, keep blowing, keep blowing.

Push that number over in L .A. Back in our day, we would just throw them out

cop car in their front yard.

And he's like, things aren't like that anymore.

And that's like how he would start things.

Mike there used to be a state patrolman. I'm a former police officer. Dave's a

former police officer.

So, you know, our friends and family members are cops.

So I think that had a lot to do with why people liked him.

I appreciate that. I appreciate every single person who came here.

Sometimes he would sponsor events. He would ask people to put his phone number

into their phone. We always tell people to put the number to our office in their

cell phone so you can call us instantly. And I get calls on my phone from people

that are being pulled over. And they would scroll through their contacts and

that they had already saved it right there under dude.

In short, his message is, I'm a miracle worker, and I'll get you out of a jam.

His overall attitude was, I'm your man. I can take care of this. I got you.

Anthony Felsing is battling alcohol addiction when he hires Belasia.

At the time, I was new into AA.

You know, to me, it was almost like...

Someone that I can look up to and talk to because I was fresh

in this program working through the steps.

Jamie had been an alcoholic and he admits that. And so when he had clients

had real substance abuse issues, he could identify with that.

And he would talk to them as somebody who'd been there and he didn't judge it.

You know, his story was, I was a bad cop, I had a bad drug addiction, I

myself up. You believed in what he was saying.

Before he entered recovery, Felsing was charged with his third GWI and is now

looking at up to 12 years in prison.

I knew I was facing an uphill battle.

He guaranteed me that he could get this taken away, it would go away, I might

get probation at the most.

Felsing believes him.

After all, Belasia has been successful in many other DWI cases.

When he meets with Belasia to discuss his case, Felsing finds that the dude's

courtroom strategy might be more than his ads presented to be.

And as he stated, we're going to make campaign contributions. He was tied in

with the local judge.

Yeah, I do this all the time.

And he did know a lot of people, and he did have a lot of friends, but it's

irresponsible and unethical to suggest that your connections to judges

or lawyers or friends or anything will influence anything in anybody's case.

Though Belasia never says the word bribe, that's what Felsing hears.

And I knew what he was saying. You know, I think everyone in the room knew what

he was saying.

And with the prospect of 12 years behind bars, he is willing to go along with

Velez's supposed plan.

He makes his first of several payments for $5 ,000, which he understands will

not fund painstaking legal work so much as fat envelopes.

Naturally, I'm thinking, thank God, I might get probation. So I went ahead and

paid him. And it was almost as if they were like, okay, we threw the hook out

there and this guy took it.

Up next, he's a real -life Saul Goodman. How does Jamie Bellagio go from local

yokel to cartel consigliere?

How does Jamie Bellagio go from driving an RV around Austin to arranging bribes

for cocaine kingpins?

FBI agent Jason Rennie learns that Bellagio is not just the DWI dude.

He's added another nickname, the 420 dude.

He was also the big kind of advocate of legalizing marijuana.

Bellagio even runs for attorney general of Texas on a pro -legalization

platform.

I've got to tell you, as a police officer, when I pulled over people who

stoned or dealt with people who were smoking weed as opposed to people on

alcohol, give me the stoners every day of the week. But what can he gain from

being the Libertarian Party's candidate?

He got, I don't know, like 700 votes, and he was excited.

Excited because in his mind, he's won.

He thought running also, again, is a marketing.

You know, more people would see him. He'd be in front of everybody, so he

get more drug -type cases. More drug -type cases. He's about to catch a very

one indeed.

In the fall of 2014, Bellagio takes an introductory phone call with Ernest

Gonzalez, a federal prosecutor who helped bring down the Zeta cartel.

Because of threats to his life, he rarely speaks publicly.

But he has given an exclusive interview to American Greed about his blockbuster

cocaine trafficking case, one of the biggest in U .S. history.

In total, we indicted 167 individuals in the U .S. and Central America and South

America. Jamie Belasia has been hired as defense attorney for a couple of the

men at the top of Gonzalez's 167 -man pyramid.

He schedules an off -the -record chat with the prosecutor.

Eventually, he reached out to me, contacted me, told me who he was. I

his advertisements on the radio.

That's the most I knew about him.

He was going to go to Colombia to visit with his client.

And what is it that I was wanting from his client? I told him that we wanted

cooperation.

Malaysia learned that Gonzalez's case took years to build, and it's all based

trading information.

In 2010, it started simple enough. There was a seizure of 10 kilos of cocaine

and 515 pounds of marijuana from a defendant here in the Dallas area.

That defendant agreed to cooperate, and that's how the case goes, persuading

small players to give up the bigger players, climbing the ladder one rung at

time. The individual showed up with $1 .7 million, and that's what $1 .7

looks like.

Gonzalez's team traces the flow of cocaine from the U .S. through the Zeta

cartel in Mexico, and ultimately all the way to the source, cocaine super labs

hidden deep in the jungles of Colombia, run by two brothers, Aldemar and Segundo

de Yota Segura.

Segundo is one of Malaysia's new clients.

Aldemar and Segundo Villota Segura were operating the largest working cocaine

laboratory in the world. I think we estimated that in a year's time it was

,000 kilos of cocaine.

We estimated that it was $1 .5 billion.

At first, Segundo Segura agrees to cooperate.

He provides information about the location of labs, and the feds seize

and boats.

But then he stops cooperating for some reason.

Because he stopped cooperating, we then execute the order to arrest.

He's arrested, and he's taken to La Picota.

With the charges he's facing, it would take a miracle worker to help escape

extradition. So why has Segundo Segura suddenly gone silent?

The government says Segura believes he has a get -out -of -jail -free card in

his back pocket in the form of Jamie Belasia.

Malaysia is introduced to the cartel through this man, a private investigator

named Chuck Morgan.

Morgan lives in both Florida and Columbia, and the government says he was

an informant for the DEA.

It sounds like he had a very colorful past, working with the CIA, working with

the DEA.

And during the trial, there were photographs.

Of him was Colombian government officials wore a big cowboy hat and a

beard. He was quite a character.

Over margaritas and coffee for the dude, the feds alleged that the Colombian

-connected Morgan puts Malaysia in touch with Segundo Segura, who was looking

for an American lawyer with friends in high places, people who can grease the

wheels of justice.

The insinuation was, people...

would be paid off in washington dc then the case would disappear but a lot of

money apparently was needed for these bribes asian renny is curious has

made similar promises before did he swim into the deep end did he make a mistake

did he get over his head does he have a personal issue that put him in the

situation that he needed money was he desperate or is it a pattern Another

Malaysia client, DWI defendant Anthony Felsing, has waited more than a year and

given approximately $50 ,000 to the lawyer. And he still has a long prison

sentence hanging over his head.

But Felsing says Malaysia claims he's got an eight in the hole, a crooked

he refers to simply as Jack.

You know, Jamie, what's going on with the case? Oh, me and Jack got it worked

out. Don't worry about it.

You know, I was in Jack's chambers the other day, and we were talking about

case, and don't worry about it. Just keep making your payments, and

will be good.

But instead of salvation, he gets more bad news.

Once all my money was paid off, then it was, well, I don't know if I'm going to

be able to get you that deal. It's probably going to take more money.

Malaysia's got to go.

Anthony Felsing's thousands are suddenly unimportant when Malaysia has millions

on the line.

A big tuna named Segura down in Bogota.

This was something different, and it sounded like a great adventure.

I think that was as much, honestly, as the greed part of it.

I found it exciting.

Up next.

Malaysia's big adventure has him rubbing elbows with people who keep bad

company. El Chapo was put on that list. Vladimir Putin was put on that list.

DWI law has been good to Jamie Valesian.

The lawyer lives like a gentleman farmer on 161 acres with a herd of burros.

He apparently was very successful.

His firm netted like millions of dollars every year.

He's got it made in the shade.

But he's not content to rat there.

He's got an itch to take on a really big case.

Defending cocaine kingpin...

Segundo Segura.

It's a very specialized area involving extradition law, the laws of

Colombia. He was way out of his depth.

It didn't appear that he knew exactly how this worked.

The assistant U .S. attorney prosecuting the Segura case, Ernest Gonzalez, says

he tries to warn Malaysia about the pitfalls of international drug cases.

For example, Any money a defense attorney accepts from clients has to be

It can't be from the proceeds of drug sales.

He kept indicating, I understand.

I'll comply with whatever. I understand what I'm getting into.

So we left it at that.

He's the dude. He is the DWI dude.

Furthermore, Segundo Segura is on the OFAC list, the Office of Foreign Assets

Control. It's a rogue gallery of enemies of the United States.

El Chapo, Guzman was put on that list.

Vladimir Putin was put on that list after, you know, the invasion of

They're cut off from the U .S. financial system.

Despite Gonzalez's warnings, Bellagio proceeds with the case, seemingly

convinced that his magic touch will work as well in international law as it does

in Texas.

But Bellagio cartel clients are not happy.

That's obvious to FBI Special Agent Rennie when he first looks at the

video. Mr. Bellagio in the video was not comfortable being there. You could just

see his mannerisms. I used the analogy, cat on a hot tin roof.

When he walked in the room, he was looking around.

At one point, he's looking at the camera.

Rennie is well aware of the absurdity of the situation.

Segundo Segura, one of the world's biggest criminals, setting up a sting as

though he's the Colombian equivalent of the FBI.

But it's clear that he had paid them for a service, and they had not provided

the service.

So Segundo was taking it into his own hands to historically record what had

occurred previously and then take them to task for things that hadn't been

and that was...

Clearly the purpose of the recording. And it was very well done.

But I think that's okay now. I think everything is going to be fine.

Using a translator, Segura is meeting with three people. His Colombian

Viviana Correa.

The go -between, the man with a foot in both North and South America, Chuck

Morgan. And his U .S. attorney, Malaysia.

The meeting starts.

Tell me what you've done with the money. Did you get the money?

She asked before, did you get the $1 .5 million, the first payment that they

made? Yes, everybody acknowledges this is how much we got. This is what we did

with it.

Yes, I got the payments every time that I was supposed to get them.

It seems all parties agree that the team of Valencia, Morgan, and Correa

received $1 .5 million on the promise to bribe U .S. officials and stop

Segura's extradition.

In a handwritten letter to American Greed, Bellagio says the promise of

was all Bibi Correa's idea, and he was blindsided.

When I heard bribery being mentioned in the meeting, I thought, what the heck is

this about?

Rennie doesn't buy it.

If he's sitting and Charles Morgan, Mr. Morgan says, I paid people in

Washington, D .C. with the money you gave me. If you're sitting there, you're

hearing that in English. He's sitting right next to him. Mr. Morgan makes

another comment.

It gets very, very messy, and you know that.

The lawyer has to stay very, very clean.

Mr. Bellagio says we have it arranged this way so I can close my ears if I

to, and it protects all of us. It gives me the ability to close my ears

sometimes if I need to, and it protects all

of us.

All of that leads to the fact that Mr. Belasia would not be making those

comments if he didn't, A, know what was going on, and B, know it was illegal.

But Rennie needs to know if Belasia and company followed through on their

promise. You know, is this, is there anything going on corruption -wise, or

it the opposite? Is it they're promising the world, that's the shtick, that's

what they're using to get the clients, and then they're just, it's just

essentially a fraud case, right? They're just lying to them.

Up next, follow the money, and the money will answer that question.

FBI Special Agent Jason Rennie is trying to solve a mystery.

Is Jamie Belasia actually a power broker with crooked judges in his pocket?

Rennie subpoenas Belasia's bank records and follows the money.

He sees suspicious activity in one of Belasia's personal bank accounts, an

account that had been dormant.

It didn't have any direct deposits going to it. I think it had a deposit every

so often, but it had some recurring, like, withdrawals, like a gym membership

and something else. But it was nothing.

Nothing until he signed on with the cartel, and then there's a massive

more than $400 ,000.

It was done in cash, and it was done at a very rapid rate.

The interesting thing was, none of the money that was deposited was deposited

the state of Texas.

It was deposited multiple states, I think up to nine states.

Many of the deposits are in New York City.

It's like somebody was walking down the street, they deposited some in this ATM.

Walked six blocks, another ATM.

Concurrent with that, there's a walk -in cash deposit in Florida or Connecticut

or Los Angeles.

So it's very clear that there was an organization that was just putting money

into this bank account.

Segunda Segura appears to be going to extraordinary lengths to make sure each

payment to Malaysia is under the $10 ,000 federal reporting limit.

Malaysia could have been paid legally.

if he had applied for an OFAC license like Ernest Gonzalez warned him.

But the dude did not abide.

And there were signs that Jamie Bellagio was in over his head.

In his letter to American Greed, Bellagio writes, What a dummy I was.

Once Bellagio received the money, where did it go?

Agent Rennie finds no evidence that judges, prosecutors, or DEA agents have

paid off.

The latest promises of campaign contributions and connections with

judges appear to have been a complete fabrication.

There was zero information, zero credibility to any of that.

This sort of shakedown actually... Turns out to be quite common in Colombia.

There are a lot of dirty lawyers there who take advantage of these guys because

they're sitting on millions of dollars and they're desperate.

The VLT cigars may have seen this as the cost of doing business. If it can get

me out of a jam like it does here in Colombia, why not let me try this?

It can be risky. In fact, some Colombian attorneys have paid with their lives.

But Malaysia may be whistling past the graveyard.

Because he's made a habit of screwing over people with far fewer resources.

Like Segundo Segura, Anthony Felting is desperate.

Unlike Segura, he's not sitting on millions.

He's already given Malaysia about $50 ,000 while Malaysia dangles the promise

avoiding jail.

But now, Felting is out of money.

One afternoon, Belasia suggests they go out to lunch.

After plowing through his enchiladas, Felsing says Belasia lowers the boom.

I got some bad news for you. I'm like, what?

He said, well, I'm not going to be able to get you to deal with Jack, so you

probably just need to go ahead and take the 12 -year offer.

And I think that I was in shock because I just remember my whole body just

getting cold and went numb.

because I was like, I'm going back to prison.

I've just given this guy all this money, done everything he's asked me to do,

and I'm going back to prison.

I mean, the first thing I think of was my kids.

Like, what about my kids, you know?

And I'll never forget it. I was just numb.

I was just sitting there and he just got up and left and just threw the check at

me and said, why don't you take care of my bill for lunch?

The last time I saw him until the day I testified against him in court.

You know, you pick your victims, right? It's predatory.

These are people that are, you know, if they do say anything.

It can easily be swept away, but how do you believe them? They're bad people.

They're not like me.

Sold Mr. Felsing a bill of goods. He lied and took his money.

He sold Segundo a bill of goods. He lied to them and took their money. It's the

same thing.

Really believes the only difference is the number of zeros in Malaysia's

paycheck.

Ultimately, I think it was just greed. I think it was, I can make a lot of money

in a short period of time for doing little or no work.

The feds still want to strengthen their case and catch Malaysia in the act on U

.S. soil.

That video and all that's great, but the issue for us is that video and those

statements occurred in a foreign country.

Agent Rennie wants to set up his own hidden camera.

Up next, Malaysia walks into a trap right here in the Lone Star State.

I can twist it however I want.

The

undercover

video from Bogota is telling.

But Agent Rennie wants to see if Jamie Bellagio will commit a crime on U .S.

soil. He's got a plan.

And he's in luck.

We might have something here. We have somebody that's sitting in our district

right now.

Segunda Segura's brother, Aldemar, is in a jail near Dallas.

When Segunda was arrested in Bogota, Aldemar happened to be in Miami.

He was arrested and brought to Texas.

Rennie meets with Aldemar, who agrees to pretend that he wants to bribe U .S.

judges, too.

He gets on a jail phone and dials the dude.

He made the call, and if they could have jumped on a jet, they couldn't get here

quick enough.

Rennie quickly enlists a fellow FBI agent to go undercover, acting as the

cartel's accountant.

He asks Valasia, seated at the far end of the table next to his paralegal, and

Chuck Morgan, on the right, what the cartel will get for $1 .2 million.

Morgan responds that he'll take Washington officials out for a sundae.

Maybe an extra scoop of ice cream on a sundae.

Balazs' answer to the what -will -we -get question is a little more subtle

scoops of ice cream.

I can twist the government's arm a little bit. It goes like that.

Well,

yeah, to make him to back off would be nice.

We need him to hear something that is either going to make him say, I don't

what you're talking about. I'm out of here.

Or if he hears it and he stays, then we know, okay.

He has knowledge and intent, right?

Agent Rennie says Belasia clearly breaks the law when the undercover flashes a

bright neon sign about where her money comes from.

The money that you're going to receive is the proceeds of narcotics

Are you okay with that? And Mr. Belasia says, that's okay.

I have paperwork I have to fill out. That's on me. No problem.

And we just want to make sure that you guys are not in trouble again.

Malaysia does not have a license to represent international

drug dealers, but even if he did, he still can't accept the money that he

is derived directly from drug dealing.

But when I told the prosecutor, she said, okay, well, if he didn't get up

run out of the room after that, we've got what we need.

Meetings are set up in parking lots.

The FBI undercover gives Chuck Morgan $300 ,000 in a bag.

That's all the feds need. Chuck Morgan and Jamie Bellagio are arrested.

Though it's been decades, this is the second time Bellagio's gotten in trouble

involving cocaine.

And this time around, it's a whole different ballgame.

Up next, take a plea deal or go to trial?

Trials are very rare because the government's conviction rate is

high. The dude knows all the angles and seems to think it's all going to bounce

his way.

Chuck Morgan and Bibiana Correa plead guilty to federal charges, including

laundering and obstruction of justice.

That leaves federal court reporter Kevin Krause wondering, will their alleged co

-conspirator Jamie Valeja take a deal too?

Roughly 97 % of federal cases end in plea deal.

Trials are very rare, and there's a reason. And that is because the

conviction rate is incredibly high.

But Valencia believes he's going to beat the odds.

We like to tell people when you get pulled over by the police, it's best to

what to do at that point.

He knew how to talk to a jury. He knew how to, you know, create doubt in their

minds. And he had a huge ego. You can't make a smarter decision than to call my

office.

At one level, the trial seems to answer.

Who is Jamie Bellagio?

Criminal mastermind?

I can twist the government's law a little bit.

Or fool.

You'll never get to jail that way.

His defense attorneys in trial described him, I think, as a hillbilly and

driving a Scooby -Doo van. You do kind of think, well, maybe he

just didn't know what he was doing and was moving too fast and not thinking.

Possible?

you put the puzzle pieces together and it's less possible.

Any white -collar crime case is about following the money. In addition to the

cash deposits made by many people all over the country, Malaysia admits on the

stand that he or his employees did at least four cash pickups in parking lots

near Houston, totaling over $200 ,000.

The prosecutor says Valasia knew this was drug money, and he wasn't authorized

to represent drug kingpins.

And what's more, the government takes a dim view of lawyers suggesting American

courts are for sale.

We have a real problem with that.

I wasn't corruptible, the judge wasn't corruptible, and the agent wasn't

corruptible, and it just wasn't going to happen. That in that way, man, cheapens

the profession.

Ernest Gonzalez's case was all about cooperation.

Striking deals, moving up the ladder.

Even the big fish, Segundo Segura, was cooperating. Until he suddenly went

after hearing the promises of Malaysia.

He obstructed justice.

His greed denied us the opportunity to advance our investigation. So we weren't

able to stop those shipments of cocaine. We weren't able to stop those acts of

violence. So who is Malaysia?

A champion of the downtrodden?

If you really knew him and he knew the heart that he had, it's hard to believe

that what they're saying that he did, he did knowingly.

Or a cynic who pimps justice and exploits his clients.

Agent Rennie, who was in the courtroom, points to one turning point when Anthony

Felsing takes the stand.

And I'm going back to prison.

And this is a rugged guy, you know, and he was like driven to tears just talking

about it.

And I'll never forget.

I mean, the first thing I think of was my kids.

And he goes, at that moment, he takes the check and he tosses it at me and he

goes, and take care of that check while you're at it.

And he walks out.

And I'm sitting and I kind of turn and look at the jury.

You can feel the tide turn.

After deliberating for a day and a half, the jury comes back.

Guilty on five counts in the Seguro case, including money laundering,

obstruction, and violating the Kingpin Act.

Malaysia writes to American Greed, I might have been distracted by the

for huge future fees in other Columbia cases, but I did not intentionally

the crimes I was found guilty of.

Viviana Correa, who pleads guilty, is sentenced to seven years in prison.

Chuck Morgan, now suffering from Alzheimer's, gets six years.

Jamie Bellagio gets just under 16 years in Big Spring Prison in West Texas.

This is what defense attorneys call the trial penalty. Had he decided to plead

guilty, he probably would have gotten less.

But he rolled the dice, and yeah, it's a significant sentence.

For at least 16 years, fans of campy lawyer ads will have to wait.

Go with the winning team.

There will be no more YouTube videos.

Schedule a free appointment to come in and see me. No more driving the RV

Austin. No more runs for Attorney General.

But maybe Malaysia is fortunate that Segundo Segura called the cops.

You cannot scam the cartel without them finding out. And he's probably lucky

that the feds got him before somebody else got him.