The United States Attorney's Office for the Northern District of California announced today that Howard Michael Vogel was sentenced on April 6, 2004, to eight years and four months in prison for conspiracy to launder monetary instruments and laundering monetary instruments.  The sentence was handed down by U.S. District Court Judge Vaughn R. Walker following a jury trial on 15 counts in violation of 18 U.S.C. § 1956(h), conspiracy to launder monetary instruments; 18 U.S.C. § 1956(a)(2)(B)(i), laundering of funds from a place outside the United States to a place inside the United States; and 18 U.S.C. § 982, criminal forfeiture.

Mr. Vogel, 56 of Mill Valley, California, was indicted by a federal grand jury on May 28, 1998.  He was charged with participating in a multinational drug money laundering scheme spanning the countries of Australia, the United Arab Emirates, Switzerland, Austria, Liechtenstein, Canada and the United States.

Mr. Vogel, while acting with his co-conspirator Steven Ableman of San Rafael, California, engaged in a series of complex financial transactions where Mr. Ableman assisted Mr. Vogel in providing capital, in the form of drug proceeds, for real estate deals and in marketing and selling alleged law enforcement intelligence to other drug traffickers.  Mr. Vogel is a graduate of University of California at Berkeley, Boalt Hall School of Law, who was suspended from the Florida Bar following his federal drug trafficking conviction in 1982.  Mr. Vogel utilized the accounts of other professionals, including an attorney, a financial planner and a physician, as pass- though accounts in structuring transfers of drug proceeds from overseas accounts into the United States, ultimately for Vogel's personal benefit.

Judge Walker sentenced the defendant to eight years and four months in federal prison, a fine of $15,000, as well as a three year period of supervised release.  Judge Walker also ordered that the defendant forfeit $450,000 to the United States.  The defendant will begin serving the sentence following his anticipated appeal.

The prosecution was the result of a five-year investigation by special agents of the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Internal Revenue Service and the Australian Federal Police.

All press inquiries to the U.S. Attorney's Office should be directed to Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew J. Jacobs at (415) 436-7181.