The government has dropped all conspiracy and money-laundering charges against Miami defense attorney Benedict Kuehne.

Kuehne was indicted two years ago for writing letters to another attorney, Roy Black, saying Black’s fees from a convicted Colombian drug trafficker were clean money. The government alleges Kuehne knew the money was dirty.

But the U.S. Department of Justice entered an order Wednesday dismissing the case.

The order refers to the fact that count one of the third amended indictment had been dismissed already.

Kuehne enjoyed support from much of the legal community during his legal fight. In a prepared statement Wednesday, he thanked the DOJ for withdrawing the case.

“I want to, once again, thank the many members of our community who have, over the past two years, so consistently expressed their confidence in my innocence,” Kuehne said in the press release.

Kuehne originally was charged with money-laundering conspiracy and concealment in connection with the legal defense of convicted Colombian drug trafficker Fabio Ochoa Vasquez.

In December 2002, Ochoa Vasquez’ s criminal defense team hired Kuehne to conduct an independent investigation into the source of funds used to pay for millions of dollars in legal fees. Kuehne wrote six letters to the defense team and Black, saying he had conducted a thorough investigation. But the government charges that Kuehne “knew that the funds used by Vasquez Ochoa consisted of, or at least were commingled with, proceeds of drug trafficking.”

Click here to read the dismissal order.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 11:43 pm and is filed under Driving Under the Influence. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.