Torres and Vignali also had other ties. Public records show they used the same lawyers for many of their joint and separate business dealings and in civil lawsuits. A 1997 state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement report noted that Torres continued to pay utilities on a penthouse near downtown after Vignali had bought it from him.
In addition, a 1993 DEA report obtained by The Times quoted an informant who said Torres and Vignali traveled together to Las Vegas, where they were big gamblers. Law enforcement officials later subpoenaed casino records on Torres, which disclosed that in 1998 he held a credit line of more than half a million dollars at one establishment.
Horacio Vignali has said he came to the United State with his father from Argentina in 1962 and set up an auto repair business that flourished on Figueroa Street in downtown Los Angeles. He was paid $5 million in public funds when the city acquired some of his downtown property by eminent domain to make way for the expansion of the Convention Center in the late 1980s.
Vignali tried in the early 1990s to develop a hotel-casino and sports arena near where the Staples Center was later built.
Vignali also made a name for himself as a politician's friend.
He stepped up efforts to court local officials after his son was convicted in 1994, writing $160,000 in his own checks to candidates and hosting fund-raising events at his auto body shop. He became well known for putting on an apron to work the elaborate barbecue grill he often towed to campaign fund-raisers.
The gregarious 56-year-old was active in Latino politics and was seen as an informal mediator of disputes among elected officials. He was one of Baca's early financial supporters, giving $11,000 personally and raising tens of thousands of dollars more for the sheriff's campaign.
During a campaign that stretched over several years, Vignali also persuaded other Los Angeles officials to write letters or make phone calls to the White House on behalf of his son.
Carlos Vignali, now 30, had been captured on wiretap recordings talking in what jurors agreed was coded language, while supplying between 5 and 15 kilos to the Minnesota ring.
Horacio Vignali's pitch to supporters was simple. He said his son was wrongly convicted, that all Carlos did was lend money to a friend. The wiretaps captured conversations about the loan, he said, that were misinterpreted by prosecutors and jurors.
