Jorge Ochoa

On a recent summer evening, there were only two empty folding chairs left at a packed meeting of the Culver City Garden Club. The crowd was there to hear member Jorge Ochoa talk about passion flowers, those amazingly complicated, almost-hypnotic blooms that fascinate gardeners and non-gardeners alike. "No one knows the Passiflora like Jorge," said one member. Compared with ordinary flowers like daisies, passion flowers look as if they're from another planet, or an alternate dimension.

On a recent summer evening, there were only two empty folding chairs left at a packed meeting of the Culver City Garden Club. The crowd was there to hear member Jorge Ochoa talk about passion flowers, those amazingly complicated, almost-hypnotic blooms that fascinate gardeners and non-gardeners alike. "No one knows the Passiflora like Jorge," said one member. Compared with ordinary flowers like daisies, passion flowers look as if they're from another planet, or an alternate dimension.

You have written an article telling lies about our school. Based on what you have written, people who don't know what the real Jefferson High is like now think of us as dirt. We don't have fistfights every day. Students here are interested in their education and are here to study. Sure, there are occasional disagreements. That is also true in some of the best private and public schools. You do not have the right to stereotype our school based on what a few students have done. JORGE OCHOA

U.S. narcotics agents and their families worldwide were put on alert today to prevent any retaliatory attacks from Colombian drug traffickers for the arrest of a leading cartel member, the head of the Drug Enforcement Administration said. DEA chief John Lawn also said the extradition of accused drug kingpin Carlos Enrique Lehder Rivas will not "minimize the trafficking of cocaine in the United States . . . because the cartel continues to operate."

President Virgilio Barco said today accused cocaine lord Jorge Ochoa Vasquez will serve 20 months in prison in Colombia for illegally importing bulls and will not be extradited to the United States to face drug charges. Barco said on national television that Colombian laws do not allow the government to grant a request to extradite Ochoa to the United States.

A Colombian appeals court fired the judge who freed an alleged cocaine baron the United States has been trying to extradite. The federal superior court in Bogota said it had acted against Andres Montanez, a criminal court judge who signed the order Dec. 31 releasing Jorge Luis Ochoa Vasquez from a prison in Bogota. Ochoa was serving a 20-month sentence for illegal importation of fighting bulls. U.S. officials want him for trial on drug smuggling charges.

A judge who illegally released a reputed leader of the Medellin drug cartel has been sentenced to six years in prison for obstruction of justice, a federal court said Tuesday. Fabio Pastrana Hoyos was fired from his post as a customs judge in the Caribbean coastal city of Cartagena after his 1986 order freeing Jorge Luis Ochoa Vasquez, considered the second in command of the drug-trafficking cartel.