Kingpin

Re "Drug Web Reportedly Spun in Cell," Sept. 13 How is it that a kingpin of the 18th Street gang in Los Angeles, Ruben "Nite Owl" Castro -- who is being held at Colorado's "Supermax" federal prison -- is allowed not only to have personal contacts but to send and receive correspondence? This applies to Aryan Nation gang members as well. Castro should not only be kept isolated from the world but should be forced to pay for the rehabilitation of drug addicts nationwide. Also, Aryan Nation gang members should be forced to teach racial tolerance.

Jurors deadlocked Friday on whether two kingpins of the Aryan Brotherhood prison gang who orchestrated a decades-long reign of murder from their cellblocks should be executed. As a result, Barry "The Baron" Mills, 58, and Tyler "The Hulk" Bingham, 59, will live out their final years where they have spent most of their adult lives and where their names already carry near-mythic weight: behind bars.

A court-appointed attorney for an accused kingpin of one of Mexico's most notorious drug cartels said Monday that he would not seek bail. Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, 36, has pleaded not guilty to racketeering, racketeering conspiracy, conspiracy to import and distribute controlled substances and money laundering. "Even if he were granted bail he'd be held by the immigration authorities," said Arellano Felix's lawyer, David Bartick.

Authorities knew the alleged Mexican drug kingpin didn't like to give up without a fight. In 1994, when police tried to arrest Francisco Javier Arellano Felix in Tijuana, a federal police commander and four other people died in a shootout that led to his escape. So on Tuesday, as a U.S. Coast Guard vessel edged up to a fishing boat off the coast of Baja California, about 30 heavily armed Coast Guardsmen prepared for a potentially bloody encounter.

Law enforcement authorities from several countries broke up what they say was one of the world's biggest cocaine smuggling operations, responsible for as much as 10% of the Colombian contraband smuggled into the United States and Europe. A prime target of the multi-pronged raid was alleged kingpin Pablo Rayo Montano, who the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration said ran an operation so extensive that it was "almost as sophisticated as a small nation" and used its own rogue navy.

CNBC says the talk show "Conversations With Michael Eisner," premiering tonight at 6, will run "bimonthly," which makes it sound like a corporate newsletter or a think tank's glossy. Certainly the first episode feels mogul-wonky (what, you expected an opening monologue and Michael Ovitz's straw hat band?

A San Diego judge has reduced the prison sentence for "Freeway" Ricky Ross, the notorious South Los Angeles crack kingpin who ruled the trade in the 1990s, from 20 to 16 1/2 years. Ross was convicted in 1996 of conspiring to buy more than 100 kilograms of cocaine from a police informant and, based on two prior drug convictions in Texas and Ohio, sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

Re "Miers Backed Abortion Ban in 1989 Survey," Oct. 19 At what point did abortion become the kingpin of American liberties, that freedom by which we measure the effectiveness of all things judicial in this country? The media's obsessive appetite for U.S. Supreme Court nominee Harriet E. Miers' position on abortion rights is just plain weird and unnatural. In case you haven't noticed, the American public has a few other things on its mind. PEGGY NORMANDIN Costa Mesa

Mexican authorities said Monday that they thought they had arrested the leader of the Juarez drug cartel, but later said tests showed it was a case of mistaken identity. The determination that the detained man was not Vicente Carrillo Fuentes dashed hopes of a rare instance of good news for Mexico's anti-narcotics forces amid an upsurge of violence. It was also the second high-profile error in the last two weeks.

Question: Four kingpin directors dominated our association for 22 years. Until their deaths, not one owner stood up to them or questioned their actions, including me. A director's wife wanted a new garage door and brick patio, so the board passed resolutions that everybody needed new doors and patios. They made owners pay full price for purchases that directors got free. Several large, back-to-back special assessments and fee increases paid for inferior materials and cheap labor.