Wharton drug dealer to be resentenced

A former Wharton student serving a 17-year jail term for drug trafficking could be released from prison later this month when a federal judge reconsiders his sentence. Alexander Moskovits was convicted on 18 federal drug counts in 1988 for overseeing the trafficking of 10 kilograms of high-quality cocaine over a four-year period while he was an undergraduate at the University. But U.S. District Court Judge Louis Pollak vacated Moskovits's sentence last month because a previous conviction in Mexico was illegally considered during his sentencing. "The judge ruled that the Mexican proceeding lacked fundamental fairness in that he was not represented by counsel at a crucial stage of the proceeding," Moskovits's lawyer, prominent civil-liberties attorney William Kunstler, said Tuesday. Because of the Mexican conviction, Moskovits was originally sentenced by Pollak as a second-time offender. At his original sentencing on September 7, 1988, the prosecution continually stressed his previous conviction, stating it was a reason to substantially lengthen his prison term. "He didn't learn his lesson," Assistant U.S. Attorney Kristin Hayes said at the hearing. And Pollak, in handing down the sentence, said that the Mexican conviction weighed heavily on his decision. "In some respects, Mr. Moskovits's offenses are more egregious as he . . . has already been convicted of a crime," Pollak said. Kunstler said that as a first-time offender, Moskovits will probably get his prison term reduced to either seven or 12 years at the September 24 hearing. And Moskovits, in a telephone interview from the Philadelphia Detention Center, said that if his sentence is reduced to seven years, he is likely to be released because he has already served three-and-a-half years and has been awarded substantial extra time served for good behavior. "With the good-time allocation, I've almost served a seven year sentence," Moskovits said last week. "Even if he knocks it down to six or seven years, I'm home." Moskovits, who was born in Brazil, said he was awarded extra time for translating records from Spanish into English for the government. "He has saved thousands of dollars for the prison system," Kunstler said. "He has has an exemplary prison record." Prosecuter Hayes did not return telephone messages left at her office yesterday. Moskovits's 1988 conviction carried with it a mandatory sentence of five years, which was doubled to 10 years because he was a second-time offender. Another seven-year term was added to the mandatory sentence by Pollak. Kunstler said the judge will pare the 10-year term back to five years, and added that he will ask Pollak to allow Moskovits to serve the additional seven years concurrently. But Moskovits said he hopes Pollak will throw out the seven-year term altogether. He claimed that the additional seven years were added largely because he was a second-time offender. Moskovits said last semester he raised the issue of the illegal procedures at the Mexican hearing with his old lawyer, Robert Simeone, during the original sentencing, but said that Simeone "just let it slip in." Moskovits was arrested in the summer of 1987 after 4.4 kilograms of cocaine found in a Williams Hall mail room were linked to him. During his trial, he was also linked to multi-kilogram shipments to Psi Upsilon fraternity, which used to be located in the Castle, and to the Quadrangle mail room. At a bail hearing in 1987, his ex-girlfriend testified the Wharton student once riddled a warehouse with a machine gun and told her that he would kill anyone who testified against him.

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