Out of Jail and into Trouble

De Lorean makes bail, but is charged with a drug deal

After his luck ran out so abruptly in a bugged hotel room, John De Lorean had ten days and nights in jail to contemplate the wreckage of his life. Then at the end of last week, all in a few hours' time, he was the center of frantic activity. A federal grand jury in Los Angeles formally charged the automobile tycoon (and two alleged accomplices) with conspiracy to possess and distribute cocaine. De Lorean's bail was doubled, to $10 million. But then, for the prisoner, some good news at last: Assistant U.S. Attorney James Walsh agreed to accept as bail $250,000 cash and title to De Lorean's $5 million estate in California, another in New Jersey worth $3.5 million and a spacious New York City apartment worth upwards of $1 million.

Finally, just after 6 p.m. Friday, De Lorean walked out of Terminal Island Federal Correctional Institution in Los Angeles and into a perfectly sleek black Jaguar with his wife Cristina and his pal Roy Nesseth. And then, punctuation for one chapter in a tale that has seemed like implausible fiction from the start: their Jaguar, with Nesseth driving, was hit by a Cadillac, which was in turn struck by a CBS News crew's car. No one was hurt.

De Lorean's trial should begin by the end of the year. Guilty verdicts could mean a prison sentence of 15 years or longer. His alleged coconspirators, Aviation Businessman William Morgan Hetrick and Stephen Arrington, remain on Terminal Island, unable to raise bail of $20 million and $250,000 respectively.

When the three were arrested two weeks ago, federal officials said that the key to their case was an unnamed "cooperating individual" who introduced De Lorean to Hetrick. The C.I. was identified last week by an anonymous caller as James Timothy Hoffman, 41, who lived not far from De Lorean's 48-acre spread northeast of San Diego. Hoffman and several other men were arrested last year and charged with conspiring to import cocaine. A Government informant had been part of that group. Hoffman, married and a father, confessed and agreed to become an informant in return for probation. His main handler: DEA Agent John Valestra. The Government claims De Lorean approached Hoffman last July, seeking quick cash from a drug deal. It was finally Agent Valestra who, posing as a drug financier, helped set up the arrest of De Lorean.

The final fate of De Lorean Motor Co., which made its sports cars at a plant in Northern Ireland, remains in doubt. De Lorean allegedly engineered the cocaine deal to save the company from financial collapse. Last week DMC lawyers in Michigan filed for reorganization under Chapter 11 of the bankruptcy laws to protect the company's major U.S. assets--650 cars worth $ 13 million or so--from an onslaught of perhaps 700 creditors. At week's end an Ohio-based company, Consolidated International Inc., reached agreement with British officials to buy some 1,000 unsold cars in Ulster for about $15 million, and secured an option to purchase the $75 million DMC facility near Belfast. There, at least, De Lorean's stainless-steel dream remains an object of pride: last week one of the cars was put on display in the Ulster Folk Museum.

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