A swarm of nearly a dozen officers crouched strategically at exit points around the luxury four-bedroom house in the gated Briar Bay community, making sure no one inside could escape.

They held their posts, waiting for some sign of movement as a Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office loudspeaker system outside the house announced the end to Danny Varela’s drug enterprise.

“It basically said we were the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office, we had a warrant to search the house and requested that the people inside would exit the house,” sheriff’s Detective Sgt. Daniel Burrows told jurors last week in a drug conspiracy trial against Varela and three others.

Prosecutors say Varela’s drug business at its height had him distributing multiple kilograms of cocaine weekly.

Family slain

Jose and Yessica Escobedo with sons Luis Julian (left) and Luis Damian (right). Husband, wife and two children from Greenacres found shot to death off Florida’s Turnpike in northern Port St. Lucie. More news, photos

It was this business that led to the Oct. 13, 2006, deaths of Jose Luis Escobedo and his family along Florida’s Turnpike and brought a multiple-agency task force to Varela’s home at 6458 Garden Court less than two weeks later.

Burrows and the others chose not to storm into the house because they believed Varela and his housemates - girlfriend Liana Lee Lopez, cousin Ricardo Sanchez and friends Daniel Troya and Juan Gutierrez - had automatic weapons with enough power to pierce bulletproof vests. Snipers stationed around the perimeter said the drawn blinds prevented them from getting a look inside.

Those minutes marked what may be the last moments of freedom for most in Varela’s group. Troya and Sanchez, who are suspected of killing Escobedo, his wife and their two young sons, could face the death penalty if the jury now hearing their case votes to convict them. Varela could face up to life in prison if convicted of being the mastermind behind the drug operation, though he is not charged in the deaths.

Informants slated to testify in the case this week will likely paint a picture of Varela as a drug boss who has distributed large amounts of cocaine going back to early 2004, shortly after records show he was released from prison after serving more than two years of a three-year sentence for drug convictions in Palm Beach and Broward counties.

One man, Malik Mullino, told investigators he bought between 50 and 70 kilograms of cocaine (110 to 155 pounds) from Varela between March 2004 and spring 2005, when Varela introduced Mullino to another distributor.

In the summer of 2006, Varela’s friends said he started introducing them to a new friend, a guy from Texas they all came to know as “Lou.” Each later identified the man as Escobedo, who prosecutors say helped Varela get drugs to Florida from Mexico through the border town of Brownsville, Texas, where Escobedo had lived until he moved his family to Greenacres.

Last week, Escobedo’s cousin Crystal Salazar told jurors she met Danny Varela when he visited Brownsville with Escobedo. She later spent a week with the Escobedos during the summer of 2006, when she says they took her to Varela’s former home, a duplex she knew only as “The Plaza.” Varela was in the hospital at the time, recovering from a blood clot in his brain.

Salazar said she met Lopez and Sanchez there and saw Sanchez and another man counting large amounts of money. She said she later saw handguns on a bed upstairs, so many that she refused to stay there when Escobedo asked her to watch his two children while he, his wife, Yessica, Sanchez and others went out.

Investigators who raided the Garden Court home described a similar trove of weapons, but said the arsenal also included high-powered shotguns and rifles.

Aside from the guns, investigators said Varela also surrounded himself with the trappings of wealth - the house in Briar Bay, a silver Mercedes he and alibi witness David Doran drove in on the night of the murders, and a black Jaguar.

Varela also owned a burgundy conversion van linked to the murders.

After the Escobedo murders, Mullino agreed to work for investigators against Varela, getting Varela to sell him a kilogram brick of cocaine and unwittingly accept $9,500 in government-provided buy money as partial payment.

Days after the transaction, Varela’s house was raided.

Burrows said the five were in the house for at least five minutes after the initial announcement before the first person emerged. By the end of the raid, Varela, Sanchez, Troya and another man, Juan Gutierrez, were in custody. Lopez was released but arrested the next day.

With the guns, drugs and money investigators say they found inside the house was a picture of Varela from his prison days.

A caption on the picture read: “Loved by few, hated by many.”

Tags: Escobedo, turnpike escobedo

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