Indicting a Benefactor

For nearly a decade, Joseph Diego Ramirez, 37, has ranked as one of the softest touches in Princeton, Minn. (est. pop. 3,200). He contributed a reported $10,000 to landscape city hall with new lawns and tropical palms, leased two Volkswagen Rabbits to the police force for $1 a year, lent a local group $500,000, interest free, to help build a hockey arena, and spent another half a million dollars to lengthen the runway of the municipal airport. Then, in a sharp turn of events, Ramirez presented himself two weeks ago at the nearby St. Paul jail in response to a grand jury indictment charging him with cocaine smuggling and tax evasion. Last week Ramirez, who says he is in the air-charter business, pleaded not guilty and was released on $200,000 bond--the required 10% of which was raised by a number of townspeople. The indictment alleged that one of Ramirez's planes was found abandoned on Grand Bahama Island last year with 397 Ibs. of cocaine on board (street value: approximately $90 million).

Ramirez, who has lived in Princeton since 1975, drew support from 75 local residents who offered to be character witnesses for him. "It's hard to imagine he would do anything illegal. He was always so visible and ostentatiously generous," said one citizen. "He's been the talk of the town."