Jason Puracal: The man in the Nicaraguan prison
Brandi Kruse, 97.3 KIRO FM Reporter
Since his arrest on November 11, 2010, and subsequent conviction, a lot of words have been used to describe Jason Puracal.
Tacoma native. University of Washington graduate. Peace Corp volunteer. Husband. Father. Drug trafficker. Money launderer.
His entire life has been boiled down to the occasional headline. But now, a year into his ordeal, we get a better picture of the man who claims he has been wrongly condemned to 22 years in a Nicaraguan prison.
At her home in Ballard, Janis Puracal runs upstairs to fetch a box. "Daddy's Memory Box," it's labeled. The 32-year-old Seattle attorney sets it on an ottoman in the living room, sits down next to her younger sister Jaime, and opens it up. The box is filled with photos, report cards, and the occasional newspaper clipping. The mementos belonged to their late father, John Puracal, who passed away in 2008 from congestive heart failure. It seems he had cherished every scrap of paper his children had ever given him.
Janis pulls out a birthday card their brother Jason had sent to their father years earlier. The golden-colored envelope reads "To My Younger Brother." The girls chuckle at Jason's humor before reading the card aloud.
"Dad, thanks for everything. I don't ever tell you how much I appreciate everything you do for me but you know I do," he wrote. "Thanks for being such a great father. Your favorite son, Jason."
The girls read another.
"To the greatest father in the world," Jason wrote on the envelope of another birthday card. "Although he may not be the best husband."
"This was obviously after the divorce," Janis said with a laugh.
Jason Puracal was born in 1977 in Evanston, Ill. Janis would come along two years later, and in 1980 the family would move to Tacoma where younger sister Jaime was born. The three are East Indian. Their father was from Malaysia and their mother, Daisy, from Singapore.
The girls were extremely close to their brother, who is the oldest of the three. They describe him as funny, caring and incredibly smart.
"Out of the three of us I think he's always been the one who had the most vision and the most creativity," Janis said. She pulls out one of Jason's report cards: "Straight A's."
But when Jason was 15 and a student at Tacoma's Foss High School, their parents divorced and their father moved back to Malaysia. The event had a particularly potent impact on Jason.
"After the divorce, he struggled so much," Janis said. "He was just dealing with so much stuff on his own. That was his buddy and it was very hard for him to be without his dad during those teenage years."
Jason began to struggle in school, and the once dedicated and caring brother had trouble taking responsibility for his sisters in his father's absence. "I was in high school with him at the time, so I saw him every day," Janis said. "He would check up on me, but I think it was hard for him to deal with his own emotions and still be responsible for me."
By 17, Jason moved out of the house to live with a friend. He would call to check in on the girls periodically, but had "disappeared to find his own way," Jaime said.
But, unlike some teenage boys who try to "find their own way," Jason emerged from the period after his parent's divorce as a more dedicated brother and student. He took up a dual major at the University of Washington, studying Zoology and Economics. At one point, the three siblings lived together in a small apartment in Seattle's University District. The girls describe those times as some of the best of their lives.
"I think because of the divorce, the three of us bonded together. He was so devoted to us and making sure that we were OK," Janis said. "Jason had grown up quite a bit and he was sure at that point of what he wanted to do and of his responsibilities."
Jason had decided that he wanted to be a veterinarian. During college, he worked at two to three vet clinics at a time and was particularly interested in exotic animals. One photo shows Jason at a clinic standing next to massive tiger that is being tended to on an operating table.
"I really like this picture," said Jason's college friend, Mark Ottele. It was one of only eight he pulled out to reflect on his memories of their friendship. Mark particularly liked the fact that Jason was dressed in leopard-print scrubs. "You can tell he loves big cats, it was one of his passions."
Mark and Jason had met while living in the dorms freshman year. "I just enjoyed being around him," Mark said. "He was one of those genuine people, very authentic and unique. One thing I always really appreciated about Jason was his laugh. He's one of those guys who can [...] start laughing and get the whole room to laugh along."
Every time the two would go out together, without fail, Jason had to make a stop first. He would run into a convenience store and buy a bag of sour apple suckers, the ones with the sticky caramel coating.
"We'd go to someone's apartment or dorm room where there is a bunch of people that we may or may not know, and he'd go around and start handing them out," Mark said. "That's how he introduced himself. I always thought that was cool."
Mark has a lot of fond memories of his friend Jason.
"I remember how much fun we had going on these trips, how much we looked forward to it," Mark said as he studied a photo of a 1999 ski trip to Stevens Pass. "I look forward to the day I can do this again with Jason and I'm sure he would say the same thing. I miss those times."
Long before Mark lost his friend to a Nicaraguan prison, he lost him to the Peace Corps and an exciting new opportunity. When Jason joined the volunteer organization after graduation in 2002, Mark "thought he was crazy," but was in no way surprised. "He wanted to help the world and do things bigger and better; beyond him. He's one of those guys that actually would do it, too. He's not the guy that just talked about it."
Jason was sent to Nicaragua. He would send emails home to friends and family every month or so. He wrote about how much he loved the "tropical paradise" and "sense of family" in the Central American country. It was no surprise that Jason decided to stay.
He started to build a new life in the seaside village of San Juan del Sur. One day, he walked into a RE/MAX real estate franchise and told the owner he wanted to buy and sell properties. The man agreed to bring Jason aboard, but started him off without pay.
"He wasn't making any money at all," his sister Janis said. "He was learning how to sell properties, learning about the country and learning about the real estate business in San Juan del Sur."
Jason was broke. His sisters sent him whatever money they could "so he could afford ketchup and crackers for dinner."
But Jason was a quick learner. Before long he was making sales and, according to his sisters, "was doing very, very well."
"He was sending money home to us," Janis said. "He would come back up and give us like $500 each and say, 'Go shopping.'" Jason moved into a beautiful home with a 360-degree view of the bay. He drove a "decent-looking car" and worked in one of town's nicest office buildings.
He had met a beautiful Nicaraguan woman named Scarleth at an auto-parts store in the capital city of Managua. Almost immediately, the two fell in love, had a child and got married. For Jason, it was the family life he had always wanted.
"He's always told me that all he's ever wanted to be was a husband and a father," Janis said. "We had the most amazing father in the world and Jason wanted to have the same relationship with his kids."
But his parents' divorce still had a clear effect on him. Janis said Jason was determined to do whatever it took to provide for his family and keep them together. Which is why, when his son Jabu was born with Down syndrome, Jason came back to his sisters for money. The real estate market had slowed to a crawl and his son's behavioral therapy was too expensive. His wife had become accustomed to nice things, said a family friend, and his life in paradise was threatened.
But would Jason ever turn to illicit activities to keep his family from falling apart?
The Nicaraguan National Police believe he started laundering drug money through his real estate office. They launched an investigation and arrested Puracal, along with 10 others who they say took part in an operation to bring cocaine up from Costa Rica.
As for evidence, there is very little that implicates him.
There were no drugs seized, with the exception of cocaine residue the prosecution said was found on the steering wheel of his car. There is no proof that Jason had any contact with the other 10 defendants in the case. His bank records indicate nothing but a "legitimate real estate business," according to former FBI agent Steve Moore, who said he went through every paragraph of the prosecution's case, "waiting for them to tell me why money in his account was evidence of a crime."
U.S. Congressman Adam Smith called his trial "anything but fair" and his conviction in August an "injustice." A document from the Nicaraguan Supreme Court indicates that the trial judge "is not a registered attorney" and therefore was not qualified to be a judge.
For his friends and family, it is almost unfathomable that the Jason they know has sat in a Nicaraguan prison for the past year. His sisters have exhausted their savings accounts, sold off property and borrowed money from friends to keep his defense going.
"You spend five minutes with him and you get to see the real Jason and his personality and his charisma," said his sister Jaime. "That's what draws people in and that's why he has so many loyal friends that are with us fighting right now."
They're fighting because they believe Jason is innocent. To them, he is much more than a Tacoma man in a Nicaraguan prison.
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