International Man of Mystery

As he pantomimes the gruesome action, Wilson is smiling broadly.

Brought to Ground

"That's a great story," says Larry Barcella when he hears that tale recounted.

Barcella, a former federal prosecutor, is the man most responsible for putting Wilson in prison. He likes Wilson's barroom suicide tale but he doesn't believe it. He doesn't believe a lot of what Wilson says.

"His story is getting better with age," says Barcella, now in private practice in Washington. "He's like a herpes sore -- he just keeps coming back. God, when did I first come across Ed?"

It was in 1977, when tales of Wilson's adventures in Libya began to surface. Kevin Mulcahy, a former CIA man recruited by Wilson, informed the FBI about Wilson's explosives deal with Libya. And Rafael Quintero, an anti-Castro Cuban with CIA ties, told the agency that Wilson had offered him a million dollars to kill a Libyan dissident in Egypt.

Barcella, then an assistant U.S. attorney in Washington, was assigned the case. At first he found it difficult to figure out whether Wilson was still working for the CIA.

"I interviewed scores of people who thought this was an agency operation," he says.

But Barcella kept digging and he came to believe that Wilson was using his past agency affiliation as cover. "He was playing people like a harp," he says.

In April 1980, Barcella obtained an indictment charging Wilson with shipping explosives and soliciting murder.

Eager to avoid trial, Wilson stayed in Libya, huddled in his seaside villa, running his businesses, grumbling about the lack of good Scotch in Libya and drinking a lot of flash, the local moonshine.

In 1982 Barcella dispatched Ernest Keiser -- an old Wilson crony with shadowy CIA connections -- to Libya. Keiser convinced Wilson that he'd arranged a deal with the National Security Council: If Wilson would run a spy operation for the NSC in the Dominican Republic, they'd arrange for his legal problems to disappear. (Keiser also sold Wilson an option on some property near Disney World.)

Desperate to escape Libya, Wilson flew with Keiser to the Dominican Republic, where he was arrested and put on a plane to New York.

"Nothing wrong with a little nonviolent government trickery," Barcella says, laughing.

Over the next two years, Wilson went on trial four times.

In Washington, he was charged with soliciting Quintero and other Cubans to kill a Libyan dissent. He was acquitted.

In Virginia, he was charged with illegally exporting an M-16 rifle and four pistols, including the one used to kill the Libyan in Bonn. He was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in prison -- later reduced to 10 years -- and fined $200,000.

In New York, he was charged with hiring a convicted murderer to kill Barcella and another prosecutor, plus six of the witnesses against him, and his wife, who'd filed for divorce. He was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison, plus $75,000.

In Houston, Wilson was charged with illegally exporting the 20 tons of C-4 to Libya. His defense was that he had been working for the CIA. The prosecution responded with an affidavit from CIA Executive Director Charles Briggs, who swore that the agency had no contact with Wilson after 1972.

On Feb. 4, 1983, the jury began its deliberations but failed to reach a verdict: At least one juror believed Wilson might have been working for the CIA. On Feb. 5, the jury asked the judge to read the Briggs affidavit again. An hour later, the jury reached a verdict: guilty on all counts. Wilson was sentenced to 17 years, plus $145,000.