The ex-wife of infamous drug kingpin Frank Lucas -- whose murderous exploits inspired the movie "American Gangster" -- has been charged with conspiring to sell two kilos of cocaine in Puerto Rico.
Julianna Farrait-Rodri guez allegedly took up her ex-hubby's role and tried to peddle the drugs "with the goal of sending them to be sold on the New York City streets while she is in comfort 2,200 miles away," said Drug Enforce ment Administration Spe cial Agent in Charge John Gilbride.
"They say life imitates art and this arrest proves the point yet again," Gil bride said.
PARTNERS IN CRIME: Julianna Farrait-Rodriguez, ex-wife of Harlem racketeer Frank "American Gangster" Lucas, in custody in Puerto Rico yesterday on charges of trying to sell cocaine to a fed informant.
Farrait-Rodriguez, 63, was busted Wednesday evening after allegedly handing over the coke to a government infor mant in exchange for $60,000, sources said.
"Apparently, she needed the money," a source said.
Court papers say the former beauty queen had been under investigation since at least February 2009, when she offered to sell the informant cocaine from a supplier in Atlanta. She was portrayed as "Eva" by Puerto Rico-born stunner Lymari Nadal in the 2007 film, which starred Denzel Washington as Lucas.
Their Spanish-language conversation, which took place in Manhattan, was secretly recorded by the informant, as was another meeting last July during which Farrait-Rodriguez allegedly said she could hook up the informant with a "cocaine transporter" in Puerto Rico.
And during a series of phone calls earlier this month, she told him to come to the Caribbean island to pick up two kilos she had waiting for him, along with eight others being held by an unidentified co-conspirator, the papers say.
After the two met inside a hotel room in Isla Verde, Puerto Rico, DEA agents conducting surveillance said they "observed Farrait-Rodriguez remove what appeared . . . to be two kilograms of cocaine from a bag." At that point, the informant "gave a pre-arranged signal" for the agents to move in and arrest her.
Farrait-Rodriguez had previously pleaded guilty in 1975 to tossing suitcases stuffed with $585,000 out a bathroom window during a drug raid on the Teaneck, NJ, home she shared with Lucas.
Yesterday, she was ordered held without bail during a court appearance in Puerto Rico.
It was unclear when she would be brought to New York to face the complaint filed against her in Manhattan federal court.
Her ex-husband -- who made millions as one of the city's biggest dealers during the heroin epidemic of the late 1960s and early '70s -- was sentenced to 70 years in the slammer after his Harlem-based "Country Boys" racket was busted, but he served only 12 years after cooperating with authorities.
"American Gangster" told the story of the improbable friendship that developed between Lucas and the cop who busted him, Richie Roberts, who was portrayed by Russell Crowe.
Lucas, now 79 and living in Newark, is wheelchair-bound and has written a memoir, "Original Gangster: The Real Life Story of One of America's Most Notorious Drug Lords," set for release next month.
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