Ex-Beauty Queen Denies Drug Ring Role
By Anthony M. Destedano, Newsday

A former Costa Rican beauty contestant pleaded not guilty Monday to federal charges she was part of a conspiracy to illegally sell tens of millions of dollars in prescription drugs over the Internet.

Sonia Barrantes-Molina, 32, was arraigned before a magistrate-judge in federal court in Brooklyn on an indictment unsealed in December. She was being held without bail.

Barrantes-Molina was arrested in Florida two weeks ago while trying to find out the status of her boyfriend, who was arrested when the indictment was unsealed, said her attorney, Humberto Dominguez of Florida.

She agreed to be brought to New York Monday, without extradition proceedings, by Drug Enforcement Administration agents, Dominguez said.

Barrantes-Molina, who has a 14-year-old daughter, was named Miss Hawaiian Tropic in Costa Rica a few years ago and participated in the brand's advertising campaign, one investigator said.

Dominguez said his client's alleged role in the operation was very small. Barrantes-Molina has done some television journalism in Costa Rica, as well as real estate sales there and in Florida, he said. An Internet page said she also is known for being a television aerobics instructor in her home country. Web pages show her in vivacious bathing-suit poses.

"She is a very nice and very well-known girl," Dominguez said.

The original indictment accuses Barrantes-Molina and the other seven defendants of being part of an Internet operation that grossed $1 million a month for more than two years in a scheme to sell painkillers, sedatives and diet drugs.

Antonio Quinones, 46, Barrantes-Molina's boyfriend who was arrested in December, was the suspected ringleader of the operation, officials said.

The indictment alleges that the group used a doctor in Puerto Rico to write prescriptions, which then were forwarded to U.S.-based pharmacies that sent the drugs to customers around the country.

The customers initially placed orders for the drugs by using Internet sites especially set up for that purpose, DEA officials said.

Federal officials said the issuance of a prescription by a physician without meeting the patient is against the law. DEA agents made several undercover Internet purchases as part of the probe, officials said. The investigation began after federal agents raided a Flushing pharmacy two years ago and discovered the Internet operation, officials said.

Dominguez said he expects to propose a bail package for Barrantes-Molina within the next two weeks.