Fla. fugitive won’t serve extra time in prison

MIAMI (AP) — A man involved in a major marijuana smuggling operation who was captured more than 30 years after fleeing during his trial won’t serve any additional time in prison beyond his current sentence in another case.

U.S. District Judge James Lawrence King sentenced Mark Steven Phillips on Wednesday to five years in prison in Miami federal court. But that sentence will run concurrently with the sentence Phillips was previously given for a related case in North Carolina.

Defense lawyers argued Phillips, now 62, was a relatively minor player in the so-called Black Tuna Gang, which smuggled tons of marijuana into the U.S.

Phillips skipped bail during his 1979 trial. He spent years in Chile, where he married, had a son and built a successful business. He was caught in January at a West Palm Beach retirement community.