Ed Zarvo is a Federal District Judge in Miami, who signed a warrant for the arrest of Ira Stone on charges of murder and drug trafficking in Costa Rica, however Stone was in Nicaragua, and the warrant was done by request of Zarvo's associate William Maynard as a ruse to kidnap Stone to get a tape he made of Maynard's paramilitary force in Nicaragua. When Stone's friend, Metro-Dade Detective James "Sonny" Crockett finds out about the warrant and threatens to sic Homicide on the judge if Stone is killed, Zarvo reveals the location of Maynard's headquarters, which was only an answering machine (and the place O'Hara began torturing Stone).