Details are surfacing that Senator Marco Rubio’s older sister was caught up on the wrong side of one of the most notable antinarcotics operations in South Florida of 1987.

While Rubio spoke very kindly of his family, namely his parents, during his 2009 U.S. senate campaign and spoke of how proud he was of them for coming to this country to make a better life for their children, he failed to mention that his sister, Barbara Rubio, and her husband we suspected by the federal government of taking part in illegal drug activity.

According to public records, Miami’s federal prosecutors ordered the seizure of a home the couple lived in and another home they owned. Though Barbara was not arrested of indicted, her husband, Cicilia was convicted and sentenced to 25 years in prison “conspiracy to distribute cocaine and marijuana belonging to a crime ring implicated in the death and dismemberment of a federal informant, as well as the bribing of several Miami police officers,” Univision News wrote.

At the time of the seizures and arrest of his brother-in-law, Sen. Rubio was 16.

When asked by Univision how the incident affected the Rubio family, the senator’s spokesman, who denied nothing, said he considered the matter a private family issue.

“Quite simply, the pursuit of this story and the targeting of the Senator’s relatives, who are private citizens, is outrageous,” said the spokesman, Alex Burgos in a letter to Univision CEO Randy Falco. He allegedly was trying to stop the story from being released. “They do not hold public office and are unrelated in every way to his service in the United States Senate.”

Burgos when on to say, “When Senator Rubio’s sister’s husband was a younger man 25 years ago, it is a fact that he made many mistakes.  He and his family have paid the price for them…This is not news.  This is tabloid journalism.”