Safdar wasn't acquitted, despite references suggesting so by various newspapers at the time. The trial, in which he was one of several defendants, was the longest trial in Hamilton history; so long, in fact, that the judge tabled the trial on the day he was set to read the verdict (a truncated version of which he later read, which took six hours). The woman who was tortured lived in the same house as Safdar and was tortured by multiple family members. Safdar's wife, also living in the house, lied at the trial and was fired from her law firm. There is no possibility of the extended torture, and physical and psychological abuse that went on for years in that house, having escaped Safdar's attention. He was as much a party to that as the rest. The reason he didn't go to jail with his brother related to the trial length and stoppage of the trial. The judge, two years later, stated that he had serious misgivings about those who didn't get jail time, but couldn't do anything about it. The family court, where the case also played out regarding a daughter, saw the matter more directly, and seized the girl while the defendents were in court for the torture of the wife. The mother was also involved. This wasn't simply a case of domestic violence. The torture went on for years, and involved breaking the woman's jaw in multiple places, burning her face with an iron, carving death threats into her leg, and numerous other acts, to say nothing of extended physical, emotional, and psychological abuse. The trial, again, was the longest one in Hamilton history. It was well publicized and well known...not something Pivot, et al, could possibly have ignored.
Safdar isn't the focus here; the twenty five million in drugs on board the aircraft are, and the legal impounding of the aircraft and detention of the crew; the Dominican Republic can detain for 12 months without charge, pending an investigation. Pivot claims two aircraft, but has one; which is impounded, and a "future" CRJ-200.
No US regional would hire Safdar, incidentally, as he doesn't have the right to work in the US. Trouble does seem to follow him. That isn't uncommon from people who spend years torturing other people.
Don't want to spend a year detained in a foreign country for a drug smuggling investigation? This isn't rocket science. It really isn't.