A day after last month, the Mexican government has shipped 29 defendants drug lords across the border to face American justice.
Several infamous Capos, picked from a Mexican prison, hustled on Shackle’s planes and illuminated in the hands of American authorities in the waiting hands, are said to have been documented in decades of films, television series and federal accusations.
Among them is a brother who is said to be behind a brutal group known as the Zetas. Famous leaders of the new generation of cartels in the Gulf, Juarez and Jalisco. The elusive Rafael Caro Quintero has been hoping since the 1980s in connection with the torture and murder of the Drug Enforcement Agency.
All are currently housed in prisons nationwide on charges ranging from drug trafficking to murder. At least six people could face the death penalty. This is an unusual twist due to the unique circumstances of their arrival.
Photos provided by the Mexican Navy Secretariat show agents escorting the well-known drug trafficker Rafael Caro Quintero after his capture in Sinaloa in 2022.
(AP News)
Now their case was in US courts, where there was a scramble to find a lawyer who could protect such high-stakes clients and was required. President Trump has complicated the situation by designating several cartels as terrorist organizations, raising concerns that the Treasury Department will try to freeze assets used to pay lawyers.
Almost three weeks after their arrival, there are lawyers who still have a court-appointed lawyer sent from Mexico on February 27, including Caro Quintero. So U.S. taxpayers are making bills.
Several lawyers specializing in complex federal drug and conspiracy cases described the present moment as unprecedented. It appears that every week will bring fresh confusion when Trump puts pressure on Mexico to defeat the cartel and stops the flow of fentanyl.
It should be a boom time for the so-called white powder bar, as the practice of the world’s most prolific drug pusher lawyers is dubbed. However, some veteran lawyers have warned of Trump crackdowns and unexpected consequences from existing conflicts that limit who can participate in certain cases.
“It’s kind of a niche practice,” says former federal drug prosecutor Bonnie Clapper, who became defense attorney. “I assure you that many suspects cannot represent these people.”
Klapper once helped defeat Norte Del Valle Cartel in Columbia, but she later switched the aspect of her running as a personal lawyer. Her past work as a prosecutor has been heard from colleagues who have already discovered other conflicts, including removing her from the cases she helped create the indictment and representing potential witnesses.
Death Penalty Claims narrow the field even further. Capital cases require experienced “learning lawyers” and pose unique challenges, particularly the client’s potential to be carried out. Three of the 29 inmates sent from Mexico have been charged in California federal court, including one in Los Angeles death penalty case.
Adding terrorism designations and pursuing the death penalty while limiting how former cartel members stay in the US, also risks making it difficult for federal authorities to turn informants upside down, Clapper said.
“I don’t think anyone is thinking about what this means for the criminal justice system,” she said. “If the US doesn’t protect them and their families, who will help?”
Mexico abolishes the death penalty and usually does not hand over citizens who could be killed under US law. However, officials on both sides of the border are at the forefront using the term handover for recent extraditions. In a news release from the Department of Justice, the United States simply stated “detained custody” for wanted people.
Trial lawyers for William Papla on the left and right, Eduardo Bararezo and Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman will arrive in federal court in Brooklyn, New York on February 12, 2019.
(Seth Wenig/AP)
William Pulpura was one of three lawyers who defended the leader of the Sinaloa Cartel, known as El Chapo, in the 2019 three-month trial. He said it was a tough effort and demanding “full dedication to one client.”
“The death verdict will bother the execution of the trial lawyers and more,” Purpura said. “This is not a business against a regular cast of characters. It’s a chapo trial on steroids.”
Pulpura and others in private practice said they usually find work through referrals, relying on Mexican lawyers to meet with the families of future clients and build trust before taking the case.
The defense attorney is said to have broken the laws pursuing business. Last month, a prominent Miami lawyer was charged with a bribery scheme, and prosecutors say two former DEA supervisors leaked confidential information in exchange for Yankees tickets and five-figure secret payments. The hints are about aggressive investigations, and prosecutors said lawyers could get a head start by pleading with targets as clients.
Attorney David Macy pleaded not guilty to accusations that included bribery of perjury and civil servants.
“David is a dedicated father and husband and a highly respected lawyer with a record of impeccable membership for nearly 30 years. He fed no one,” Macy’s lawyer, David Patton, said in a statement. “The government’s allegations are false and I am confident that the evidence will prove his innocence at trial.”
Jeffrey Lichtman, lawyer for drug drug Kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, will speak to a reporter outside of federal court in Washington on June 10, 2021.
(Susan Walsh/Applications)
Some of the most equipped operators have taken over generations of relatives from the same family. Jeffrey Lichtman, El Chapo’s Chief Trial Attorney, defends two sons of our client, known as Los Chapitos, in a case we are currently pending. Court records show that Lichtman was recently added to a suspected case of a high-ranking Chapitos member, among the 29 men who were extradited.
Lichtman did not respond to requests for comment.
Before representing the Chapo clan, Lichtman once helped a New York mob to help John Gotty Jr. defeat the crime of Rackett.
“I’m used to dealing with clients who have already been abandoned, already convicted, and who can persuade me. [jurors] Everything the government and the press say may not be 100% accurate,” Lichtman said in a 2017 interview about his decision to represent El Chapo.
One of El Chapo’s sons is accused of luring Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, his father’s longtime Sinaloa Cartel partner, and lured him to US authorities in the summer. The alleged betrayal sparked an ongoing war among Mexican cartels, leaving Zambada, 75, and facing a death sentence for drugs and murder in the eastern district of New York. He pleaded not guilty.
Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada’s lawyer Frank Perez will leave federal court in Brooklyn, New York after Zambada’s arrest on September 13, 2024.
(Corey Sipkin/Apsaced Press)
Zambada’s lawyer, Frank Perez, 70, had a career as an air traffic controller and a Dallas drug detective before building up law practice. Perez also tackled politics in 2014 that failed to bid for Congress. He recently saw the Zambada case as a source of international conspiracy and controversy.
Perez has issued a statement on behalf of the imprisoned Zambada, leveling off the allegations of the lunatics against El Chapo’s son and denied rumors of a secret surrender agreement. Recently, Mexican Perez and two lawyers petitioned Zambada to return to his home country, claiming that he was “forcibly transferred from Mexican territory.”
A federal judge who was the main side of Zambada’s case in Brooklyn raised concerns that Perez had a potential conflict of interest. Perez also represented his client’s son, Vicente Zambada Nibra.
Elder Zambada heard on January 15th and said he understood the situation and trusted his lawyer.
“He may have to withhold information he has learned from talking to Vicente that he cannot share with me,” Zambada said. “But I don’t want another lawyer. I want Frank Perez to represent me.”
Perez declined to comment, except that he is fighting to avoid the death penalty, repeating his recent official statement that his clients are not cooperating with US authorities.
Perez also recently adopted Miguel Angel Trevigno Morales, known as the Z-40, and Miguel Angel Trevigno Morales, according to court records. Trevinho Morales was arrested in Washington last week, where he pleaded not guilty to conspiracy to drug and murder charges against the alleged Zeta leader.
Originally a troop of elite Mexican military exiles who became hired guns, Zetas formed a ruthless cartel that has been denounced by authorities for a long list of atrocities over the past 30 years. The Northeast Cartel, a sprinter group, was one of the terrorist organizations designated by the Trump administration last month.
Several lawyers said the designation of terrorism created uncertainty about whether standard operating procedures for cartel cases would no longer apply.
The US Treasury Department’s Foreign Assets Management Office has long maintained the so-called Kingpin list of drug traffickers and front companies that are prohibited from doing business with US citizens or accessing the banking system. Usually, the defense attorney said that if they provide appropriate notice and disclose the amount received and what it is, the agency will allow a transaction in legal services.
For one thing, the system ensures that taxes are not unnecessarily spent on court-appointed lawyers.
Eduardo Bararezo, a lawyer for another El Chapo trial, said it was in the government’s interest to allow a private lawyer, especially if the defendant is willing to negotiate the plea.
The transaction can ensure that clients will have the opportunity to walk freely one day and that the government will win millions of dollars by surrendering illegal cash. It also reduces the work of all the lawyers involved.
“It doesn’t take long to go to the government with your clients and listen to him,” Balarezo said. “You have to prepare him, but that’s not the same as a trial.”
César De Castro will speak to the media in Brooklyn, New York on February 21, 2023. He is a court-appointed lawyer for Genaro García Luna, a former Mexican security official who was sentenced to 38 years in prison for stealing millions with cartel bribery.
(John Minkilo / Associated Press)
But with Trump rebranding the cartel as a terrorist, some lawyers worry that the government may change its stance on payments and pleas.
“That’s a big question for all these people. Do they have the assets they pay for their lawyers? Are the government going to do something about it?” said Cesar de Castro, a New York defense attorney who has worked on several major drug cases.
US prosecutors have accused top-level human traffickers of being billionaires, but some can show on paper that they can’t afford to buy lawyers.
De Castro served as a court-appointed lawyer for former Mexican security official Genaro Garcia Luna, who was sentenced to 38 years in prison for stealing millions of cartel bes.
The incident took place under the media and political microscope and forced me to step carefully into De Castro.
“Everything is important,” he said. “Every flicking word is important.”
De Castro faced backlash in a trial in which the former Mexican president violated a lawyer’s question regarding alleged cartel payments. The threat of death continued – a risk to the job, the lawyer said.
“I don’t want to be threatened or chased outside the courthouse. I have family members too. I don’t need voicemail saying I should die, but I had to do it for my clients,” he said.
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