U.S. officials and Mexican ex-police officers convicted of corruption often clashed, records show
Even after Genaro García Luna, once the architect of Mexico’s war on drugs, was found guilty last winter of taking millions of dollars from the drug lords he was sent to chase, one question that lingered during his trial was how closely he had been in touch with US officials at the time he allegedly accepted bribes.
His lawyers provided an answer on Friday.
They submitted court papers He said Mr. García Luna met with top U.S. diplomats, law enforcement and intelligence officials more than 180 times between 2007 and 2012 — a period during which a jury in New York found he had committed federal crimes.
While serving in the highest levels of Mexico’s national security establishment, the court papers show, Mr. García Luna met with U.S. ambassadors 24 times, eight times with the attorney general, 15 times with CIA officials and nearly 50 times with the Drug Enforcement Administration. largely with the agency’s regional director.
The papers also say that both the DEA and the CIA conducted thorough background checks on Mr. García Luna and members of his staff and found no evidence of corruption.
“Mr. García Luna and his team have been extensively vetted and cleared of any wrongdoing by the US government,” wrote attorney César de Castro.
As Mr. De Castro added, “Surely the United States would not have shared sensitive intelligence and national security information for years with someone it did not trust.”
The papers, filed in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, were part of a request by Mr. de Castro to obtain a new trial for his client based on what he said was newly discovered evidence. After Mr. García Luna was found guilty in February, several witnesses came forward to help in his defense, including some from Mexico who had remained silent during the trial “for fear of reprisals,” Mr. de Castro wrote.
Among the new evidence obtained by the defense, he said, are daily schedules kept by Mr. García Luna’s aides while he served as secretary of Mexican public security, a powerful cabinet-level post.
Mr. de Castro said he had also obtained official documents signed by a top DEA official and Mexico’s attorney general documenting that “the United States government has conducted extensive background checks” on Mr. García Luna and his staff, including polygraph tests.
In addition, Mr. De Castro said, the defense has found documents showing that 25 officials who worked for Mr. García Luna had been vetted by the CIA and, among other things, trained in Washington to monitor and analyze the activities of drug cartels, and to monitor and analyze the activities of drug cartels. their findings with the American authorities.
“The fact that members of his department have been vetted by and work for the CIA explains why the US government entrusted Mr. García Luna with sensitive information and responsibilities, despite rumors of corruption within the Mexican government,” the documents say.
Mr. De Castro claims that prosecutors improperly withheld some of these documents from him, even though he specifically requested them from the government nine months before the trial took place. “These materials would have been essential to the defense and could have led to a different outcome,” he wrote.
Mr. García Luna maintained his innocence throughout the trial.
Obtaining a new trial is a difficult proposition, especially because judges are generally reluctant to overturn a jury’s verdict. De Castro will likely face an uphill battle in convincing Judge Brian M. Cogan, who oversaw Mr. García Luna’s trial, to grant a new trial, even though the court papers he filed claimed that some government witnesses in court had lied. first time.
The conviction of Mr. García Luna, the highest-ranking Mexican official to be tried in the United States on drug charges, was an important moment in the history of the cross-border war against drug cartels. In Mexico, it was widely seen as a cathartic spectacle in which a top government official was finally held accountable for his years of corruption.
Mexicans have long suspected that those at the highest levels of power have allied with the very gangsters who have inflicted decades of pain and suffering on their country. The bitterness and disappointment have been compounded by the fact that, despite billions of dollars and decades of efforts by law enforcement on both sides of the border, violence in Mexico has reached new heights in recent years.
The García Luna trial initially seemed likely to shed some light on the mystery of how a man who was “showered with praise from all corners of the American law enforcement and political communities,” as Mr. De Castro wrote, at the same time has netted huge sums of money from the gangsters of the Sinaloa drug cartel, one of Mexico’s most powerful drug mafias.
But even though the witnesses in Brooklyn included former cartel operatives, former Mexican police officials and even a man who once served as the United States ambassador to Mexico, the question of what American officials knew about Mr. García Luna’s ties to the cartels is largely remained unanswered. left unresolved.
Prosecutors will now be able to respond to Mr. de Castro’s allegations. After that, Judge Cogan will decide whether or not to grant a new trial, in a process that could take several weeks.