The U.S. Attorney's Office said Wednesday it is discussing a potential plea deal Ismael “El Mayo” Zambadaof a long-elusive Mexican drug lord who was arrested last summer and whose son may testify against him when he goes to trial.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Francisco Navarro said plea negotiations with Zambado, and the leader of the powerful Mexican Sinaloa cartelhave not borne fruit yet, but the prosecutor's office wants to continue trying. The judge set a hearing for April 22 for an update.
Zambada's lead attorney, Frank Perez, declined to comment on the discussions.
Usually, prosecutors and defense attorneys find out if they can reach a deal, and negotiations don't necessarily lead anywhere.
Zambada was an attentive and active participant in Wednesday's hearing, which focused on whether he wanted Perez to continue representing him, even representing a potential government witness in the case — Zambada's son, Vicente Zambada.
“I don't want another lawyer,” the father said through a court interpreter. “I want him, even though it might be a conflict if he represents me and my son.”
Jane Rosenberg/REUTERS
The younger Zambada himself was indicted and entered into a plea agreement in the long-running and extensive U.S. prosecution of Sinaloa cartel figures. He testified for the government at the trial of notorious and now imprisoned cartel co-founder Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.
While working alongside Guzmán, Ismael Zambada kept a low profile and was considered more focused on smuggling than extreme brutality, serving as a strategist and deal maker involved in day-to-day operations, authorities said.
At Guzmán's trial, Vicente Zambada described how his father and Guzmán ran the cartel together. At one point, he described corrupt Mexican politicians, asking if the syndicate could help them smuggle 100 tons of cocaine in an oil tanker.
“They wanted to know if my dad and Chapo could give that amount of Coke,” he told jurors in the same Brooklyn federal court where his father is on trial. At another point, Vicente Zambada recalled hearing a rival drug cartel leader say he wanted to kill Ismael Zambada and Guzmán to avenge the botched assassination.
In a court filing last month, prosecutors said the son could be subpoenaed to testify against his father, which could create a conflict of interest for Perez. For example, he would be prevented from questioning his son because of the loyalty he owes to both clients.
Attorneys sometimes have potential conflicts of interest with their clients, and federal courts have defined steps that judges must take to address these situations. Among them is having independent counsel to advise defendants as they decide what to do about a potential conflict. Zambada had one at Wednesday's hearing.
Zambada said he understands there could be problems with Perez representing him and his son — “for example, he'll have to hide from me the information he got from Vicente.”
U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan ultimately agreed that Perez could stay on the case, noting that Ismael Zambada also had other attorneys who could handle any part of the case involving his son.
Law enforcement had been looking for the elder Zambada for years before him a stunning arrest in July at an airport near El Paso, Texas, after arriving on a private jet with one of Guzman's sons, Joaquin Guzman Lopez. He was also wanted by US authorities.
Zambada claimed that he was kidnapped in Mexico and transported to the US by Guzmán López, whose lawyer denies the claims. Joaquín Guzmán López and his brother, Ovidio, are negotiating with the U.S. government to plead guilty, their lawyers said in a Chicago courtroom this month.
After Zambada's July arrests and kidnapping charges, terrible battles broke out in Mexico between a faction of the cartel loyal to him and another group linked to Chapita, Guzmán's sons.
Chapito used corkscrews, electric shocks and hot chili peppers to do this torment his opponents while some of their victims were “fed alive or dead to tigers,” according to an indictment released by the US Department of Justice.
In recent months, bodies have turned up all over Sinaloa, often left on the streets or in cars hats on the head or pizza slices or boxes with knives attached to them. The pizza and sombrero became the unofficial symbols of the warring factions of the cartels, emphasizing the brutality of their war.
The chain of events also strained relations between Mexico and the United States.
First, the then and current president of Mexico, Andrés Manuel López Obrador President Claudia Sheinbaum laid some of the blame for the bloodshed on Washington, saying the arrests in the US had uncorked the problem.
Outgoing U.S. Ambassador to Mexico Ken Salazar responded that it was “absurd” to suggest that Washington is to blame for the cartel wars. He later said the Mexican government had stopped cooperating with Washington in the fight against cartels and buried its head in the sand about police violence and corruption.
Mexico's foreign ministry responded by expressing “surprise” in an official note to the US embassy over the ambassador's statement.