Federal authorities in the US revealed Tuesday that they won’t search the dying penalty towards three reputed Mexican drug cartel leaders, together with an alleged former associate of the notorious “El Chapo” and the person accused of orchestrating the killing of a Drug Enforcement Administration agent.
Courtroom filings confirmed selections handed down within the trio of prosecutions, all being held in Brooklyn, N.Y.
The circumstances contain drug and conspiracy fees towards Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, 75, charged with working a strong faction of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel; Rafael Caro Quintero, 72, who allegedly masterminded the DEA agent’s torture and homicide in 1985; and Vicente Carrillo Fuentes, 62, also called El Viceroy, who’s beneath indictment because the ex-boss of the Juárez cartel.
Prosecutors from the Japanese District of New York filed a letter in every case “to tell the Courtroom and the protection that the Lawyer Normal has approved and directed this Workplace to not search the dying penalty.”
The choice comes regardless of calls by President Trump use capital punishment towards drug traffickers and the U.S. authorities ratcheting up stress towards Mexico to dismantle organized crime teams and to stanch the circulate of fentanyl and different illicit medicine throughout the border.
A White Home spokesperson didn’t instantly reply to a request for remark.
It’s uncommon for the dying penalty to be in play towards high-level Mexican cartel figures. Mexico way back abolished capital punishment and sometimes extradites its residents on the situation that they’re spared dying.
In Zambada’s case, the usual restrictions didn’t apply as a result of he was not extradited. Zambada was dropped at the U.S. in July 2024 by a son of his longtime affiliate, Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán. Zambada alleges he was ambushed and kidnapped in Sinaloa by Joaquín Guzmán López, who pressured him onto an airplane certain for a small airport exterior El Paso.
Zambada has pleaded not responsible to the costs towards him and stays jailed in Brooklyn whereas his case proceeds. A courtroom submitting in June mentioned prosecutors and the protection had “mentioned the potential for a decision wanting trial,” suggesting plea negotiations are underway.
We’re going to be asking [that] everybody who sells medicine, will get caught promoting medicine, to obtain the dying penalty for his or her heinous acts
— President Trump in 2022
Frank Perez, the lawyer representing Zambada, issued an announcement Tuesday to The Instances that mentioned: “We welcome the federal government’s determination to not pursue the dying penalty towards our consumer. This marks an essential step towards attaining a good and simply decision.”
Federal authorities introduced in Could that Guzmán López, 39, an accused chief of the Sinaloa cartel faction generally known as “Los Chapitos,” would additionally not face the dying penalty. He faces an array of drug smuggling and conspiracy fees in a case pending earlier than the federal courtroom in Chicago.
One other son of El Chapo, Ovidio Guzmán López, 35, pleaded responsible to drug trafficking, cash laundering and firearms fees final month in Chicago. Courtroom filings present he has agreed to cooperate with U.S. authorities in different investigations.
Caro Quintero and Carrillo Fuentes have been two of the most important names amongst a gaggle of 29 males handed over by Mexico to the U.S. in February. The bizarre mass switch was carried out exterior the everyday extradition course of, which left open the potential for the dying penalty.
Reputed to be a founding member of Mexico’s highly effective Guadalajara cartel within the Eighties, Caro Quintero is allegedly chargeable for the brutal slaying of DEA agent Enrique “Kiki” Camarena 40 years in the past.
The killing, portrayed on the Netflix present “Narcos: Mexico” and recounted in lots of books and documentaries, led to a fierce response by U.S. authorities, however Caro Quintero managed to elude justice for many years. Getting him on U.S. soil was portrayed as a significant victory by Trump administration officers.
Derek Maltz, the DEA chief in February, mentioned in an announcement that Caro Quintero had “unleashed violence, destruction, and dying throughout the US and Mexico, has spent 4 many years atop DEA’s most needed fugitives listing.”
Carrillo Fuentes is maybe finest generally known as the youthful brother of one other Mexican drug trafficker, Amado Carrillo Fuentes, the legendary “Lord of the Skies,” who died in 1997. As soon as near El Chapo, El Mayo and different Sinaloa cartel leaders, the youthful Carrillo Funtes cut up off to kind his personal cartel within the metropolis of Juárez, triggering years of bloody cartel warfare.
Kenneth J. Montgomery, the lawyer for Carrillo Fuentes, mentioned Tuesday that his consumer was “extraordinarily grateful” for the federal government’s determination to not search the dying penalty. “I assumed it was the suitable determination,” he mentioned. “In a civilized society, I don’t suppose the dying penalty ought to ever be an possibility.”
Trump has been an ardent supporter of capital punishment. In January, he signed an order that directs the lawyer common to “take all essential and lawful motion” to make sure that states have sufficient deadly injection medicine to hold out executions.
The manager order directed the lawyer common to pursue the dying penalty in circumstances that contain the killing of legislation enforcement officers, amongst different elements. For years, Trump has loudly referred to as for executing convicted drug traffickers. He reiterated the decision for executions once more in 2022 when saying his intent to run once more for president.
“We’re going to be asking [for] everybody who sells medicine, will get caught promoting medicine, to obtain the dying penalty for his or her heinous acts,” Trump mentioned.
Atty. Gen. Pam Bondi lifted a moratorium on federal executions in February, reversing a coverage that started beneath the Biden administration. In April, Bondi introduced intentions to hunt the dying penalty towards Luigi Mangione, the person charged with assassinating a UnitedHealthcare government in New York Metropolis.
Bonnie Klapper, a former federal narcotics prosecutor within the Japanese District of New York, reacted with shock upon studying that the Trump administration had determined to not pursue capital circumstances towards the accused kingpins, notably Caro Quintero.
Klapper, who’s now a protection lawyer, speculated that Mexico is strongly against executions of its residents and officers could have exerted diplomatic stress to spare the lives of the three males, maybe providing to ship extra kingpins sooner or later.
“Whereas my preliminary response is one in all shock given this administration’s embrace of the dying penalty, maybe there’s conversations going down behind the scenes by which Mexico has mentioned, ‘If you would like extra of those, you may’t ask to kill any of our residents.’”
