Oklahoma Criminal Defense Blog

A very big Mexican drug kingpin was sentenced in Houston to a 25-year sentence.  The sentencing hearing was done in a closed courtroom.  Osiel Cardenas Guillen was the head of the “Gulf Cartel” until his arrest by Mexican authorities in 2007.  He pled guilty to five counts of a lengthy indictment, which included drug trafficking, money laundering and the attempted murder and assault of federal agents.  He also forfeited $50 million in assets to the U.S. Government.

The Gulf Cartel controls much of the cocaine traffic across the Mexican-American border in South Texas.  Cardenas was responsible for “kidnapings, extortion, gun battles in the streets,” according to U.S. District Judge Hilda Tagle, who sentenced Cardenas.

Nevertheless, Judge Tagle followed the recommendation of the U.S. Attorney in giving the sentence because Cardenas was cooperating with the government in pursuing other drug traffickers.

Before he was arrested by Mexican authorities in 2003, Cardenas ran an empire of drug smugglers and gunmen in Tamaulipas, Mexico.  They moved tons of cocaine every year into the United States.  He was famous to law enforcement on both sides of the border for the vicious violence he employed against his enemies. He recruited former military commandoes as his gunmen, known as Zetas.
Even after his arrest, he continued to direct the operations of his cartel from his Mexican jail cell.  Then Mexican President Felipe Calderon broke with previous policy and extradited Cardenas along with 14 other major figures from the Mexican underworld.  Cardenas began cooperating with the U.S. Government immediately when he arrived here.  Meanwhile, his former organization has been weakened by arrests and lack of leadership.

The Zetas have now broken off from the Gulf Cartel. They have become a separate criminal enterprise that controls the crossing at Laredo, Texas, and recently there has been a series of gun battles between the Zetas and what is left of the Gulf Cartel in the towns along the Texas border in a contest for turf.

Cardenas has been in the United States for two years, cooperating with law enforcement all the time, perhaps especially cooperating on the Zetas, since they have split with his Gulf Cartel.  Finally, his sentence was handed down in a courtroom, closed to the public.  Judge Tagle also sealed dozens of documents related to Cardenas’ plea agreement and descriptions of his assets, all at the request of government prosecutors.  It is not unusual to seal documents in a case, but it is very unusual to lock a courtroom for a hearing in a United States Courthouse.

The sentencing hearing was attended by two members of Cardenas family and some law enforcement officers, along with armed guards.  The hearing was not even on the court’s published docket until hours after it was over.   The transcript taken of the hearing reflects that the judge explained the United States Marshal’s Service had asked to keep the public from witnessing the hearing because it would jeopardize Cardenas’ safety.  The affidavit detailing that request was sealed.  Judge Tagle stated that if she opened the hearing, the “defendant, court personnel, United States marshal personnel, other courthouse personnel and the general public will be placed in imminent danger.”

The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals has affirmed U.S. District Court Judge Ronald A. White’s dismissal in September, 2007, of a pitiful lawsuit brought by former Ada District Attorney Bill Peterson against author John Gresham and others.  The lawsuit was filed in the Muskogee in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Oklahoma by Richardson.  Richardson is certainly a capable lawyer, but the journalists noted that he had called a news conference when he filed the lawsuit and “could not be reached” to comment on the affirmance of the dismissal.

Former Pontotoc County District Attorney Bill Peterson filed the lawsuit over John Gresham’s book, “The Innocent Man,” which described Peterson’s conviction of two innocent men based in reliance upon the testimony of one Glen Gore and the evidence of jailhouse “snitches.”  Dennis Fritz, then a schoolteacher, and his friend, Ronald Williamson, a former minor-league baseball player, were the two convicted in Pontotoc County District Court in 1982.
Fritz received a life sentence and Williamson received the death penalty.  Both men were later exonerated by DNA tests in 1999.  Not only were the accused men proven to be innocent, but the prosecution’s star witness, Glen Gore, was proven by DNA evidence to have been the perpetrator of the murder.  He is now serving a sentence of life without parole, tried for murder after the release of Fritz and Williamson.

Gresham’s book details the faulty police and prosecution work that never investigated Glen Gore, that relied on “confessions” that resulted form questionable interrogation of the suspects as well as the reliance on jailhouse informers, known as “snitches.”   Snitches, as every criminal defense lawyer knows, are motivated by presenting as much damaging evidence as possible against whoever is being prosecuted.  Their situation requires them to help the prosecution as much as possible, and they have a motive to lie, have a motive to create false evidence.  Whether they do create false evidence in a given case is difficult for a jury to judge.  A reader of “The Innocent Man” wondered just how much instigation there was from the police and prosecution to obtain the snitch testimony, but it was clear that the prosecution never hesitated in taking it at face value to help their case.

Joining Bill Peterson as co-plaintiffs were former state criminologist Melvin Hett and former Shawnee police officer Gary Rogers.  Defendants in the case were John Gresham, well-known attorney Barr Scheck, Gresham’s publisher, Doubleday Dell Publishing Group and Robert Mayer, author of “The Dreams of Ada,” a nonfiction book about the 1984 murder in Ada, Oklahoma, and the conviction for that murder of Tommy Ward and Karl Fontenot.  Ward and Fontenoy, who are still in prison, were convicted by jailhouse snitch testimony, similar to that used to convict Fritz and Williamson.

This lawsuit never did not appear to have any legs when it was filed because it was based on a claim of libel brought by public officials. This is First Amendment territory, the “free speech” area that courts have repeatedly ruled should remain hands-off to the courts, and a complaint brought by public officials, who have been held to be less deserving of court protection.  The Tenth Circuit Court opinion pointed to an Oklahoma Statute that provides “criticism upon the official acts of any and all public officers” cannot be considered libelous unless a defendant makes a false allegation that official engaged in criminal behavior.

When the lawsuit was filed, Ron Fritz was quoted as saying, “ The only reason [Peterson’s] filing this is he’s trying to wipe the egg off his face because he convicted two innocent men.”  It certainly looks that way.

So many federal agents were moved to counter-terrorism investigations after the 9/11 attacks that the prosecution of more traditional crimes could not be given much attention.  Carter Stewart, newly-appointed United States Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio is going to change that.

Stewart’s district includes Cincinnati, Columbus, Dayton and all of southern Ohio.  “I would like to have more resources go back to our bread-and-butter cases,” Stewart said.  By “bread-and-butter,” Stewart referred to his priorities: financial crime, mortgage fraud, public corruption, environmental crime and the exploitation of children.  Criminal defense lawyers know those are traditional areas of federal prosecution because local law enforcement usually do not have the expertise or resources to pursue crimes in those areas.

Financial crimes and mortgage frauds obviously require experts in tracking down long, often sophisticated paper trials, sometimes in dealings local law enforcement personnel have never heard of.  Public Corruption focuses on the wrong-doing of state and local politicians, so state and local prosecutors have an obvious conflict, assuming they even want to pursue the wrong-doers in any given case.  Environmental crimes require specific expertises and can cross state lines.  Exploitation of children, most commonly prostitution of children, often requires investigations across state lines as the prostitutes are moved to locations like truck stops in various cities.

In Oklahoma, federal prosecutors have continued to prosecute the crimes they traditionally pursued, in addition to national security/counter-terrorism: more commonly those in the areas of drug distribution conspiracies, violent crimes, public corruption, and white collar crimes, child computer crimes, and gun possession charges on previously-convicted felons.

The headquarters of the F.B.I. for years after 9/11 decreed that counter-terrorism shall dominate all resources.   What was surprising was how much withdrawal there was from other areas of investigation in some districts.  In those years after 9/11, Ohio had several cases of alleged terrorism since 2001, including the case involving three men from Toledo convicted last year of plotting to recruit and train terrorists.  Authorities also prosecuted three loosely-linked terrorists over four years, including Iyman Faris, also known as Mohammad Rauf and sometime F.B.I. double agent, was convicted of helping in a plot to destroy the Brooklyn Bridge at the request of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged architect of the 9/11 attacks.

Carter Stewart is following the lead of U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who has instructed new U.S. Attorneys to return to basic areas of prosecution.  Stewart’s top priority is still counter-terrorism but he has not decided on this next most important emphasis. But he is taking a close look at financial crimes.  “With today’s economy and the issues that we’re facing, I think that’s a direct result from fraudulent activity,” he said.