A purported co-founder of the Juárez Cartel is to plead guilty in San Antonio to federal racketeering conspiracy charges that will send him to prison for more than 18 years.
Juan José Quintero Payán signed a plea deal last week that lays out a three-decade biography of his drug trafficking activities as well as that of several associates in his well-known crime family.
The agreement never calls Quintero, 69, a boss of one of Mexico’s most powerful cartels — as Mexican officials repeatedly have — but it paints him as a principal force in a criminal enterprise whose operations stretched from South America to Mexico, the Cayman Islands and the United States. It says he was involved in trafficking activity from 1978 to 2002, even after he was captured by Mexican authorities in 1999.
The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration calls him the head of the “Quintero Drug Trafficking Enterprise.”
As part of the deal, Quintero plans to admit that he and his younger brother Emilio Quintero Payán, now deceased, moved 15,000-pound loads of marijuana in tanker trucks, largely through El Paso (across the border from Ciudad Juárez) and southern Texas, and contracted planes to handle 1,400-pound shipments of cocaine. In the 1980s, some seizures in Texas of his shipments set U.S. records.
The brothers forged a vast international network of trafficking alliances in Colombia, Peru and elsewhere, and had corrupt bankers and law officers at their disposal.
If Quintero does plead guilty at a hearing scheduled for June 28 before U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia, it will end a long tale of U.S. pursuit, which included an eight-year struggle to extradite him from Mexico. Mexico turned him over last year with America’s promise to abide by an extradition treaty that will not allow a life sentence or the death penalty.
His plea deal says Quintero will serve 222 months and will not get credit for any of the 99 months — on and off — that he spent in Mexican prisons for similar crimes.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Charles Lewis, who’s handled the case since the 1980s and tried several of Quintero’s associates, said the plea bargain is “not a cooperation plea deal” in which the government gives credit for information provided by a defendant.
Quintero’s lawyer, Gerry Goldstein of San Antonio, said his client is “pleading to a significant crime, and he’s going to be receiving a significant sentence.” But he noted Quintero is not an author of the current violence that has plagued various parts of Mexico as cartels fight each other for important smuggling routes into the United States, particularly in Ciudad Juárez.
“He didn’t kill anybody, and nobody’s suggesting that he did,” Goldstein said. “He’s a drug trafficker, but he wasn’t involved in any current violence … He’s still entering a plea (admitting) to something no one likes.”
If you have been charged with a crime such as DWI, arson, auto theft, etc., please contact the Law Office of Robert I. Kahn at (210) 225-6600 for a free consultation.
The Law Office of Robert I. Kahn is located at 111 Soledad St, Suite 1700, San Antonio, TX 78205 (210) 225-6600 & my website can be found on Google | Yahoo | Bing | Manta | San Antonio SEO | Merchant Circle | Citysearch | Lawyerdirections | Findlaw | Yelp | YP.com | Website | Directions | Avvo DWI | Avvo | Gravatar | SEO Company | Attorney Marketing | San Antonio SEO | San Antonio Website Design
