The Mexican government has begun extradition proceedings against the alleged ringleader of gunmen accused in the February slaying of American federal agent Jaime Zapata.

Police served a new arrest warrant late last week to the already jailed Julian Zapata Espinoza, nicknamed “Tweety Bird,” in anticipation of extradition petitions from Washington, Mexico’s attorney general’s office announced Tuesday.

Once a formal U.S. request is received, a Mexican federal judge will decide whether there are grounds to extradite Zapata.

“This sort of extradition process can sometimes take years,” cautioned Rocio Torres, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, though she added the cases are usually completed in months.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Justice Department declined to comment. U.S. officials usually don’t comment on extradition matters until they are completed, a spokesperson at the U.S. embassy in Mexico City said.

Julian Zapata, who is no relation to the slain U.S. agent, and 11 other alleged members of the Zetas criminal syndicate were arrested in late February in the northern city of San Luis Potosi after a fast investigation actively supported by the FBI and other U.S. agencies.

Investigators say the Zeta gunmen ambushed Jaime Zapata and fellow U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Victor Avila as they drove in an armored U.S. embassy SUV on the main highway linking Mexico City to the Texas border.

Whether Zapata and Avila were attacked because they were agents remains unclear.

The U.S. agents identified themselves as U.S. diplomats after the gunmen forced them off the highway, officials have said. But the detained gunmen reportedly have said they mistook the agents for members of a rival gang.

The agents’ vehicle was of a kind favored by Mexican narcotics gangs. The gangsters’ frequent carjackings of SUVs and double-cab pickups have made travel perilous even on busy toll expressways in much of northern Mexico.

Once all but unthinkable, extraditions from Mexico to the U.S. have become commonplace since President Felipe Calderón took office in December 2006. More than 400 people have been sent north since, including a handful of top crime bosses.

Among the first extradited during Calderón’s tenure was Osiel Cardenas Guillen, the kingpin who formed the Zetas, originally veterans of the army special forces, or deserters, in the mid-1990s as his personal bodyguards and enforcers. The Zetas are now waging a brutal war against Cardenas’ former gang, known as the Gulf Cartel, across northeastern Mexico.

After pleading guilty to drug-trafficking charges in a Houston federal court and agreeing to cooperate with U.S. agents, Cardenas is scheduled to be released in 13 years.

If you have been charged with murder, sex crime, fraud, assault, etc., please contact The Law Office of Robert I. Kahn at (210) 225-6600 for your free consultation.

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Two men were killed in a head on collision early Sunday, when a 19 year old suspected drunken driver drove the wrong way on the Northeast Side.

Taylor Rae Rosenbusch sustained minor injuries and was taken to University Hospital, where officials said she was charged with two counts of intoxication maslaughter. Her bail totals $150,000, according to bexar County records.

Authorities have not yet released the names or ages of the two men who died in the crash, which took place on Interstate 35 at topperwein Road around 4:10 a.m. Sunday.

Police said passing motorists, including one off duty SAPD officer, reported Rosenbusch driving a light colored Jeep Liberty south in the northbound lanes of the interstate at Pat Booker Road. By the time the off duty officer could exit, turn around and attempt to follow her, she had already crashed into a dark colored Ford Focus.

Two men inside the Focus were pronounced dead at the scene, police said.

Rosenbusch originally of Corpus Christi, had been living in San Antonio for the past couple of years to attend college, according to a relative. Her parents were en route to town Sunday, the relative said.

Officers closed lanes of the interstate for several hours while investigating the crash.

If you have been charged with murder, sex crime, fraud, assault, etc., please contact The Law Office of Robert I. Kahn at (210) 225-6600 for your free consultation.

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For at least a year, both Sharon and Glen Denson had been openly dating other people despite sharing a home with each other.

But on the day before Sharon Denson, 50, and her boyfriend, Sidney Dees, 64, were shot and set on fire in June 2008, Glen Denson had been inquiring after her whereabouts, the couple’s son testified Wednesday as his father’s capital murder trial continued.

“Mom asked me to take her to her friend’s house and I said, ’No,’ because I didn’t want to take her there” to meet Dees, Christopher Denson, 25, told jurors as he was called to the witness stand by prosecutors.  ”I didn’t like the fact she had” a boyfriend.

Instead, he said, he dropped his mother off at Walmart, where she met Dees.

When he returned home a short time later, he said, “my dad asked me where I’d been and if I knew where my mom was.”  He lied, he said telling his father, “I don’t know.”

Glen Denson, now 48, faces an automatic sentence of life in prison without parole if jurors find him guilty of the double slaying of his wife and Dees.  Gunshot residue and his wife’s own statements before she died link him to the crime, prosecutors have said.

On Wednesday, prosecutors Linda Molina and Rita Spiegel showed jurors photos of burns found on Glen Denson’s legs when he was arrested hours after his wife and Dees were shot and set on fire.  Those burns had not been there the night before, his son said.

Christopher Denson said he woke up the next morning to police pounding on their front door.  He visited his mother at Brook Army Medical Center every day until she died a week later, but she never was coherent again, he said.

“She went in for skin graft surgery,” he said, struggling to keep his composure as he explained that she succumbed to a heart attack.  “They tried to resuscitate her for an hour and then she died.”

Glen Denson stared at his son, not showing emotion, during the testimony.  Minutes later, Christopher Denson broke down outside the courtroom, weeping as family tried to console him.

Also giving emotional testimony Wednesday was Glen Denson’s girlfriend, Gina Ellison.

Glen Denson was a “very nice person” who was very supportive of her daughters and would spend the night two to three times per week, she said.

“It wasn’t a secret,” she said of their relationship, adding that her relations with Sharon Denson were cordial.  “They would both just say they weren’t divorcing because they were both still living in the house.”

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A San Antonio man was sentenced to 20 years in prison Tuesday for killing the wrong person while trying to settle a score over a $1,300 marijuana deal gone bad.

Police said Leonard Perez Jr., 22, went to the Hunter’s Glen apartments on the Northwest Side in October 2009 looking for someone known as “Worm” who had ripped off either him or an associate.

Steven Craig Jones, 41, who went by the nickname “Psycho,” answered the door instead and said he did not know who “Worm” was, court documents state.

Perez kicked in the door and began firing, according to witness statements.

Jones died with seven gunshot wounds.  Another person in the home, Roderick Dancy, was shot in the buttocks but survived.

Perez pleaded no contest last month to murder in exchange for a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.  On Tuesday, however, he proclaimed his innocence and asked State District Judge Mary Roman to rescind his plea.  She declined the request.

In a long complaint to the judge, the defendant’s father, Leonard Perez Sr., said his son had been bullied into pleading no contest after prosecutors threatened to arrest the defendant’s brother for allegedly disposing of the murder weapon.

“What kind of scare tactic is that? Gestapo tactics?” Perez Sr. asked.

Roman dismissed the allegations of prosecutorial misconduct, telling Assistant District Attorney Julie Wright: “I know you don’t threaten people for the sake of threatening them.  I know better.”

Charges against the brother would have been “highly appropriate” but would not be pursued because of the plea agreement, Wright said.

Outside the courtroom, defense attorney Mick Aguilera said his client had been nervous about the possibility of a 30-year sentence but was satisfied with what the judge gave him.

“Fortunately, the family didn’t lose two kids over this,” Aguilera said, adding that his client grew up in the gang system.  “Fortunately, his brother is not in the system and we can only pray he listens and becomes a better citizen as a result of this.”

No one from the victim’s family was able to attend the sentencing hearing.  Originally from Los Angeles, Jones had two children who miss him dearly, his sister told court officials by phone.

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A man was killed in a hail of gunfire outside his East Side home late Tuesday night, police said.

The medical examiner’s office identified the victim as Arthur Lee Perkins, 24.

Police said Perkins was shot in the head in the 400 block of Gulf Street, and his assailants were believed to have fled in a small, newer-model vehicle.  A neighbor told police he found the victim lying in the street.

Investigators recovered more than two dozen spent cartridge shells.  Police said they also recovered a handgun and what appeared to be narcotics paraphernalia nearby.

Investigators said they had not determined if the slaying was related to an incident four blocks away in which shots were fired at two men almost 30 minutes later, while officers were still at the homicide scene.

Those shots hit a pickup in front of a house in the 1400 block of Center Street.  Two vehicles fled the area.

Police said the men were uninjured and refused to file a report.

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Sec. 49.08.  INTOXICATION MANSLAUGHTER.  (a)  A person commits an offense if the person:

(1)  operates a motor vehicle in a public place, operates an aircraft, a watercraft, or an amusement ride, or assembles a mobile amusement ride;  and

(2)  is intoxicated and by reason of that intoxication causes the death of another by accident or mistake.

(b)  Except as provided by Section 49.09, an offense under this section is a felony of the second degree.

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Sec. 19.04.  MANSLAUGHTER.  (a)  A person commits an offense if he recklessly causes the death of an individual.

(b)  An offense under this section is a felony of the second degree.

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