February 25, 2010
Mexican Drug Kingpin Sentenced to 25 Years in Secret Hearing
By JAMES C. McKINLEY Jr.
HOUSTON — One of the most brutal and feared drug kingpins in Mexican history was sentenced this week to 25 years in prison during a highly secretive hearing here that was closed to the public to protect the lives of everyone involved, according to a court transcript unsealed Thursday.
Osiel Cárdenas Guillén, the head of the Gulf Cartel, which controls much of the cocaine traffic across the border in South Texas, has agreed to cooperate with the federal government, according to the transcript. Mr. Cárdenas pleaded guilty to five counts in a lengthy indictment, including drug dealing, money laundering and the attempted murder and assault of federal agents. He also forfeited $50 million in assets.
The sentencing took place in a federal courtroom in Houston behind locked doors and armed guards before Judge Hilda G. Tagle, who granted the government’s request to bar the public. Only two members of Mr. Cárdenas’s family and a handful of federal agents were present.
Judges often seal particular documents in drug and terrorism trials to protect informants or continuing investigations, but it is highly unusual to seal a sentencing hearing for security reasons.
“I apologize to my country, Mexico, to the United States of America, my family, to my wife especially, my children, for all the mistakes I made,” Mr. Cárdenas, 42, said in court. He added, “I am remorseful.”
Judge Tagle said people she had encountered whose lives had been ruined by the drug trade and the violence it generated had weighed heavily in her mind in deciding whether to accept the prosecutor’s recommendation of 25 years.
“Kidnappings, extortion, gun battles in the streets, a desperate economy, innocence lost — that is your legacy to your country, to our communities on both sides of the border, and to society,” the judge told Mr. Cárdenas, according to the transcript.
Before his arrest in Mexico in March 2003, Mr. Cárdenas ran a small empire of drug smugglers and gunmen in his home state, Tamaulipas, moving tons of cocaine every year into the United States. Law enforcement authorities on both sides of the border said he was famed for vicious violence against his enemies and for recruiting former military commandos to serve as his gunmen, known as Zetas.
Even from his Mexican jail cell, he continued to oversee the cartel’s operations, law enforcement officials say. But in 2007, President Felipe Calderón of Mexico, having begun an offensive against drug dealers, broke with policy and extradited Mr. Cárdenas along with 14 other major figures from the Mexican underworld.
Since then, Mr. Cárdenas has been cooperating with the United States authorities, as his organization has been weakened by arrests and by a lack of strong leadership at the top, experts on Mexican drug cartels said.
The Zetas, meanwhile, have broken off and became a separate criminal operation that now controls the lucrative crossing at Laredo, Tex. In recent weeks, there have been a series of gun battles between the Zetas and the remnants of Mr. Cárdenas’s organization in towns along the Texas border as they vie for turf.
“Ever since he’s been in the United States, he’s been cooperating,” said George W. Grayson, a professor at the College of William & Mary who studies the Mexican cartels. “He may be more inclined to talk about the Zetas given the hammer-and-tong conflict between them and the Gulf Cartel.”
The sentencing and the two years of legal maneuvering before it were handled with the utmost secrecy. At the request of prosecutors, Judge Tagle sealed dozens of documents in the case, from those related to Mr. Cárdenas’s plea agreement to descriptions of his assets.
The final hearing on Wednesday was not even put on the court’s docket until hours after it was over. In the transcript, the judge explained that the United States Marshals Service had asked to keep the public from witnessing the hearing because it would jeopardize the safety of Mr. Cárdenas. The threat was never explained in court, and the affidavit requesting the unusual level of secrecy was itself sealed.
Judge Tagle agreed to the request, saying there was a good chance, if she opened the hearing, that “the defendant, court personnel, United States marshal personnel, other courthouse personnel and the general public will be placed in imminent danger.”
Several experts on criminal law said it was extremely rare for a judge to bar the public from the sentencing of an organized crime figure. It is more often the case that a judge will seal some documents related to a criminal’s plea agreement on the theory it could upend an investigation.
And in some cases, a judge will close a sentencing hearing if the defendant is going to talk about his cooperation with investigators. But even in cases involving terrorists and American mobsters, most sentencing proceedings are public.
Rachel Marcus contributed reporting.
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