Genaro García Luna, former Secretary of Public Security of Mexico, has asked the judge in his case to prevent the United States Attorney’s Office from presenting evidence about the wealth he amassed after 2012, when he stopped being an official and headed a company dedicated to consulting, according to a motion promoted on Monday of this week before Judge Brian M. Cogan, a copy of which he has HIGH LEVEL.
This appeal by the defendant was filed while 400 people are being interviewed in New York, so that 12 of them are part of the jury in the drug-trafficking trial against the Mexican.
With the latter, the preliminary phase of the trial of García Luna begins in the neighboring country, which It will start on January 17. in a hearing in which the jurors will be confirmed, giving way to the opening arguments with which the Prosecutor’s Office will motivate its accusation.
according to the motion, The also former head of the Federal Investigation Agency (AFI) wants all the evidence that the US government has on the economic activities that the Mexican carried out “as a private citizen” to be excluded when he lived in the city of Miami, Florida .
“As the government knows, Mr. García Luna’s assets while he lived in the United States, after 2012, were acquired through income from private companies,” so the Prosecutor’s Office “cannot establish a link between alleged bribes while Mr. García Luna was an official of the Mexican government, before 2012, (…) and the accumulation of wealth or luxury” after that year, when he was engaged in his private business, the text of the petition says.
Genaro García’s motion, filed in the Eastern District Court of New York through his lawyers, ensures that, since there is no connection between his wealth as a businessman, and the bribes that the former official would have received from drug trafficking in Mexico, the evidence of the high standard of living he had in Miami is irrelevant.
García Luna’s defense considers that it will be “substantially damaging” if the Prosecutor’s Office is allowed to expose that the former public servant accumulated a large fortune after his retirement from the Mexican government.
Rich by his job
The former Secretary of Security in the administration of President Felipe Calderón (2006-2012) He does not deny that he is a wealthy man, because he and his partners “received significant sums for their consulting work,” and these earnings allowed him to “get rich and acquire substantial assets,” acknowledges the 13-page document submitted for endorsement before Judge Cogan.
In this motion, García Luna adds that the US Attorney’s Office has no evidence to show that his assets are linked “to the bribes from drug cartels” that he would have received when he was a public official.
However, the petition details that the prosecuting prosecutors have as evidence a series of photographs that show “the luxurious nature” of the residences in which Genaro García lived in the United States. Other evidence from the Prosecutor’s Office ensures that he spent several million dollars to buy an office space in 2018.
“The purpose of these fancy post-2012 examples is simply to suggest to the jury, without evidence, that Mr. Garcia Luna must have taken bribes to afford this kind of lifestyle.” the defense argues.
Thus, Judge Brian M. Cogan is asked not to admit the evidence about the wealth of the former official, which – it is insisted – was accumulated by the income he received in his employment after 2012.
stole government money
The lawyers for Genaro García Luna who signed the petition on his behalf are Florian Miedel, Cesar de Castro, Valerie Gotlib and Shannon McManus, who support part of the motion in a lawsuit for criminal practices and money laundering that the Financial Intelligence Unit of the Mexican Ministry of Finance (UIF) filed against the former official in 2021.
According to the litigants, in the FIU’s lawsuit, filed in a Miami County Court, García Luna is accused of various crimes that are not related to the drug trafficking charges facing in New York.
In fact, in the document filed by the Financial Intelligence Unit, which is part of the motion, it can be read that seeks to recover at least 250 million dollars “stolen from the government of MEXICO by his former Secretary of Public Safety [Ministro de Seguridad Pública] GENARO GARCIA LUNA”.
He, along with various accomplices, would have concealed the stolen funds and their proceeds through their transfer outside of Mexico, to bank accounts in Barbados and the United States. According to the FIU, García Luna and his accomplices then used these funds to acquire, control, and/or maintain “a large and sophisticated money laundering enterprise,” primarily through the purchase and maintenance of real and personal property located in Florida.
They prepare the trial
This week also began the jury selection process that will act in the trial against Genaro García Luna. For this, 400 people were summoned from among whom the twelve men and women who will have the responsibility of determining if the former Mexican official is guilty or innocent will be chosen.
Each of the candidates to be part of the jury must answer a questionnaire and undergo an interview, the answers will then be analyzed by the Prosecutor’s Office and the defense, who will prepare the lists of people they consider suitable to serve as judges.
This procedure culminates in a hearing before a magistrate in which the 12 final jurors are chosen, and who may be their substitutes. The members of the jury selected for the García Luna trial will remain anonymous, under strong security measures, and isolated, according to what Judge Brian M. Cogan determined in 2022.
Incarcerated since 2019 in the United States, the 54-year-old former Secretary of Public Safety is accused of five crimes in the Eastern District Court of New York, these are: Participating in a continuous criminal enterprise; international conspiracy to distribute cocaine; conspiracy to distribute and possess cocaine; conspiracy to import cocaine; and make false statements.
Specifically, García Luna is accused of the international distribution and import to the United States of approximately 52,845 kilos of cocaine, crimes that he would have committed between May 2002 and September 2008, as he was allegedly related to the Sinaloa cartels and the Beltrán Leyva brothers, criminal groups that would have paid him large bribes while he was a public official. If found guilty, Genaro García Luna he could receive a sentence of between 20 years in prison and life in prison.
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surya palaces Journalist and lawyer, specialist in legal analysis and human rights. She has been a reporter, radio host and editor.