Still without opening date, the trial against former magistrate for leagues with the drug

Gustavo Castillo Garcia

Newspaper La Jornada
Monday December 19, 2022, p. 17

Since February of this year, the Federal Criminal Justice Center based in Almoloya de Juárez, state of Mexico, has failed to set the date for the opening of the trial against former federal magistrate Isidro Avelar Gutiérrez, who is accused of illicit enrichment and is accused by the United States government of having received bribes from the Jalisco Nueva Generación cartel (CJNG).

After several appeals, the former magistrate is released, obtaining an amparo that revoked the house arrest and is only prevented from leaving the state of Jalisco.

Every federal criminal justice center in the country is responsible for setting the dates on which judges must hold hearings. For each stage of a criminal process, there are deadlines that must be met 10 calendar days after the declaration of the opening of the oral trial, which in this case occurred on February 15, 2022.

Documents from the Federal Judiciary (PJF) state that the initial hearing was held on November 22, 2019, when the court ordered justified preventive detention for Avelar.

However, the precautionary measure was modified twice by court decision. The first, on January 18 of this year and the second on July 15. Avelar obtained the benefit of periodically showing up to sign the book of defendants, with the prohibition to leave the state of Jalisco.

In May 2019, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC), of the United States Department of the Treasury, pointed out the former magistrate for his participation in corrupt activities.

Avelar Gutiérrez received bribes from the CJNG and Los Cuinis in exchange for issuing court rulings favorable to its main membersstated the US authorities.

On November 8, 2019, an arrest warrant was issued against Avelar for illicit enrichment, within criminal process 519/2019 and 14 days later the judicial order was executed and the initial hearing was held, in which the precautionary measure was imposed. justified pretrial detention.

On December 4, 2019, Avelar filed an appeal. A revocation followed against the linking order and the order to reinstate the process. In September 2020, a new linking order was imposed on him. On January 5, 2021, the accusation against him and the intermediate hearing were held.

On February 15 of this year, the order to open the oral trial was issued and since then there has been no impediment to holding the trial hearing, the date of which remains to be set.