David Brooks and Jim Cason
Correspondents
La Jornada Newspaper
Thursday, December 19, 2024, p. 13
New York and Washington. Federal prosecutors from the United States Department of Justice do not rule out the possibility of Vicente Zambada Niebla being a witness in an eventual trial of his father, Ismael. May Zambada García.
In a letter sent this Wednesday to federal judge Brian Cogan, in charge of the case against The May, Federal prosecutors recall that Zambada Niebla was a co-conspirator of the accused for drug trafficking and that he pleaded guilty as part of a cooperation agreement with the United States Department of Justice. Today, although he has already served his sentence, he is still subject to that agreement as a protected witness where in exchange he has to testify in other cases, as he did in Joaquín’s trial. El Chapo Guzmán Loera (case presided over by the same judge).
In the context of the process against May Zambada, prosecutors led by Breon Peace say they do not rule out the possibility that Vicente Zambada, The Vicentillobe summoned to testify in a possible trial. The government cannot estimate at this time the likelihood that it will call Zambada Niebla to testify, but it does expect that he will be on the government’s witness list as a potential witness.
they write in the letter to Judge Cogan.
Given this, there is a possible conflict of interest since one of the two defense lawyers hired by May It is the same one who represented his son. Since Vicente Zambada implicated his father during his testimony in the case of El Chapowhere he stated about his role working for Zambada García and Guzmán Loera in their management of the Sinaloa cartel, and that his lawyer remains Frank Perez, the same one who now represents his father, a possible legal conflict of interest arises. Prosecutors suggest that for now, this conflict should not prevent us from proceeding with the process of this case in this preliminary phase with the participation of lawyer Perez and that later it can be evaluated whether this potential conflict generates a problem when proceeding to a trial.
Prosecutors clarify that there is no date for a trial yet, and that it is unlikely that one will be scheduled in the immediate future. In fact, they leave open the possibility that the case may not go to trial.
The next preliminary hearing for this case is scheduled for January 15 in the Federal Court of the Eastern District in Brooklyn, New York, in the same place and with the same judge as the trials against El Chapo and Genaro García Luna.
