david brooks
Correspondent
Newspaper La Jornada
Friday, January 13, 2023, p. 7
New York., Genaro García Luna has already chosen his wardrobe – almost all in police blue – to appear at his trial when jury selection concludes next week, while prosecutors insist that his illegal and corrupt activities during his tenure as high Mexican official since 2001 continued after leaving the government in 2012 and until he was arrested in 2019.
Prosecutors reiterated yesterday, in a letter to federal judge Brian Cogan in charge of the case, that García Luna’s financial activities after leaving public service in 2012 and moving to the United States are critical and direct evidence
of the crimes for which he is charged. They claim that when García Luna moved to Miami, he established a consultancy with which he continued to do business in Mexico, particularly in Sinaloa, with former colleagues and Mexican officials, and kept and used houses and other assets acquired while taking bribes from the Pacífico cartel
.
Furthermore, while he was Secretary of Public Security, he was in charge of managing millions of dollars sent by the United States to fight the cartels and facilitated a series of surveillance and technology contracts with business groups, which supported him in his move to the United States. States, including handing over a multi-million dollar residence and a yacht in Miami, while helping them win more contracts with the Mexican government.
Affirm that evidence of the defendant’s activities after leaving their posts
as well as the use of goods you acquired, your ease of traveling and doing business in Mexico, including with the Mexican government, show that defendant continued to receive benefits from the conspiracy years after leaving office
.
They also insist that his post-government activities show that the accused handed out lucrative contracts and sought relationships with international businessmen to later receive the benefits of those favors, stressing that the defendant sought positions of power in the Mexican government not to serve the public or enforce the law, but to amass money, power, and connections for his own benefit
.
The defense has insisted that information about García Luna’s activities after he left the government in 2012 is Irrelevant
for the case in which he is accused of participating in a drug conspiracy by accepting multi-million dollar bribes from the Sinaloa cartel when he was a high-ranking Mexican official between 2001 and 2012. Therefore, they have asked the judge to prevent the presentation of evidence to the jury, materials and witnesses about his client’s post-government period, arguing that to date prosecutors have failed to show a link between the post-government businesses and his activities that they allege were corrupt while he was a public official.
At the same time, in a civil case in Miami presented on behalf of the Financial Intelligence Unit of Mexico, García Luna is accused of stealing some 250 million dollars from the Mexican government when he was Secretary of Public Security and that after leaving the public sector he continued to profit from it in illicit operations with his business partners in Florida. That case was initiated in September 2021 and is pending pending the resolution of legal issues.
civilian clothing
Meanwhile, as the start date of the trial approaches at the conclusion of the jury selection process on January 17, Judge Cogan approved the request of García Luna’s defense attorneys’ team to make available civilian clothing
for the defendant at the beginning of each day during the trial sessions. He accepted the defense’s proposal of two navy blue jackets, two navy blue pants, two white and two light blue formal shirts, T-shirts, three ties, socks, a belt and a pair of black shoes.
García Luna faces five counts related to the accusation that he provided assistance to the Sinaloa cartel in exchange for multimillion-dollar bribes when he was a top official and for lying to US authorities. He was arrested in Dallas in December 2019 and transferred to the Brooklyn detention center, where he has remained awaiting trial. He faces a maximum sentence of life in prison.
The trial can be interrupted and concluded at any time if the defendant decides to plead guilty and/or negotiate some type of agreement with the authorities, including cooperating in investigations and cases against other characters.
