Suspect Held in Camarena Case Sues

An admitted cocaine trafficker being held on charges stemming from the murder of federal drug agent Enrique Camarena filed suit Friday, claiming that he has been held for 15 months in a small cell to pressure him into providing information about the slaying.

Jesus Felix-Gutierrez, a Mexican national who is accused of helping drug lord Rafael Caro-Quintero flee Mexico after the Camarena killing, said he has been held in administrative detention in federal prisons at Terminal Island and Marion, Ill., since December of 1986.

In his Los Angeles federal court lawsuit, Felix claims he is restrained in a 6-by-9-foot cell 24 hours a day and is permitted exercise outside the cell for less than five hours a week.

His attorney, Donald Randoph, said he knows of no other prisoner who has been kept in restricted confinement for so long and claims that Felix-Gutierrez’s treatment stems from his purported involvement in the Camarena case.

“The government wants vengeance, and they’re not willing to wait for a trial; they want vengeance now and they’re getting it from Jesus Felix,” he said.

Felix-Gutierrez pleaded guilty last year to heading a Southern California cocaine trafficking organization that prosecutors claimed was Caro-Quintero’s distribution network in California. He attempted to withdraw the plea later, claiming he had been coerced into entering it.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Jimmy Gurule, who is prosecuting both the Camarena case and Felix-Gutierrez’s cocaine case, said prosecutors have no authority to dictate the conditions of confinement for prisoners.

“At least some people from the Bureau of Prisons must have believed that his crimes and so on and history justified that type of detention,” Gurule said. “I believe (they) had good cause to place him where they placed him.”

Gurule also denied that Felix-Gutierrez was coerced into entering a guilty plea in the drug trafficking case.

“In fact, his own attorney drafted the plea agreement that Jesus Felix signed,” he said. “Don Randolph can say these things until he’s blue in the face, but it’s not going to change the facts of what transpired.”

U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie refused to allow Felix-Gutierrez to withdraw the plea. That ruling is now on appeal.

Jim Zangs, executive assistant to the warden at Terminal Island, said he could not comment on the specifics of Felix-Gutierrez’s case because it is now under litigation.