Drug Trial : Ambassador Won’t Have to Testify

A federal judge Monday refused to order the U. S. ambassador to Mexico to appear as a witness in a complex drug trial in San Diego.

A defense attorney had requested that the ambassador testify about the true status of several defendants the prosecution claims were high-ranking Mexican government officials when they were arrested in an undercover sting.

U. S. District Judge William B. Enright did agree to privately review State Department documents to determine whether they can be used in the trial of four Mexicans and three Bolivians on drug charges.

“If they (the documents) are admissible, I’ll be happy to release some or all of them,” the judge said.

The case began in 1987 when the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and U. S. Customs set up an undercover sting with the intention of snaring corrupt Mexican officials.

Arrested in La Jolla

The investigation ended in January, 1988, when federal agents posing as drug dealers arrested the men in a La Jolla supermarket parking lot after $500,000 changed hands.

At the time of the arrests, U. S. officials called them significant because they supposedly showed complicity of Mexican officials in the international drug trade. Three of the defendants, Jorge Carranza Peniche, Pablo Giron Ortiz and Hector Manuel Brumel Alvarez, were identified as well-connected Mexican government or military officials.

However, defense attorneys in the trial, which started several weeks ago, are trying to show that Carranza, Giron and Brumel did not hold Mexican government positions. The attorneys contend their clients were posing as Mexican officials in order to sting U. S. drug agents, who they thought were drug dealers.

Attorney Cynthia Aaron, who represents Carranza, wanted Ambassador Charles J. Pilliod to testify about conversations with Mexican government leaders at the time of the La Jolla arrests.

In reports published last year, Pilliod was quoted as saying that Mexican officials told him that Carranza was discharged from the Mexican army in 1970, that Giron was never a commandant in the Mexican Federal Judicial Police and that Brumel was never a member of the ruling Institutional Revolutionary Party.

Compared to North Trial

Aaron, in asking Enright Monday to uphold her subpoena for Pilliod, compared the case with the arms-for-hostages trial in Washington, in which former President Ronald Reagan has also been identified as a potential court witness.

“Nobody is above the law,” Aaron said. “Even President Reagan is being held on hold under subpoena in the Oliver North case.”

However, Assistant U. S. Atty. Stephen Nelson argued that the information Pilliod obtained was nothing more than hearsay and should not be allowed as evidence in the trial.

He also argued that Pilliod is “not a trained investigator” and therefore cannot testify to the veracity of the information he received about the Mexicans’ backgrounds.

“He shot from the hip when he made his comments” in the media last year, Nelson said. “It’s the opinion of someone who has no personal knowledge. It’s rank hearsay. He talked to someone who didn’t have a clue about this case.”

In ruling in favor of Nelson’s motion to quash the subpoena for Pilliod, the judge said he did not think there was sufficient evidence to show that the ambassador’s testimony would be relevant. But he did say he would review State Department correspondence between Pilliod and Mexican government officials and rule on whether any of that material may be entered as evidence in the trial.