3rd Defendant Convicted in Camarena Case

A wealthy Mexican businessman and brother-in-law of former Mexican President Luis Echeverria Alvarez was convicted Tuesday by a Los Angeles jury of conspiracy in the 1985 slaying of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration agent Enrique Camarena.

The six-man, six-woman federal court jury, whose verdict was greeted by smiles from DEA agents in the courtroom, convicted Ruben Zuno Arce of three counts arising from Camarena’s abduction and torture-murder.

The counts included committing a violent act in aid of a racketeering enterprise, conspiring to kidnap a federal agent and aiding and abetting the kidnaping of a federal agent because he was performing his duties.

In a case that has strained relations between the U.S. and Mexico, prosecutors accused Zuno of acting as a link between the highest levels of the Mexican government and a multibillion-dollar drug cartel based in Guadalajara.

His conviction stemmed from a federal grand jury indictment last December that described Zuno as one of the people who “organized and put into operation a scheme to kidnap and murder” Camarena.

Camarena was abducted off a Guadalajara street on Feb. 7, 1985, by members of a Guadalajara-based drug ring and some of their allies in Mexican law enforcement. He was interrogated and tortured over the next two days and his mutilated body--as well as that of his pilot--was found a month later at a ranch about 60 miles outside town.

Since that time, a group of DEA agents has vigorously pursued Camarena’s killers as part of a massive U.S. investigation code-named Operation Leyenda.

As Tuesday’s verdicts were read by U.S. District Judge Edward Rafeedie, Hector Berrellez and Douglas Kuehl, the lead DEA agents on the case, turned to the audience and smiled broadly at their colleagues from Operation Leyenda. After the jury left the courtroom to continue deliberations on another defendant, the agents exchanged enthusiastic handshakes and embraces.

On the judge’s instruction, the agents and prosecutors Manuel A. Medrano and John L. Carlton would not comment on the verdicts.

The 60-year-old Zuno remained composed as the verdicts were relayed to him by an interpreter. His wife, Enriqueta, sitting near the rear of the courtroom, appeared to hold back tears, as did some of his attorneys.

Although there are four defendants in the case, DEA officials were particularly desirous of securing a conviction of Zuno, a reputed millionaire and member of a prominent Mexican political family.

A central theme of the prosecution was that Camarena was murdered in retaliation for raids against the narcotics traffickers in 1984, and prosecutors said that Camarena’s murder could not have been carried out without assistance from corrupt officials inside Mexican law enforcement.

Zuno’s father was once governor of the state of Jalisco and Zuno was considered a key figure for the PRI, Mexico’s dominant political party, in his hometown of Mascota.

His significance in the world of Mexican politics was manifested by the fact that the Mexican consul general’s office in Los Angeles helped to secure him legal representation after he was brought to Los Angeles as a “material witness” in the Camarena investigation last August.

The consul’s office asked James E. Blancarte, former president of the Mexican-American Bar Assn., to represent Zuno. Blancarte, a partner in the prominent Century City law firm of Mitchell, Silberberg & Knupp, agreed, and his partner, veteran trial attorney Edward Medvene, became the lead lawyer.

The firm had five lawyers working virtually full time on the case for months and they clearly were stunned by the verdicts, although they declined comment on orders of the judge.

The verdicts came on the 12th day of deliberations and arrived on the heels of convictions Thursday and July 24 of two other defendants on the same charges. Convicted were Juan Ramon Matta Ballesteros, a 45-year-old Honduran drug lord, and Juan Jose Bernabe Ramirez, 31, a former bodyguard for Mexican narcotics kingpin Ernesto Fonseca Carrillo.

The jury is still deliberating the fate of Javier Vasquez Velasco, 38, who is accused of murdering two men, mistaken for DEA agents, at a Guadalajara restaurant the week before Camarena was kidnaped. Judge Rafeedie has consolidated the two cases.

During the trial, two government-paid witnesses gave testimony linking Zuno to drug traffickers.

Testimony also was given that, until shortly before Camarena was abducted, Zuno owned the Guadalajara house where the agent was interrogated and tortured. Shortly after Zuno sold the house, it was bought by Mexican drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero.

Caro was one of the instigators of the kidnaping, interrogated Camarena at length and is now serving a lengthy prison term in Mexico on a conviction stemming from Camarena’s murder.

The principal witness against Zuno was Hector Cervantes Santos, 30, a former Guadalajara riot squad policeman who said that Zuno participated in three meetings at the home of Guadalajara drug trafficker Javier Barba Hernandez, where Camarena’s abduction was planned.

Cervantes testified that at one meeting in September, 1984, Zuno said Camarena should be “picked up” and questioned.

At another meeting, according to Cervantes, Zuno told the other plotters that Camarena should be interrogated on what he knew about “my general,” a reference to Gen. Juan Arevalo Gardoqui, Mexico’s Minister of Defense from 1983 to 1988.

Camarena was interrogated on what he knew about Arevalo when he was tortured, according to audio tapes the DEA obtained after Camarena was murdered.

Moreover, Cervantes testified that shortly after Camarena was killed, Zuno telephoned Barba to tell him that the murder would create a furor and “I can’t stop the trouble.”

On cross-examination, however, records were introduced from the national telephone company of Mexico showing that there was no telephone at Barba’s house in February, 1985.

Defense lawyers tried to raise further doubts about Cervantes by pointing out that he had agreed to become a government witness last November, only one week after he was cashiered from the Guadalajara police department for the third time.

Zuno could receive a life term in federal prison when he is sentenced by Rafeedie on Sept. 18.