Mexico Won’t Try Suspects in Slaying of Former Newport Businessman

Citing insufficient evidence, a Mexican appeals court Thursday threw out the prosecution’s case against two men accused of killing a former Newport Beach real estate broker during a botched robbery last December.

The ruling in the case of Peter Zarate, 40, who was shot to death after taking a taxi from his office in the upscale Mexico City neighborhood of Polanco, ends a controversial series of rulings that has provoked outrage from the U.S. Embassy and a shaken U.S. business community.

The two suspects, Alfonso “El Chucky” Gonzalez and Victor “El Camaron” Mesa, had signed confessions but later recanted, saying they were tortured by police. Although they can no longer be charged in Zarate’s death, both are still in jail on separate charges of robbing two Venezuelan tourists.

Judges who have ruled on the case four times since January said the confessions were contradictory and that prosecutors failed to provide any corroborating evidence. The three-judge appellate panel that ruled Thursday agreed.

“There were many contradictions in the confessions,” said Judge Mauridio Dominguez Cruz, a member of the appellate panel who granted a rare interview to defend the judicial system against charges of corruption in this case. “If a confession is not accompanied by real evidence, that is not enough.”

However, Juan Sanchez, a spokesman for the city attorney’s office in Mexico City, said, “All the evidence you could want is here.”

Zarate, a commercial real estate broker for New York-based Cushman & Wakefield Inc., transferred from the company’s Irvine office to Mexico City in 1993. He lived in the city with his wife and four children.

Prosecutors said bandits jumped into his taxi in Polanco and later killed him with a single shot, then pushed his body out of the car.

The killing stunned the large community of foreigners doing business in Mexico and underscored the growing insecurity in the capital, where assaults against executives, particularly in rogue taxis, have become increasingly common.

Thursday’s ruling did nothing to appease Zarate’s former employer, which still maintains a Mexico City office. “We’re not surprised at all,” said Arthur J. Mirante, president and chief executive officer of Cushman & Wakefield. “They have a totally corrupt judicial system.”

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Mexico City bureau researcher Brinley Bruton contributed to this report.