The Step.- The United States Department of Justice is holding firm in its initiative to have Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada first face drug trafficking charges in New York and then return to El Paso to be tried, despite the fact that he was arrested in Santa Teresa, New Mexico on June 25 and has already had court hearings in El Paso.
On Monday, U.S. Attorney Jaime Esparza filed a response in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas, arguing that Zambada’s request last Friday to freeze his transfer and try him first in El Paso is without merit.
“Defendant has not offered any plausible basis, and there is no plausible basis, to prevent such production” in the Eastern District of New York, the U.S. Attorney’s Aug. 26 brief states. “It is also not correct for defendant to assert that the government is required to articulate any reason for production in one order or another when there are numerous options. The indictment and warrant speak for themselves and are reason enough.”
In a response filed Friday to the motion seeking to send Zambada to New York to stand trial there and then return to his trial in El Paso, Zambada’s attorney, Frank A. Perez, argued that the U.S. Attorney’s Office is misrepresenting constitutional law regarding a defendant’s right to a speedy trial. He argued that the case should not be handled in New York when court proceedings have already begun in El Paso.
“The Office makes no attempt to articulate why Mr. Zambada Garcia should be transferred from the Western District of Texas (WDTX) when this case is ongoing and then transferred to the Eastern District of New York (EDNY),” Perez wrote in his response.
Perez argued that the U.S. Attorney’s Office’s request to increase the time period in which Zambada must be tried in El Paso so the case can go to trial in New York does not meet legal standards that ensure his client’s rights to a speedy trial are not violated.
For the Federal Prosecutor’s Office in West Texas, headed by Esparza, ‘El Mayo’ Zambada has been indicted no less than 16 times by a series of federal grand juries, the first being in Washington DC just over two decades ago and most recently, in February of this year in a fifth superseding indictment in the Eastern District of New York.
“The United States’ intent in requesting a first appearance is to ensure that the defendant faces justice and is held fully accountable for all of the crimes in these indictments, and for his countless victims in this district and in every district across the country,” Esparza argues.
He adds that while the defendant suggests in the Opposition that the order of his prosecution is determined solely by the coincidence of having been arrested in the closest proximity to this district, but that no principle of law supports this extraordinary claim. (Staff/El Diario de El Paso)
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