Mexican cartel leader Zambada pleads not guilty to US charges
NEW YORK CITY, New York: An influential leader of Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada pleaded not guilty this week in a U.S. drug trafficking case that accuses him of engaging in murder plots and ordering torture.
In a court hearing through a Spanish-language interpreter, Zambada offered yes-or-no answers to a magistrate’s standard questions about whether he understood various documents and procedures.
His lawyers entered the not-guilty plea on his behalf.
Zambada attorney Frank Perez said outside court that his client wasn’t contemplating making a deal with the government, and the attorney expects the case to go to trial.
Sought by U.S. law enforcement for more than two decades, Zambada has been in U.S. custody since July 25, when he landed in a private plane at an airport outside El Paso, Texas, in the company of another fugitive cartel leader, Joaquin Guzman Lopez, according to federal authorities.
Zambada later said in a letter that he was kidnapped in Mexico and brought to the U.S. by Guzman Lopez, a son of imprisoned Sinaloa co-founder Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
U.S. Magistrate Judge James Cho ordered Zambada detained until trial. His lawyers did not ask for bail, and U.S. prosecutors asked the judge to detain him.
Zambada, 76, used a wheelchair at a court appearance in Texas last month, and U.S. marshals steadied him Friday as he walked into a federal courtroom in Brooklyn. After the brief hearing, he appeared to accept some help getting out of a chair and then walked out slowly but unaided.
In court and in a letter earlier to the judge, prosecutors said Zambada presided over a vast and violent operation, with an arsenal of military-grade weapons, a private security force that was almost like an army, and a corps of “sicarios,” or hitmen, who carried out assassinations, kidnappings, and torture.
Prosecutors said his bloody tenure included ordering the murder, just months ago, of his nephew.
Zambada also pleaded not guilty to the charges at an earlier court appearance in Texas. His next court appearance is on October 31.
It remains unclear why Guzman Lopez surrendered to U.S. authorities and brought Zambada. Guzman Lopez is awaiting trial on a separate drug trafficking indictment in Chicago, where he has pleaded not guilty.