Saturday, February 13, 1999
PAGE 7A
Laredo Morning Times
STATE
Defense begins its case in Mexican Mafia trial
BY KELLEY SHANNON
Associated Press Writer
SAN ANTONIO — Defense
attorneys began calling witnesses Friday in the federal
trial of 10 reputed Mexican
Mafia members accused of
drug dealing, robbery and multiple murders.
Their lawyers are trying to
distance the defendants from
a series of crimes the gang is
accused of, including 15
killings beginning in 1994 and
culminating in the shotgun
slayings of five people inside a
San Antonio house in August
1997.
For four weeks, prosecutors
questioned law officers and
former gang members in an
attempt to prove Robert
“Beaver” Perez, 40, an alleged
Mexican Mafia “general,” and
nine other men are guilty of
racketeering and racketeering
conspiracy.
The government rested its
case Thursday after calling
more than 130 witnesses.
Some of the killings the
defendants are blamed for
involved Mexican Mafia members who became disloyal or
too vocal about the gang’s
crimes, prosecutors contend.
“You have to understand that
members of this organization
kill or they will be killed,”
Assistant U.S. Attorney Bill
Baumann told jurors in opening statements a month ago.
One of the key prosecution
witnesses was former Mexican
Mafia member Frank Estrada,
22, who testified he and other
gang members took part in six
killings before 1995. Estrada
was not indicted in the case.
Defense lawyers took aim at
Estrada at the start of the trial
and continued to try to shake
his credibility when he took the
witness stand this week.
“This guy is a lying scumbag,” defense attorney Francis
Joseph Stenberg declared in
court, outside the presence of
the jury.
With jurors present, Stenberg
tried through his questioning
to suggest Estrada was a killer
himself and couldn’t be
believed.
“What are you talking about?
What are you talking about?”
an agitated Estrada replied.
“Hold on, hold on. You’re
putting things in my mouth.”
Estrada, at times lacing his
testimony with expletives, said
he couldn’t read or write, but
when he was in jail on another
matter in 1997 he asked a cellmate to write a letter for him to
the FBI seeking protection.
FBI Agent Mike Appleby, who
received the letter, said the
note led to his investigation
and ultimately the racketeer-
ing charges against the defendants.
Appleby also investigated the
Mexican Mafia before a 1994
federal racketeering trial that
ended in the conviction of
gang president Heriberto
“Herb” Huerta.
Estrada testified he feared
other gang members would kill
him, and that after two
Mexican
Mafia
members
showed up at his door in 1997
he ran to a neighbor’s home
and begged to have the police
called to arrest him.
Throughout the trial, the
defendants have sat silently in
the courtroom under heavy
guard by the U.S. Marshals
Service
as
prosecutors
methodically have gone over
the grisly details of each
killing.
Big posters with names and
photographs of murder victims
and information about the
Man sentenced to death in mutilation
BY MADELINE BARO
Associated Press Writer
EDINBURG, Texas — Jurors
decided Friday that a South
Texas man who killed a boy and
drank his blood should be sentenced to death, rejecting
claims that he should be spared
because he suffers from mental
problems.
Jurors deliberated for a total of
six hours Thursday and Friday
before deciding that Pablo
Lucio Vasquez deserved the
death penalty.
As he has been throughout the
trial, Vasquez was expressionless when the verdict was read.
“He deserves to die for killing
my 12-year-old son,” said Oralia
Palacios, the mother of victim
David Cardenas. “He acted like
a coward. Why couldn’t he find
someone his own size?”
The lengthy punishment delib-
Two bounty
hunters
acquitted
DALLAS (AP) — Two bounty
hunters have been acquitted of
charges they carried guns and
badges and pretended to be
police when they captured a
man who had jumped bail after
pleading guilty to two counts of
delivering drugs.
A jury returned innocent verdicts on Thursday for Arlington
private investigator Douglas
Keith Fox and former Fort
Worth police officer Roy D.
Morrison.
Edward Allen Wright was
wanted on two $25,000 bonds
when he skipped bail. Wright
and two witnesses, who had
more than a dozen police trips
among them, alleged that the
bounty hunters pounded on
Wright’s door in January of last
year while yelling that they
were Dallas police.
They said that once Fox and
Morrison were inside, they
flashed guns and badges.
Defense attorney David J.
Pire praised the verdict. He
said a lack of credibility among
the complainants helped his
cause. Pire also noted that
Wright never complained to a
Dallas County constable or jailers that the bounty hunters put
a gun to his head.
Fox testified that he never
identified himself as a police
officer, and business associates testified that he never carried a weapon on the job.
Fox and Morrison still face
misdemeanor charges of
unlawful restraint stemming
from a separate incident with
another bail jumper about the
same time.
erations contrasted with the
quick verdict. Jurors took about
an hour to convict the 21-yearold of capital murder Tuesday
for killing Cardenas, whose
body was found scalped and
dismembered in a vacant field
in Donna.
The brutality and timing of the
crime led police in the border
community to speculate it was
done as part of an occult ritual.
Defense attorneys presented
testimony from a psychiatrist
who said Vasquez suffered from
attention deficit disorder, substance abuse problems, and an
antisocial personality.
Dr. Diego Rodriguez Escobar
diagnosed Vasquez as mentally
ill but competent to stand trial.
He testified Thursday that
Vasquez had contemplated suicide because he feared the
death penalty.
Attorney Daniel Reyes asked
jurors not to punish Vasquez for
his mental problems, some of
which he said were genetic.
Vasquez’s mother, Maria
Vasquez, said she wanted to
apologize to Cardenas’ family
and said her son also had told
her he was sorry.
“He was a good son. He was
loved by his family and friends. I
can’t believe something like this
would happen,” she said.
In his closing arguments, prosecutor Joseph Orendain portrayed Vasquez as a man who
deserved to be put to death,
urging jurors “to confront that
evil” that exists in society.
Friday, he said he was pleased
with the verdict.
“I thought it was a just punishment,” Orendain said. “David
Cardenas finally got his justice.”
During Thursday’s deliberations, jurors sent notes to state
District
Judge
Fernando
Mancias asking if parole was an
option with life imprisonment
and later indicating they could
not reach a decision on whether
mitigating factors warranted
sparing him from the death
penalty.
Vasquez admitted to police in
a videotaped confession that he
killed Cardenas on the night of
April 17 or the morning of April
18. He said he hit the boy with a
metal pipe, cut him with a knife
and drank his blood. Vasquez
also said he and 15-year-old
Andy Chapa dragged Cardenas
to the field where they tried to
bury him, but gave up and left
him under aluminum slabs.
The devil and other voices
urged him on during the killing,
Vasquez told police.
Prosecutors contended that
Vasquez killed Cardenas for his
jewelry. The robbery along with
the murder makes the offense a
capital crime.
Chapa still faces a capital murder charge. If convicted, the
maximum penalty he faces will
be a life prison sentence
because he was a juvenile at
the time of the killing. Six others
are accused of helping to cover
up the crime.
crime scenes have been displayed for the jury.
Each defense lawyer is trying
to portray his or her client as
disconnected from the notorious gang. Some of the lawyers
have described their clients as
hard-working, devoted family
men.
The defense called two San
Antonio police detectives and
three probation officers to testify Friday about defendant
Robert Herrera, 25, whom
prosecutors called a “captain”
in the Mafia with the power to
order murders.
The police officers testified
witnesses did not identify
Herrera in two of the killings
prosecutors tried to link to him.
The probation officers said
they had no problems with
Herrera while he was under
their supervision for drug possession and vehicle theft.
They said he reported regular-
ly, paid his fees and never
tested positive for drug or
alcohol use.
Testimony is set to resume
Tuesday,
after
Monday’s
President’s Day holiday. If
convicted, each defendant
could face up to life in prison.