Lucio R. Borderland Beat: Use the search bar to access outstanding posts written by Chivis and Havana on the Zetas Trial and Bribery Case
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"I will win the appeal, there was no evidence against me.." turns out the court of appeals agrees with him
The decision of the court of appeals gave Pancho Colorado the big win he said he was getting on his appeal. He was the only of the convicted defendants in the Zetas Cartel Horse Racing money laundering trial to win an appeal.
The court of appeals found the District Court in Austin abused its discretion when commingling jury instructions with the other defendants, finding “the jury was improperly and harmfully instructed”, and may not have found the defendant guilty had they not been instructed in the manner identical to the other defendants.
Immediately following is the recap of the findings in a nutshell, but below the text of this post is a complete copy of the appeal and findings for all defendants. The appeal has a good overview of trial details and the appeals for Jose Trevino and Garcia Solis.
These findings are for the money laundering case, the guilty conviction for the bribery attempt stands. Pancho, his son and business partner all plead guilty to bribing the Federal Court judge in the money laundering case, offering 1 million dollars in exchange for a light sentence.
I am sure he is kicking himself over that move, after winning his appeal.
Findings of the court:
The government repeatedly argued that, because Colorado purchased horses with funds from his company, ADT, and ADT was started with drug money in 2003 and 2004, Colorado therefore knowingly purchased horses in furtherance of the money-laundering conspiracy. But the horse-racing money-laundering conspiracy did not begin until 2008. Accordingly, our review of the record reveals no evidence from which a reasonable factfinder could trace Colorado’s horse purchases to illegal proceeds—or to illegal proceeds that had been commingled with legitimate funds.
At best, the evidence shows that Colorado purchased 121 horses on behalf of conspiracy members using ADT funds and that he was closely associated with members of Los Zetas. While this might be evidence from which a properly instructed jury could infer that Colorado knowingly joined the money-laundering conspiracy—an issue on which we express no opinion—we cannot say “beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury verdict would have been the same absent the erro[neous]’” jury instruction given in this case.
This is particularly so given that the government’s expert witness specifically testified that Colorado “commingled personal and business” funds and expenses: a confused jury may have inferred from this testimony together with the erroneous instruction that the jury was obligated to infer from this evidence an intent to conceal.
Therefore, the district court abused its discretion in giving the commingling jury instruction it gave. The error was harmless as to Jose Trevino and Garcia–Solis. Because of the centrality of the commingling issue to Colorado’s conviction and the weak circumstantial evidence of his guilt, we cannot conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury verdict would have been the same as to Colorado had the jury been properly instructed. Accordingly, we affirm the convictions of Jose Trevino and Garcia–Solis, but we vacate the conviction of Colorado.
Since we vacate Colorado’s conviction because the jury was improperly and harmfully instructed, we need not and do not address his challenges to the sentence and to the money judgment