Government Witnesses ‘Parade of Liars,’ Attorney Tells Jury in Camarena Slaying

Federal prosecutors have nothing but a parade of liars to prove that three Mexicans were involved in the torture-killing of U.S. narcotics agent Enrique Camarena, a defense attorney told jurors Friday.

Summing up the case for a federal court jury, defense attorney Barry Tarlow said the government’s case was “a house of cards” that is bound to collapse because it is built on witnesses who lied under oath.

Tarlow said there is insufficient evidence to convict his client, admitted cocaine trafficker Jesus Felix Gutierrez, of engineering the escape to Costa Rica of the man believed to have masterminded Camarena’s murder in Mexico in 1985, reputed drug lord Rafael Caro Quintero.

Felix is on trial with admitted marijuana trafficker Rene Verdugo Urquidez and former Mexican police officer Raul Lopez Alvarez, both charged with participating directly in Camarena’s torture and murder.

Tarlow claimed earlier in the case that another purported drug smuggler, Miguel Felix Gallardo, and his pilot, Werner Lotz, had participated in Camarena’s killing. Tarlow claimed they were not prosecuted because they smuggled money and arms to the Nicaraguan Contras with the tacit approval of the U.S. government.

Omitted New Mention

Tarlow did not mention that in his closing argument Friday. But he still implied a cover-up, asking jurors to consider why prosecutors never called Lotz as a witness inasmuch as he purportedly was the pilot who flew Caro Quintero to Costa Rica.

“The simple answer is there’s simply not enough grease to cover up what that weasel would’ve testified to,” Tarlow said.

Nine men were indicted in Los Angeles for the February, 1985, kidnap and murder of Camarena and his pilot, Alfredo Zavala Avelar, near Guadalajara. One was killed in a shoot-out with Mexican police. Caro Quintero and four others are jailed in Mexico. Tarlow questioned whether Felix can get a fair trial in the United States.

“Can a Hispanic citizen, a Mexican drug dealer, get a fair trial in a case like this where the fight against drugs is uppermost in everyone’s mind and with the sympathy we all feel for Mr. Camarena’s family?”

Tarlow accused Assistant U.S. Atty. Jimmy Gurule of presenting a string of witnesses who gave perjured testimony that was “bought and paid for” by the government. He said trying to get the truth out of those witnesses was like trying to catch “a greased pig.”

‘Using Cheap Tactic’

“There’s only one lawyer in this courtroom who’s using the cheap tactic of putting on perjured testimony and he’s sitting right there,” Tarlow said, pointing to Gurule.

Dissecting the credibility of government witnesses that tied Felix to Caro Quintero and to major drug deals, Tarlow said they either had faulty memories or they had the motive to fabricate evidence against Felix because they were promised leniency in pending charges against them.

He encouraged jurors to disbelieve the testimony of brothers Jay and Arturo de la Torre, who said Felix admitted arranging Caro Quintero’s escape, because “then the government’s case collapses like the house of cards that it is.”