| | |  Americas & Beyond | October 2009 
Arellano Felix Cartel Figure Set to Plead Guilty in US
 Greg Moran - San Diego Union-Tribune
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October 08, 2009
| | Jesus Chuy Labra Aviles | |
US Federal Court Yet another once mighty figure in the feared Arellano Felix drug-trafficking organization will plead guilty in federal court in San Diego next week to charges that likely will send him to prison for the rest of his life.
Jesus Chuy Labra Aviles is scheduled to enter a guilty plea at a hearing in front of a magistrate judge Oct. 15, according to the court docket in his case.
The exact charges he will be pleading to are not listed in the court record. Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Ko, one of the prosecutors on the case, would not specify those charges and declined to comment on any aspect of the change of plea yesterday.
Attorneys for Labra did not return messages seeking comment.
The plea change comes about a month before Labra and three others were to go to trial before Judge Larry Burns. They were indicted on charges of racketeering, conspiracy, drug smuggling and money laundering.
Labra at one time occupied a spot in the upper echelon of the ruthless drug-smuggling gang. Known as El Senor, he was reputed to be the financial brains of the gang for nearly two decades, overseeing the shipments of countless kilos of cocaine and the return of tens of millions of dollars to the smugglers.
He lived a low-key lifestyle in Tijuana, belying his enormous power in the organization. Mexican authorities arrested him in March 2000 as he watched his son play soccer on the campus of Tijuana's elite public high school.
U.S. authorities sought his extradition for years and finally got it last New Year's Eve. Labra was one of 10 people the Mexican government handed over to federal prosecutors on the last day of 2008.
The extradition was unusual in large part because Labra still faced charges in Mexico. Defense lawyers had said that may have violated the extradition treaty between the two countries, which they said prohibits extradition while a case is still pending in Mexico.
They had indicated in January they might challenge Labra's extradition on those grounds.
A trial that was set to begin Nov. 9 may have hastened plea discussions, David Bartick said. He was the lawyer who represented another top drug trafficker, Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, who is serving a life sentence after pleading guilty in 2007 to operating a continuing criminal enterprise and money laundering.
Bartick, who said he was not privy to the plea talks, said Labra probably concluded he faced a sentence that effectively amounts to life in prison. He may have wanted to spend that time in a U.S. prison, rather than one in Mexico.
Bartick said that with the trial date close, other defendants might follow suit. They are Armando Martinez Duarte, Efrain Perez Arciniega and Jorge Aureliano Felix. All are charged with racketeering, drug smuggling and money laundering.
It's not unusual to that with a trial so close that plea negotiations might be worked out, Bartick said. I anticipate we may see some more plea negotiations as well in the near future.
Greg Moran: (619) 542-4586
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