EL PASO, Texas (Border Report) – A federal judge has denied a Department of Justice request to have jailed Sinaloa cartel co-founder Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada be transferred from custody in Texas to the Eastern District of New York, where he also faces drug charges.
U.S. District Judge Kathleen Cardone’s ruling on Wednesday comes amid legal wrangling over which Department of Justice jurisdiction gets to try Zambada first for cartel crimes that deeply touched various American communities.
Cardone’s 17-page ruling states that, although Zambada was taken into custody by federal authorities coming off an airplane in a small airport in New Mexico last July, his arrest was significant as it stemmed from a warrant concerning a pending indictment in the Western District of Texas (El Paso).
These charges include conspiracy, racketeering, drug trafficking, money laundering, weapons, and illegal importation of drugs charges. El Mayo faces similar indictments in Brooklyn, Illinois, and Washington, D.C.
Last month, prosecutors requested that Zambada make an initial appearance in the Eastern District of New York, which El Mayo’s lawyers quickly opposed.
Although each district has a right to have Zambada in court, “giving the government unfettered discretion to transport defendants to face charges whenever and whenever it chooses threatens to green-light prosecutorial harassment,” the ruling states.
(You can read the full document below.)
Zambada is scheduled to return to a federal courtroom in El Paso next Monday for a status hearing.
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