Jury done for day in drug case of ex-police commander

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/tx/5476353.html

McALLEN, Texas — Federal jurors ended their first day of deliberations without a verdict Tuesday in the case of a former Mexican state police commander accused of being a top operative for Mexico's notorious Gulf drug cartel.
Carlos Landin Martinez faces 10 counts of drug trafficking, conspiracy and money laundering over alleged cartel activities from 2005 to 2007.
He has pleaded not guilty, and his attorneys say the government relied on "stories from jailbirds" for evidence that did not directly link Landin to the charges. Eric Jarvis, one of Landin's attorneys, said in closing arguments that the charges "are crimes other people were arrested for, convicted of and caught red-handed doing."
Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia Cook Profit used an old Spanish saying to make the point that Landin bears responsibility: "The individual who holds the tail of the steer is just as guilty as the individual who cuts the steer's throat."
Prosecutors have described a system overseen by Landin where drug traffickers wanting to use lucrative smuggling routes across the border into South Texas had to pay Landin a "piso," or tax, to move drugs in Gulf cartel territory. Landin was the Gulf cartel's second in command in Reynosa, a Mexican city south of McAllen.
Drugs came across in a variety of ways including on people, on rafts and through a tunnel that opened up through a manhole in Hidalgo. The proceeds from drug sales all over the country were then smuggled back into Mexico, again in a variety of ways.
Government witnesses, arrested on similar charges and hoping for leniency in their own cases, testified about the operations but did not have first-hand knowledge of Landin, also known as the Puma.
An exception was Antonio Parra Saenz who testified last week that he saw Landin in a black Suburban in Mexico before he was taken away to be tortured for 15 days after a large load of drugs was seized from his stash house in Pharr.
While the jury deliberated, Landin was moved down one floor in the federal building to another courtroom for his first appearance as a co-defendant in connection with a separate indictment.
That case stems from the July 2006 seizure of cocaine and methamphetamine at the Pharr stash house. Landin is named in five of that indictment's counts on drug trafficking and money laundering conspiracy charges.
Federal Magistrate Peter Ormsby scheduled Landin's arraignment on those charges for Friday.
Parra, the stash house's manager, testified last week in the other case that men working for Landin kidnapped and tortured him for 15 days in 2006 after police seized a major drug load from his house.
Inside the home, officers found more than 520 pounds of cocaine, less than two ounces of methamphetamine, $40,000 in cash and a cache of bulletproof vests, guns and ammunition.
Landin and 13 co-defendants face multiple counts of conspiracy, narcotics smuggling and money laundering in a federal indictment issued in May.
Luis Martinez Robledo, on trial with Landin, has also pleaded not guilty. He was stopped in 2006 with more than $27,000 in cash in his car. Prosecutors allege it was drug proceeds, but Martinez said it was to buy a car.
Late Tuesday, jurors asked the judge to provide transcripts of wiretapped phone calls, some of which allegedly implicate Martinez, though he has denied that it is his voice on the recordings.