Posted on 04/22/2007 7:31:22 AM PDT by SwinneySwitch
(Editors note: This is the first of two stories on Gabriel Cardona that first appeared in the Houston Chronicle. The second is scheduled to appear Monday in the Laredo Morning Times.)If the teenage hitman had stayed locked up in his concrete cell after the first murder, maybe Moises Garcia would still sing goofy Spanish songs to his son.
Maybe Noe Lopez, a 27-year-old father of four, wouldn’t be buried under a sapling in the city cemetery.
Maybe.
If a judge hadn’t reduced Gabriel Cardona’s bail after the second murder charge, perhaps Mariano Resendez would be close to finishing his junior year of high school.
If the justice of the peace hadn’t decreased Cardona’s bail on another murder charge and a charge of engaging in organized crime from a total of $3 million to $200,000, maybe Jesus Maria Resendez would still take his nephew Mariano fishing.
Maybe.
But the judge, the justice of the peace and to a degree the Webb County District Attorney’s Office didn’t keep Cardona, a Martin High School dropout, locked up in Webb County Jail.
Instead, court records show, Cardona, who already was in jail on murder and kidnapping charges, made bail twice, allowing him to get out and go on two killing sprees on the orders of a leader of the Gulf drug-smuggling cartel in Nuevo Laredo.
In all, Cardona, who is now 20, was charged with killing five people in the span of 10 months, including Garcia, Lopez and the Resendezes. So far, he’s pleaded guilty to two murder charges and faces three more.
A Houston Chronicle review of court, police and jail-booking records shows a former state district court judge, Manuel “Meme” Flores, reduced Cardona’s bail despite warnings from the prosecutors that he was a “continuing threat” and a flight risk. The former judge, now in private practice, said he has “no independent recollection” of the Cardona case.
Speaking generally about setting bail, he said: “There is that presumption of innocence for a defendant, and you try and set bail in a way that’s not oppressive, in a way that gives the defendant the opportunity to get out and prepare for trial with his lawyer.”
The Chronicle investigation also revealed a pattern of bail reductions by a Webb County justice of the peace, Hector Liendo, on behalf of Cardona and an alleged accomplice, a young man named Jesse Gonzalez III, who is charged with three murders — two allegedly committed while he was out on bail. Gonzalez, who spent 11 days in jail on a murder charge before bonding out, remains a fugitive.
Liendo did not return repeated phone calls.
In cases involving multiple homicides and murders for hire, a Texas district attorney can file a capital murder charge or a motion to deny bail and legally hold a defendant without bail at least temporarily, according to Texas law.
Why such charges or motions were not filed in the Cardona case remains unclear. Webb County District Attorney Joe Rubio did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Moises Garcia’s death
The Garcia family was trapped inside the pearly white Lexus. The killer with the 9 mm moved around toward the driver’s side, hustling toward his target. Witnesses would later describe the gunman as a short, stocky guy. Young.
Through the window, the killer shot Moises Garcia in the face five times. Garcia died instantly in the parking lot of a Torta Mex fast-food restaurant. His pregnant wife, his older brother and his son, Moises Jr., sat in the car, screaming.
It was a bitterly cold December afternoon in 2005, less than two weeks after Cardona had been released from jail on bond the first time.
Garcia was a well-known gang member, nicknamed “Moy” and “El 23.” For years, he carried his gun everywhere, his family members said, but recently he’d softened a bit.
His wife, Diana Lorea, was nine months pregnant. Their son was 3. He loved that kid, said Lori Garcia, Moises Sr.’s mother. He would sing his son songs by the band Duelo, sappy songs, such as El Amor No Acaba (The Love Doesn’t End).
The couple knew they were having a girl. Moises went out and bought tiny pink outfits, Lori Garcia said. They’d already decided on a name, Chanel. In one of the family’s pictures, he is on his knees, hugging his wife’s swollen belly.
Moises Sr.’s mother fights bouts of anger at the happiest times. She stewed in the church pews during her granddaughter’s baptism, watching the blessing of a baby born two weeks after Moises was buried. She admits her son was a gangster, but how could they let the killers out? How could they? she asked.
“I get so angry sometimes. My son had a lot to live for,” she said. “He wasn’t supposed to die.”
American recruits
Cardona has been charged with Garcia’s murder, but police don’t accuse him of pulling the trigger. They say he was the “hookup,” the connection between a high-level drug trafficker in Mexico and a rotating cast of teenagers and young men who act as assassins on the U.S. side of the border.
Law enforcement officials have dubbed Cardona’s crew “Zetillas,” slang for “Baby Zetas,” young enforcers for the Gulf Cartel. They are named after the infamous Zetas, defectors from the Mexican military who sided with smugglers in the drug war.
The profile of the Zetillas in Laredo has startled U.S. law enforcement authorities. They’re American kids, born on the north side of the Rio Grande. They range in age from 17 to 24.
At least one, Rosalio Reta Jr., a 17-year-old Houston native, was trained at a Gulf Cartel camp in Mexico, law enforcement sources said. At an age when other kids learn how to tie sailor’s knots at Boy Scout camps, he learned how to toss explosives.
Law enforcement sources said Cardona and his accomplices present some of the clearest evidence yet that Mexican drug gangs are recruiting and training U.S.-born hitmen to kill on the north side of the Rio Grande, representing a brutal escalation of drug-related border violence.
Detectives recently obtained an arrest warrant for a Gulf Cartel lieutenant named Miguel Treviño Morales, who is accused of ordering all the murders Cardona is charged with, police said.
Generally, the hitmen received $5,000 to $50,000 for murder, depending on their role and the target, records show.
“The reason they’re recruiting youngsters like this is because they’re easily manipulated,” said Webb County Sheriff Rick Flores (no relation to the judge). “They swing a carrot...of money, cars, drugs and women, so it’s a very catchy deal.”
Zetillas Ping!
If you want on, or off this S. Texas/Mexico ping list, please FReepMail me.
This article reads like a cheap crime novel. Sheesh. Just write the story and leave out the dramatics!
“the reason they’re recruiting youngsters like this is because they aare easily manipulated”
BS The reason for recruiting people this age is becausse they have judges like liendo on their side.
(cough, cough)
Hell no, this former judge doesn’t remember the Cordona case for fear that Cordona may just decide to visit him.
Do we have some judges we need to be rid of or what!
we need “los Pepes”.... might make things “fair”..
Well someone should visit him.
He must have taken lessons from Alberto Gonzalez, who doesn't remember things either.
Again and again the illegal alien Mexicans get a free pass to go out and commit more crimes, with a wink and a nod from our so-called "leaders".
The profile of the Zetillas in Laredo has startled U.S. law enforcement authorities. They're American kids, born on the north side of the Rio Grande. They range in age from 17 to 24.
“This article reads like a cheap crime novel.”
Welcome to South Texas, amigo.
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