Posted on 10/18/2009 5:53:06 PM PDT by South40
SAN DIEGO COURTS — Men kidnapped from their homes in broad daylight. Bodies dumped along roadsides and in abandoned cars. Human remains dissolved in acid.
It's the kind of violence seen all too often in some Mexican border cities, where thousands have fallen victim to a prolonged war between drug cartels.
But the indictments of 17 men, both U.S. and Mexican citizens, accused of running a drug-trafficking-and-murder crew called Los Palillos in San Diego offer the best proof in recent years that cartel violence has spilled across the border.
Concerns about witness safety in the case, for which convictions could result in the death penalty, have led prosecutors to ask a judge for unusual precautions as the matter inches toward trial.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Charles Rogers recently affirmed a decision to preclude defense lawyers from sharing grand jury transcripts and police reports with the defendants — even though the information is public.
“The fact is, this is not any other murder case,” Rogers said. “I have to assess the case in the context of the gang wars that are going on 20 miles to the south of us in the Republic of Mexico . . .
“The witness-safety issue in this case can only be described as massive.”
Several suspects remain at large.
Deputy District Attorney Mark Amador, the lead prosecutor, said his office is organizing thousands of pages of paperwork and preparing to turn it over to defense lawyers to share with their clients. Witnesses' contact information is being redacted, though it will be provided separately to the attorneys.
“We're not hiding it from them,” Amador said.
Others say the defendants' constitutional rights are being violated.
“Due process requires that they turn over the discovery now,” said Mary Ellen Attridge, a deputy alternate public defender who represents one of the defendants.
Attridge said that withholding any information, including the large sections already removed from the grand jury transcript, impedes her ability to investigate on her client's behalf.
The approximately 5,000-page transcript, which was recently made public, reveals previously undisclosed details in the complex case.
Los Palillos, Spanish for “the toothpicks,” owes its name to Victor Rojas Lopez, the older brother of the top defendant in the case. The story of how he got the nickname “El Palillo” varies depending on the source. Some say it's a reference to his thin build, others to his spiky hair.
Prosecutors said Rojas, who once headed an enforcement crew for the Arellano-Felix organization, was killed by the cartel in Tijuana in 2002, possibly because of a drug debt.
After his death, the members of Los Palillos were no longer safe in Tijuana. When they moved across the border, they brought with them a particular brand of violence, marked by kidnappings, ransom demands and grudge killings, prosecutors said.
Some of their targets had ties to the Arellano-Felix cartel.
After his brother's death, Jorge Rojas Lopez became the leader of prosecutors said.
On Aug. 15, 2004, three bodies were found in a Dodge Caravan parked on Brandywine Avenue in Chula Vista. Two of the victims had been suffocated, their faces covered with duct tape. A third man was shot in the stomach.
A dollar bill was placed in the hand of one victim after he was killed. In another incident, toothpicks were left on a body stuffed in the trunk of an abandoned car in Clairemont.
It was a calling card of sorts, Amador said.
In August and September 2005, two partially clothed bodies were dumped on roads in Chula Vista and Bonita. One of the victims looked as if his face had been smashed “by a battering ram,” Amador told the grand jury.
That same year, a Chula Vista man was outside his home when a red Dodge Suburban pulled into his driveway. At least two men dressed in police uniforms jumped from the vehicle and opened fire.
The man survived the attack by running into his house.
After the shooters sped away, a Chula Vista police officer saw the vehicle and began following it. Two men again jumped from the vehicle and began shooting at the police car. The officer was not hit.
Authorities believe the bodies of two 31-year-old men who were kidnapped in May 2007 were dissolved in acid.
Investigators got the break they needed in June 2008 after a wealthy businessman was lured to a Chula Vista home by a woman he knew only as “Nancy.” When he entered the house, men in police uniforms attacked and held him captive for eight days.
After his family paid a ransom of nearly $200,000, federal agents raided the house. Several men, including Jorge Rojas Lopez, were arrested.
After the raid, witnesses started talking, prosecutors said.
Rojas and Juan Francisco Estrada-Gonzales, whom prosecutors described as the group's second in command, were sentenced to life in prison without parole for their roles in the kidnapping.
Legalize it.
Yo, Arnold! How’s that multicultural diversity thing working out for you’se?!
Then these animals will just flip burgers?
America’s have been poorly protected by the Federal government for the last thirty years.
If we could just change life in prison to the death penalty
boy would we hear them skawk, scwak, well what ever.
They are just going to keep on running their gangs, in
and out of prison.
LOL!!!
If you think crime is bad now, legalizing will only COST you more in the end. The cost to our society will sky rocket. As we grow government, we’ll grow rehabilitation and other useless programs to compensate for the disaster these drugs leave.
the correct solution is to execute the people selling the stuff. These criminals are cowards. There will be hesitation to engage in this when the punishment is serious and lethal. We cannot have these drugs legalized. It has not fared well in ANY country that has done that.
Coming to your street, soon.
Isn’t this our fault because we don’t have gun confiscation laws here in America?
Pesky Second Amendment.
Not my street. My street is private and behind a locked gate.
But it's inescapable should I go anywhere in San Diego, which I often do.
We don’t do any better with our gang problem than the Mexicans do with theirs.
I work construction in San Diego county. I know many mexicans, to a man they say “ Do not go to Mexico !!” It’s much to dangerous. We hear weekly on local TV about violence along the border. Thank you defense attournies ( ACLU )
Build the FLIPPING FENCE!!!!!
Keep that crap on the other side of the border!!!!!
We would have to execute them within , say, 30-90 days of their conviction, preferably publicly and with ropes.
We would also have to mete out penalties to users with the same vigor. Drug use could no longer be treated as a health issue.
One of the reasons Prohibition failed was that simple consumption of alcohol was not a crime.
Exactly.
There are enough pot heads driving causing accidents and death.
They don’t function on jobs if they have any.
The pot heads end up duing roberies, etc to keep up with their habit.
Most on FR who want marajuana legal are pot heads themselves
and or live in small towns where the damage in the real world is obvious and costly.
If, if, if you are an occasional user of alcohol, how can you deny someone the casual use of marijuana?
Yes, Zero & Hitlery would love nothing more than to use the rampant crime in Messico as an excuse to strip law-abiding American citizens of their Second Amendment rights.
Pot is for losers.
“Family values don’t stop at the Rio Grande.”
Coming soon to a barrio near you, thanks to the open border Quisling traitors.
You nailed it, TMG. We're been sold out by our spineless leaders who refuse to defend our borders for fear doing so might 'offend' our neighbors to the south.
I retired in Jamuary. For years Mrs. 40 & I had planned to retire to our property in Idaho. Unfortunately, escaping to Idaho won't do. We're leaving next Saturday for Boquete, Panama where we'll be shopping around. It's got to be better than Obama's America.
YOu are correct about pot heads who never grew up.
About the only thing they do is dumpster dive if
even that.
Panama is great! Loved my weeks there in 98 and 2006. Met lots of expats. If I were single I’d consider moving there.
I don’t drink or do drugs.
The same way I can deny them the occasional use of methanphetamine, cocaine, heroin, and number of other illegal intoxicants.
Legalize what?
Kidnapping? Sex slavery? Rape? Murder?
There are only two ways to remove drugs as the terrible existential problem they are. They fund our enemies and make Islamic societies rich. That makes them aggressive and sends Islam back on its jihad against the rest of the world. The alternatives are complete legalization or total banning of drugs now defined as illicit. By total banning I mean the speedily applied death penalty for any use and possession of the smallest amounts. Of the two I would prefer legalization but either one of those solutions would work and are the minimum necessary to eliminate drugs as the destroyer of Latin American nations, the funder and spur for soon to be nuclear armed Islamic Jihad and as the mechanism for militarization of our own society.
Correct,the only workable response.
“mechanism” should be militarization.
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