Pubdate: Fri, 2 Jan 2009
Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)
Copyright: 2009 Los Angeles Times
Contact: http://drugsense.org/url/bc7El3Yo
Website: http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248
Author: Paul Pringle
Bookmark: Mexico Under Siege (Series) http://mapinc.org/find?255

Mexico Under Siege

COVINA ARRESTS MYSTIFY A NEIGHBORHOOD

After Two Mexican Federal Agents and Two Others Were Arrested in July 
on Drug-Related Charges, Little Has Emerged About the Case and 
Residents Are Puzzled.

The residents of North Monte Verde Drive, a stretch of oak-shaded 
suburban calm in the Covina area, normally would feel safe knowing 
that two off-duty police officers were visiting the neighborhood.

Not this time. These officers were far from home -- agents of the 
Mexican federal police -- and they ended up on the wrong side of a 
bust, with a fortune in cash that prosecutors say was tied to 
narcotics trafficking.

The raid in July raised the specter that the often-brutal workings of 
the Mexican drug trade have reached deep into Southern California. 
But five months later, the fuller background of the case remains a mystery.

"We all just sort of went, 'Yikes!' " Susan Wood, a longtime Monte 
Verde resident, said of the possible link between her neighborhood 
and the mayhem a country away. "This isn't a drug-trafficky area at all."

No connections to Mexican drug syndicates have been alleged in the 
Covina case, and defense attorneys say there are none. But 
speculation has been fueled by the fact that authorities have been 
unusually tight-lipped about the circumstances surrounding the 
arrests and the direction of their investigation.

One of the Mexican suspects, a federal police commander based in the 
border city of Mexicali, is believed to have been the target of an 
assassination attempt there last summer, when gunmen shot up his car 
and killed two of his aides.

The commander, Carlos Cedano Filippini, 35, was not in the vehicle at 
the time. Mexican media reported that Cedano abandoned his job after 
the shooting.

He was the second Mexican federal officer arrested in a Southern 
California drug probe in three weeks. Earlier in July, agents from 
the state Bureau of Narcotic Enforcement arrested Omar Lugo and 
another man in Riverside County on suspicion of transporting 154 
pounds of cocaine in their car. A judge later ordered the two 
suspects released, ruling in favor of defense attorneys who said 
officers had lacked probable cause to search the car, said Orlando 
Lopez, a special agent in charge for the bureau. That ruling is under 
appeal and an investigation is continuing, Lopez said.

Narcotics-related violence in Mexico claimed more than 5,000 lives 
last year, as rival drug cartels battle over smuggling routes and 
beleaguered government forces press a crackdown. The spoils of the 
carnage are narcotics bound for the United States -- Southern 
California is a top trans-shipment point -- but there have been few 
outward signs here of cartel operations and attendant bloodshed.

Like Wood, other Monte Verde residents said they know nothing about 
the case beyond what they had learned in news reports, and very 
little about the occupants of the spacious home where the Mexicans 
were taken into custody. Some residents were fearful of being quoted by name.

"It's like a TV show," a neighbor said of the case.

Arrested along with the agents were two U.S. citizens, siblings 
Hector and Julissa Lopez. Their parents, who live in the 
4,800-square-foot house at the end of a long driveway, have not been 
implicated, authorities say.

Julissa Lopez, 36, is the common-law wife of Cedano, the commander 
from Mexico's Federal Investigative Agency, that nation's equivalent 
of the FBI. Also charged is one of Cedano's officers, Victor M. Juarez, 36.

The four have pleaded not guilty and are awaiting trial in Los 
Angeles County Superior Court on charges of possessing more than 
$630,000 as part of an alleged drug transaction. If convicted, they 
face a maximum of four years in prison.

A stakeout team of narcotics investigators stormed the house and 
spotted the defendants walking out of a bedroom, according to 
prosecutors. Seized along with the suitcase full of cash were a 
money-counting machine, other bundles of currency, heat-sealable 
packets for the bills, and lists of payments and debts for narcotics, 
authorities say. Defense attorneys have said the lists were innocent 
jottings of family activities.

No drugs were found, but a police dog trained to sniff out narcotics 
residue showed a positive response to the suitcase and to other items 
in the bedroom, investigators say.

A preliminary hearing provided scant insight into the probe, with 
testimony focusing mainly on details of the surveillance and search 
of the house.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Oscar Plascencia, who is prosecuting the case, 
declined to comment, as did officials of the U.S. Drug Enforcement 
Administration and the Los Angeles Police Department, which are 
conducting the investigation. Shortly after the arrests, a DEA 
spokeswoman said the stakeout team had not expected to encounter 
Mexican agents at the house, but she did not elaborate.

Mexican authorities did not return phone calls.

The court record already could fill a wheelbarrow. Defense attorneys 
have filed lengthy motions seeking to dismiss the charges on grounds 
that there was no probable cause to believe a crime had been 
committed. They also challenged the bail amounts -- originally $2 
million -- and got them reduced.

In addition, the defense has filed a writ with the state appeals 
court asking that the case be thrown out because investigators have 
refused to answer questions about what led them to the house and why 
they had concluded that drug dealing was involved.

"Their case is based on guesswork, not evidence," said Mark Werksman, 
an attorney for Julissa Lopez. "All they've got is a bunch of money. 
They're trying to make a mountain out of a molehill."

Investigators say they saw Hector Lopez and Juarez arrive at the home 
with bags of what appeared to be bricks of drugs or cash.

Later, they say, they stopped a woman who drove away from the house 
with a suspicious parcel -- she has not been charged -- and they 
discovered that it contained only meat, which Werksman said was for a 
restaurant the Lopez family owns. The investigators say they then 
entered the house to make the arrests.

To date, Hector Lopez, 33, is the lone defendant to be released on 
bail. Attempts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful, and his 
attorney did not return calls.

A friend of Julissa Lopez, Heidy Gallegos, submitted a letter to the 
court as a character reference. In an interview, she said Lopez's 
arrest was "very shocking. . . . It's scary."

Gallegos, a nurse, said she did not believe Lopez could do anything 
illegal. She said Lopez helped out at her father's tire business but 
otherwise spent all of her time with the three children she has with Cedano.

"She's your typical soccer mom -- very loving. Her priority is her 
kids," said Gallegos, adding that she met Lopez when she was her 
patient more than a year ago.

Lopez would talk about the strain of having a husband who worked 
across the border, Gallegos recounted.

"All she would tell me is that she would miss him, because he had to 
travel back and forth with his job," Gallegos said. "I remember the 
kids saying how much they missed their dad, how much they loved their dad."

Gallegos also recalled the day that Lopez told her about the attempt 
on Cedano's life: "I thought, 'Wow!' I was amazed."

An attorney for Cedano has said his client had to flee to the United 
States to escape the would-be assassins. It is not clear what 
prompted the shooting in Mexicali.

Neighbors on Monte Verde, which runs along the Covina-West Covina 
line, told of having no inkling of trouble at the Lopez home, whose 
wrought-iron driveway gate has been adorned with Christmas decorations.

"Everybody was surprised," said one neighbor who resides on the same 
side of the street, where old horse corrals share sprawling lots with 
newer homes. "We have no problems here."

Virginia Yeager lives in a house that her husband's family built in 
1932. She said the neighborhood had changed a lot over the decades, 
with newcomers from Latin America and Asia moving in. She said 
burglaries are a worry, but there has been nothing to suggest the 
faintest echo of a distant drug war.

"I haven't heard about that up here," Yeager said. "You just kind of 
keep in your own little enclave." 
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MAP posted-by: Richard Lake