May go free: Iguala mayors wife gets favorable ruling

Lucio R for Borderland Beat

When the infamous Iguala Mayor and his wife were arrested, a little detail of fact escaped most people outside of Mexico, we at BB did make mention that the case against Maria de los Angeles Pineda, wife of the former mayor, Jose Luis Abarca, was going to be a tough nut to crack. The fact is, she was never charged in the normalistas case.

The genesis of the case began on a night when hell showered Iguala, Guerrero with violence, murder and terror that left in the balance, over 50 people who were killed or presumed killed, by municipal police allegedly per orders by the mayor.  42 of those presumed dead have not been accounted for and are known as “The 43”.  “The normalistas”, were students earning their teaching certificate to be able to teach elementary education in rural areas of Mexico. The remains of only 1 of the 43 who were taken that night was positively identified though DNA studies.

In the case of Pineda, prosecutors were never able to tie her to the normalistas case; they could not find enough evidence to successfully prosecute her.

On November 4^th she was arrested and held for 60 days on a preventative detention including  an extension of 20 days.  During the 60 days the PGR Attorney General failed twice trying to charge Pineda in the normalistas case. The court rejected the case due to insufficient evidence.She was never charged.

In a peculiar move, on the third attempt she was indicted on a charge not related to the normalistas case, it was for money laundering and charges of organized crime involvement.  She is accused of the laundering of at least 13 million pesos for the Beltrán Leyva brothers and the Guerreros Unidos cartels.

"El Grande" says Pineda laundered drug money and may have had a fling with Arturo Beltran

Mexico’s narco turned protected witness, BLO’s Sergio Villarreal Barragán, known as “El Grande”, (code name "Jennifer”) did give information on the Pineda brothers and of Pineda herself.  He establishes she was involved not only with the money laundering and but investments from drug money, including purchasing several properties in Tres Palos, Acapulco. 

Villarreal eluded to the fact she may have had a fling with Capo Arturo Beltran.   Pineda, says Villarreal, attended BLO parties in Cuernavaca with her brothers, and that Abarca was never with her.

But the peculiarity in the case came in, when she was denied her right to present a defense.

On its face, the action was so imprudent that it almost seems that it must have been intentional.

Reforma reported on last Friday, on the 24^th, a federal court in the state of Mexico disposed of the arrest order; on grounds the she was denied her right to present defense in the case against her.

Rendering the process unlawful and faulty.

Next there will be a judicial review, which could uphold the ruling and allow her to be set free.

The Mexican attorney general has also insisted that Pineda has links with organized crime in the state of Guerrero, specifically with the Guerreros Unidos cartel, which is suspected of kidnapping the 43 students.

Finding evidence of Pineda’s links to organized crime should not be a difficult task.  Her family ties to organized crime began in Morelos, when the brothers worked for BLO. Two of her brothers were executed for their betrayal to Arturo Beltrán Leyva, confirmed by Pineda’s mother in an interrogation by her kidnappers, which was videotaped. Pineda's brothers were BLO lieutenants.

Her family continued with organized crime business and Pineda’s brothers became leaders of Guerreros Unidos, the cartel instrumental in the killing and kidnappings on September 26, 2014 of the normalistas.

Her entire family, including her parents has been arrested multiple times for organized crime activities.  Pineda’s defense team contends “she has not seen her family in years”. 

Meaning the fact that the cartel of her family being involved in the normalista killings, in Iguala, where her husband is mayor, is just an amazing, incredible coincidence. 

The fact that her husband, aided by Guerreros Unidos,  killed a social activist in 2012,  is another incredible fact of coincidence.

There are  surviving witnesses to the murder.

Abarca was witnessed as picking up the AK47 aiming it at the already kidnapped, tortured and beaten Arturo Hernandez, and saying just before firing the weapon “ you fucked with me and now I will have the pleasure of killing you.”

Abarca was not charged with the murder, until after the normalistas killings occurred.  Pineda was thought to be the “woman in the car” watching the Hernandez killing and who accompanied Abarca to the scene, but witnesses could not clearly see the woman enough to make a positive identification.  However she and her husband both warned Hernandez, that he would be harmed, this was said in a public forum.

Both Pindea and Abarca have been charged with attempted bribery, stemming  from the charge they attempted to bribe police officers who arrested them.

That case is under appeal and in dispute.

Although it is unlikely that Abarca will go completely free, there have been problems with the normalistas case against him from the beginning.  Chivis and I both listened to a recorded conversation with Abarca and the Guerrero Attorney general, and we concluded that there was a good possibility that in the case of the normalistas murders, that Abarca may have not known what was happening.  On the recording he seems confused and did not know many details.  It could be he gave the “ok”, but did not give the order.  

One of the witnesses contends “everyone was told they were Los Rojos infiltrated in the group of normalistas.” Maybe Abarca was told the same, but a strong possibility is that the order really did come from elsewhere.

Alternatively, he could be the patsy for someone else calling the shots, someone who was clever enough not to leave a trail that would lead back to her, thereby circumventing any possibility of the crime being proven against her.  There is much that will never be known in this case.  

“But when we interrogated them we could see they were all were normalistas.  They said, each of them, I am a normalistas of Ayotzinapa.” Said one of the arrested sicarios.

For his part, the attorney general seems to have given up on the case against Pineda, but says, 

“this doesn’t mean she is free she has another charge of crimes against health... “which is serious”, he vies.