Bond denied to Yarrington over Covid-19-Mencho's daughter misinformed the court

Chivis Martinez Borderland Beat

A federal judge in Brownsville, Texas, refused to provisionally release Tomás Yarrington, former Governor of Tamaulipas, imprisoned in a Houston prison awaiting trial on charges of organized crime, fraud and links with drug trafficking.

Hilda Tagle, judge of the Court for the Southern District of Texas, rejected on April 6 Yarrington's request to release him while the risk of the Covid-19 pandemic passes.

The former PRI Governor asked on March 27 to leave the Houston Federal Detention Center, claiming that he is 61 years old, has high blood sugar and hypertension, making him vulnerable to the coronavirus, and offered to undergo control by electronic bracelet.

The judge ruled that Yarrington "is a high-risk defendant" who faces a minimum of 10 years in prison if convicted, and who lived in hiding in Italy under the alias José Angel Márquez between 2012 and 2017, so there are no conditions that they guarantee that he will appear before the Court if he is released.

He also highlighted that there are no Covid-19 cases in the prison where Yarrington is, who is also subject to deportation to Mexico, even if he was acquitted of the charges against him, since he does not have a visa to stay in the United States.

"Even if Yarrington is released, he would be subject to detention by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency, as the Federal Marshals Service has a request to detain him. This Court is not willing to put an Immigration Judge in the position of having to review the decision of a District Judge on provisional release, especially given the severity of the charges against the accused and his previous status as a fugitive, "said Tagle.

On March 31, the Court for the Eastern District of New York had also rejected the request of Genaro García Luna, former Secretary of Public Safety, for a temporary release for fear of contagion from Covid-19.

Although the coronavirus has not spread widely in US federal prisons, a jail near New Orleans already reports more than 50 cases.

Due to the Covid-19 contingency, Judge Tagle had already postponed a hearing on May 5 in which she will resolve Yarrington's request to dismiss five of the seven charges against her, due to lack of elements in the accusation.

So far, the jury trial in this case is scheduled for May 19, but it is very likely that it will be postponed again. Yarrington will serve two years in prison in Texas on April 20, after being extradited from Italy.

Chivis Note: Jessica Johanna Oseguera González, the daughter of El Mencho leader of CJNG, lied to the court while fighting for bond, due to the threat of the coronavirus, prosecutors allege in a motion.

Oseguera González's attorney, Steven J. McCool, filed with  a U.S. District Court in D.C.  two motions asking that she be released on bond to the home of an aunt so she could avoid the threat of COVID-19. They offered the aunt's California home, which they valued at $500,000, to ensure her return to court.

However, prosecutors in their filing, asserted that the aunt's house "is a plot of land in Southern California that has an appraised value of only approximately $109,000 and previously sold for less than $100,000, suggesting  an intentional effort on the part of the defendant to mislead" the judge.

Full docket text:

MINUTE ORDER (paperless) DENYING defendant JESSICA JOHANNA OSEGUERA GONZALEZ's [27] Emergency Motion for Reconsideration of the Court's Detention Order("Def.'s Mot."). As a threshold matter, the government contends this Court has no jurisdiction to entertain defendant's motion since she is already appealing the detention order entered on March 3, 2020. Gov't's Opp'n at 6, ECF No. [29]; see also [19] Memorandum Opinion, dated March 5, 2020 ("Detention Mem. Op.") (detailing findings and reasons for determination that "no condition or combination of conditions will reasonably assure the appearance of the" defendant underlying order for pretrial detention). While the filing of an appeal is ordinarily "an event of jurisdictional significance" that "confers jurisdiction on the court of appeals and divests the district court of its control over those aspects of the case involved in the appeal," Griggs v. Provident Consumer Discount Co., 459 U.S. 56, 58 (1982), Congress has expressly stated that detention proceedings "may be reopened... at any time before trial if the judicial officer finds that information exists that was not known to the movant at the time of the hearing and that has a material bearing on the issue whether there are conditions of release that will reasonably assure" the defendant's appearance and the safety of the community, 18 U.S.C. § 3142(f). See also United States v. Taylor, 796 F.3d 788, 791 (7th Cir. 2015) (holding, in the probation context, that a statute that gives the district court power to modify probation conditions "at any time" during the defendant's probation retained jurisdiction in the district court to modify those conditions even while appeal was pending); United States v. Ramer, 787 F.3d 837 (7th Cir. 2015) (per curiam) (same, in supervised release context); United States v. D'Amario, 412 F.3d 253, 255 (1st Cir. 2005) (same, in supervised release context).

Defendant's motion is based entirely on now-existing "information... that was not known to the [defendant] at the time of" her detention hearing, so the court may consider these new reasons, despite her pending appeal. In her instant motion, defendant does not take issue with any of the Court's findings in its Detention Mem. Op., so those findings need not be repeated. Instead, defendant's motion focuses entirely on the current public health crisis presented by the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. See generally Def.'s Mot.

The risk presented by the pandemic is clearly serious, and the Court acknowledges that risk may be greater in a jail environment where defendants are housed in close proximity to one another. As the government points out, however, the D.C. Department of Corrections has taken aggressive precautions to prevent the spread of the virus within the facility where defendant is detained, Gov't's Opp'n at 7, including suspending all in-person visits, programming, and volunteer activities within its facilities, enhanced cleaning efforts, especially within common areas, and vigilant medical personnel on alert for symptoms and prepared to isolate and treat symptomatic residents, see Department of Corrections Notice, Updated: March 14, 2020, available at https://doc.dc.gov/page/coronavirus-prevention. Moreover, defendant has not pointed to any characteristic or underlying condition that would make her particularly susceptible to the virus.

In any event, the risk of contracting COVID-19 pertains whether the defendant is released or detained, and any heightened risk posed by pretrial detention does not alter the balance of the statutory factors Congress prescribed for determining the propriety of detention, which continue to weigh heavily in favor of detention. See Detention Mem. Op. at 10–17 (finding three of four factors outlined in 18 U.S.C. § 3142(g) weighed in favor of detention). Accordingly, the emergency motion for pretrial release is denied. Signed by Chief Judge Beryl A. Howell on March 24, 2020.