Singer Gerardo Ortiz Pleads Guilty, Cooperated with FBI In Trial Against Del Records Owner

"Socalj" for Borderland Beat

American-born narcocorrido singer César 'Gerardo Ortiz' Medina pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to violate the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. Ortiz 's performance at the Palenque de la Feria de Puebla 2025 was canceled hours after news of his guilty plea broke.

Ortiz, 35, of Pasadena, California, acknowledged that he sang in about six concerts organized in Mexico by Ángel del Villar, his former manager and a music promoter sanctioned by the U.S. Department of the Treasury in 2018 for allegedly laundering money for the CJNG.

“Gerardo Ortiz is a California musician whose career reached its peak performing corridos glorifying drug traffickers. He has sung, especially, for leaders of the Sinaloa Cartel, including Joaquín 'El Chapo' Guzmán [Loera], Ignacio 'Nacho' Coronel [Villarreal], and Dámaso López Serrano 'El Mini Lic,'” Univisión recalled.

“Gerardo Ortiz has himself pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transact [with] a specially designated narcotics trafficker, one of the crimes the defendants in this trial are charged with,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Schwab revealed Tuesday.

Del Villar (right) and Luca Scalisi, CFO of Del Entertainment.

DEL Records Case

According to Univision, the narcocorrido singer would be one of the witnesses in Ángel Del Villar's trial and was expected to appear in a California court in the coming days. His guilty plea had been kept secret until Tuesday, March 19, 2025, when Schwab addressed Ortiz's involvement in the conspiracy and stated that he had already admitted his crime and was preparing to testify against the record label promoter.

Angel Del Villar insists he was misled by a former employee. Gerardo Ortiz pleads guilty and will testify against him.

As reported by Univisión's Isaías Alvarado, this information had been kept secret while the singer cooperated with the FBI in the case of the owner of the record label Del Records, who was being tried in Los Angeles Federal Court on a related charge. Del Villar was arrested in June 2022, along with Luca Scalisi, CFO of Del Entertainment.

For his part, Del Villar's defense attorney, Drew Findling, asked Ortiz's spokeswoman, Sharon Catalán, who also testified if her boss had confided in her that he had pleaded guilty to the charge and was cooperating with the FBI. However, the spokeswoman responded that he had not.

“In 2009, Ortiz signed a contract with the record label Del Records, owned by Ángel del Villar, and for many years he was their most important artist. But in April 2018, things went south. Ortiz was approached at the Phoenix, Arizona, airport by FBI and Internal Revenue Service (IRS) agents. They asked him questions about his professional relationship with Jesús Pérez Alvear, who had been his manager in Mexico,” the same outlet reported.

Ángel Del Villar during a recent court hearing.

Prosecutors alleged it was Del Villar who convinced Ortiz to ignore the FBI warning because a portion of the profits from Pérez-backed shows flowed directly to Del Villar’s talent agency, Del Entertainment, a co-defendant in the trial.

Schwab told jurors that Brian Gutierrez, the vice president of Del Entertainment, reached out to the FBI “to blow the whistle on the company.” He said Gutierrez provided the FBI with incriminating voicemails and text messages implicating his superiors. 

“Eventually, [Gutierrez] also became what’s called a confidential human source for the FBI,” said Schwab.

FBI informant Brian Gutierrez and Del Villar accepting a Congressional Record from Rep. Roybal-Allard in 2017.

Del Villar's Attorney Blames FBI Informant

“Brian Gutierrez found out about the designation of Chucho Pérez [as a drug trafficker], and he began his scheme of manipulation,” Attorney Marissa Golberg claimed in her opening statement. “He convinced everyone to just leave it to me. ‘I’ll contact the lawyers and I’m going to make sure everything we do going forward is acceptable.’”

She alleged it was Gutierrez who scrapped an April 2018 press release that was supposed to announce that Ortiz would not be performing at the annual music festival organized by Pérez in Aguascalientes, Mexico. The lawyer claimed that the press release was prompted by the FBI letter handed to Ortiz and was supposed to say that Del Records was “not going to be doing business with Chucho Pérez or his company anymore.”

“It was Brian who put a stop to that press release,” Goldberg told jurors. “Brian Gutierrez took it upon himself. He actually reached out to political officials in Aguacalientes and got them to write him a letter inviting Ortiz to come perform at the concert.” 

She alleged Gutierrez booked the jet and traveled with Ortiz to his first Pérez-promoted show after receiving the letter. She alleged Gutierrez reached out to the FBI to insulate himself and that Del Villar “trusted” Gutierrez to handle the matter appropriately while Del Villar was busy running the rest of his entertainment business empire, which included sports and restaurant ventures at the time.

“There is something deeply wrong and manipulative about how this case was created and investigated,” Goldberg told the jury on Tuesday. “The ones who actually created this crime, who manufactured it, are not sitting as defendants, which is even more deeply wrong.”

Gerardo Ortiz' FBI Cooperation

“Days earlier, the Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) published the designation against Pérez Alvear and Gallística Diamante. Federal agents warned Ortiz that he would violate the Kingpin Act if he performed at the popular San Marcos Fair in Aguascalientes, Mexico, on April 27, 2018. Pérez Alvear had hired him for that event,” Univisión added.

On April 6, 2018, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) accused "Chucho Pérez" of being a drug trafficker and using his company to launder money.

“Ortiz traveled to the San Marcos Fair by private plane. And over the next few weeks, Ortiz performed in five other concerts that Pérez Alvear organized in Sonora, Sinaloa, Nuevo León, and other states."

Upon his return to the United States, the singer was held accountable and eventually cooperated with the FBI. The Prosecutor's Office charged him with conspiracy to violate the Kingpin Act, to which he pleaded guilty to on an unknown date.

“You’re going to hear Gerardo Ortiz himself. He’ll tell you that he is now cooperating with [investigators] in this case, and he hopes that his cooperation will be taken into account at the time that he’s sentenced,” Schwab said. “Mr. Ortiz will tell you about his experience meeting the FBI, being told he could no longer perform in concerts that Chucho [promoted]. He’ll tell you [that it was] Del Villar who directed him to ignore the letter and to continue performing at these concerts.”

The 2020 FBI raid on Del Records supposedly followed an alleged complaint by Gerado Ortiz, which the singer later denied.

In the 2022 indictment against Del Villar, Ortiz is referred to as 'Individual A' 'a well-known musician.'

Lengthy Legal Battles

Ortiz parted ways with Del Records in 2019 amid a contract dispute. He and Del Villar remain locked in dueling lawsuits that have been consolidated into a single case in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Gutierrez, meanwhile, sued Del Villar and Del Records for wrongful termination, discrimination, and harassment in April 2023. 

His lawsuit alleges that Del Villar learned about Gutierrez’s cooperation with the government on August 1, 2022 and fired him “in retaliation for his whistleblowing the very next day.”

On May 22, 2020, when FBI raided Del Records and other properties, Ortiz’s team issued their own statement which reads:

“Today we learned the offices of Del Records and Del Entertainment Inc. were searched by the FBI, as well as the home of its owner, Jose Angel Del Villar, pursuant to a federally issued search warrant. Gerardo Ortiz currently has a lawsuit pending before the Los Angeles Superior Court and the California Labor Commissioner against the Del companies for alleged fraudulent conduct, breach of fiduciary duty, breach of contract and violation of the Talent Agencies Act for swindling Mr. Ortiz out of many tens of millions of dollars. To our knowledge the search by the FBI at Del Records office and Mr. Del Villar’s home does not involve Mr. Ortiz.”

 

In response, Del Records released a statement attributing the raid to their former singer Gerardo Ortiz. 

“We are able to confirm that the Federal Bureau of Investigation came to the offices of Del Records today and took a number of materials that we understand relate to the FBI’s investigation of our former artist, Gerardo Ortiz. To the best of our knowledge, Del Records is not a subject, but merely a source of information for the FBI’s investigation into Mr. Ortiz. We have cooperated fully with the FBI and will continue to do so.”

Ortiz also alleged that Del Records acted as both his manager and his publisher, posing a clear conflict of interest.

“Villar and Del wear many hats, so many that the conduct is unprecedented in the entertainment industry,” Ortiz alleged in a Labor Commissioner complaint filed last August. “The fundamental duties of an agent are to hold the interests of the client/principal/artist ahead of the interests of the agent, to not make secret profits and to ensure full disclosure. None of this has occurred. Villar is secretive, condescending, abusive and evasive.”

In 2016, Ortiz was arrested by Mexican authorities at the Guadalajara airport and accused of promoting violence in the video for the song “Fuiste mía.” In the video, Ortiz portrays a drug lord who stuffs his girlfriend in the trunk of a car and sets the car on fire.

"Chiquis" Rivera last year made revelations about her ex-boyfriend Ángel del Villar, claiming he was jealous, controlling, and violent that he once nearly came to blows with her uncle Juan Rivera at a family party, according to the singer.

In her new book, Invincible, Jenni Rivera's eldest daughter also confessed that the founder of Del Records helped her at the beginning of her singing career and supported her greatly after her mother died in a plane crash in December 2012. Jenni didn't like Ángel because he had five children and was 16 years older than Chiquis.

Recently Killed CJNG Concert Promoter

The DOJ indicated that Del Villar would have associated with the concert promoter, Jesús Pérez Alvear, alias "Chucho Pérez" or "El Zar del Palenque" or, organizer of dances, palenques and former representative of grupero artists. Gallística Diamante, the company owned by Pérez Alvear, was the organizer of the bullring at the San Marcos Fair in Aguascalientes, and also managed the San Isidro Fair in Metepec, Mexico.

The witness list also includes a drug trafficker who claims to have moved drugs with Pérez Alvear.

Jesús Pérez Alvear was a concert promoter in Mexico who did business with Del Villar, signing artists to DEL Records, reportedly earning the record label $1.5 million.

Although the Del Villar claimed to be innocent of the charges, in March 2023, Pérez Alvear signed a plea agreement with the U.S. in which he claims that he "secretly communicated with Ángel del Villar using prepaid phones" and that the businessman suggested that he "get a fake invitation letter for Ortiz." 

It was revealed in a hearing that the FBI hid a microphone in the company's producer's office to listen in on him.

According to sources cited by the newspaper Reforma, Pérez Alvear allegedly held meetings with U.S. agents at the Sheraton Hotel on Paseo de la Reforma, where he provided information on the cartel's financial operations.

Jesús Pérez Alvear, “Chucho Pérez” was murdered, at around 4:20 p.m. on December 4, 2024, inside the restaurant El Bajío, located on the first floor of Plaza Miyana, in the Polanco neighborhood, in the Miguel Hidalgo mayor's office, Mexico City.

After two hours of sharing food and drinks with two men and a woman, at 4:20 p.m. on December 4, 2024, Pérez Alvear was shot in the body and the back of the head. The attackers arrived at the scene, one wearing a gray sweatshirt and the other a black jacket, both wearing motorcycle helmets, posing as delivery men.

The hitmen removed their helmets, but remained masked and approached the table where he was sitting, shooting him at point-blank range.

According to Sigal Mandelker, then OFAC Undersecretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Jesús Pérez Alvear, known as “Chucho Pérez,” supported the CJNG and Los Cuinis “to exploit the Mexican music industry, launder drug profits, and glorify their criminal activities.”

Pérez Alvear was the spouse of Berenice González Valencia, sister of "El Cuini" and Rosalinda González Valencia.

Sources Zeta Tijuana, DOJ, Univision, Univision, Rolling Stone, Borderland Beat

Categories: CJNG, del records, gerardo ortiz, Los Cuinis