García Luna says that the New York Prosecutor’s Office offered him a plea deal in exchange for pointing out Mexican politicians, but he did not accept

( Spanish) – Genaro García Luna, Mexico’s former Secretary of Public Security from 2006 to 2012, revealed that the New York Attorney General’s Office proposed that he accept a plea deal that would involve spending six months in prison, obtaining financial benefits and becoming a witness to point the finger at people and institutions in Mexico, according to a letter his lawyer shared with .

García Luna, who was arrested in December 2019 and accused by prosecutors of receiving bribes from the Sinaloa Cartel while in office, said he had not accepted the deal because it meant undermining “development, public peace and the institutional life of the country,” according to the handwritten statement.

📄 Click here to view the full handwritten letter.

“The reaction was explosive,” he wrote.

García Luna’s lawyer, Cesar de Castro, confirmed the content of the letter to , but clarified that the Mexican government had nothing to do with the proposal.

A US Justice Department spokesperson told he would not comment on the settlement, and prosecutors in the case did not respond to a request for comment.

This is the first time the former official has spoken to the press since he was arrested and found guilty in February 2023 of participating in a continuing criminal enterprise, conspiracy to obtain, import and distribute thousands of kilograms of cocaine in the United States, and making false statements to U.S. immigration officials. García Luna has always maintained that he is innocent.

The statements by the former official, who was once at the top of security in Mexico, come three weeks before the announcement of the sentence against him, which could range from 20 years to life in prison.

The former Secretary of Homeland Security also spoke about the conditions at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn, New York, where he is being held, with inmates considered “extremely dangerous, violent or prone to escape,” according to the U.S. Department of Justice.

“I have been detained at MDC Brooklyn NY for a period of 58 months, almost 5 years, in inhumane conditions, I have witnessed murders, stabbings and systematic threats to my safety; I was segregated for almost a year to the punishment cells without having violated any rule or breach of regulations and without having a record of bad behavior,” he described.

He explained that on two occasions he had cellmates who recorded him for more than 2,000 hours in an attempt to implicate him in drug trafficking or some other crime, although he says that the judge later dismissed those recordings in the trial.

The U.S. Bureau of Prisons did not respond to ‘s questions about the conditions Garcia Luna reported.

In the letter, García Luna reiterated his innocence and stated that the evidence presented against him in the trial, which began in January 2023 and lasted about six weeks, does not prove the crimes he was charged with.

The defense filed a motion for a mistrial, saying that since the jury’s verdict was announced, new evidence has come to light that they believe would be favorable to their client and would undermine the prosecution’s case.

The motion claimed that they could show that several key prosecution witnesses made false statements on the stand, and that during the trial the prosecution had violated the case law contained in Brady v. Maryland, according to which the suppression of evidence that could favor a defendant constitutes a violation of due process.

Prosecutors, however, accused the former security chief of trying to bribe fellow inmates to the tune of $2 million in exchange for making false statements and testifying in his favor.

They also argue that the defense’s alleged new evidence was known or should have been known to the defendant before trial.

Earlier last month, a judge in the Eastern District Court of New York denied the lawyers’ request for a new trial, stating that “none of the arguments presented are sufficient for a new trial.”

García Luna’s letter mentions the alleged links between President Andrés Manuel López Obrador and drug trafficking leaders, something that came to light during the cross-examination of Jesús “El Rey” Zambada, a witness for the prosecution, whom De Castro asked if in 2007 he declared that he had delivered millions of dollars for the 2006 electoral campaign through an intermediary.

Zambada responded that he never said that, while López Obrador said he was considering filing a complaint against De Castro for moral damages, stating that he would not allow his honesty to be questioned, but so far neither the president nor the Mexican government have taken that action.