The son of a Mexican drug cartel leader was found guilty Friday of charges related to using violence, including shooting down a military helicopter, to help his father run one of the country’s largest and most dangerous drug trafficking organizations.
Rubén Oseguera, known as “El Menchito,” is the son of the fugitive leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel, Nemesio Oseguera, and was the second in command of the CJNG before his extradition to the United States in February 2020.
A federal jury in Washington, D.C., deliberated for several hours over two days before finding young Oseguera guilty of two charges: conspiracy to distribute cocaine and methamphetamine for importation into the United States, and using a firearm in a drug trafficking scheme.
“El Menchito now joins the growing list of cartel leaders that the Department of Justice has convicted in a U.S. court,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said in an emailed statement. “We thank our Mexican law enforcement partners for their extensive cooperation and sacrifice in prosecuting the leaders of the Jalisco Cartel.”
The sentencing of the young Oseguera, born in California and with American and Mexican nationality, will be handed down on January 10 by District Judge Beryl Howell.
Oseguera showed no reaction to the jury’s verdict. One of his lawyers patted him on the shoulder before he left the courtroom.
The U.S. government has offered a reward of up to $10 million for information leading to the arrest of the elder Oseguera, whose alias, “El Mencho,” is a hypocoristic (a variant) of his given name.
Prosecutors showed jurors a rifle bearing Oseguera’s nicknames, “Menchito” and “JR,” along with the cartel’s initials. The weapon was in his possession when he was arrested.
The initials “JR” were also engraved on a belt found at the crash site of a Mexican military helicopter after cartel members shot down the aircraft with a rocket-propelled grenade in 2015.
Prosecutors said the younger Oseguera, now 34, ordered his subordinates to shoot down the helicopter in Jalisco, Mexico, so that he and his father would not be captured. At least nine people aboard the helicopter were killed in the attack, according to prosecutors.
Oseguera ordered the killings of at least 100 people, and frequently boasted about murders and kidnappings, according to prosecutors. They said he personally shot and killed at least two people, including a rival drug trafficker and a disobedient subordinate.
During closing arguments at the trial, Justice Department prosecutor Kaitlin Sahni described Oseguera as “a prince, the heir to an empire.”
“But this was no fairy tale,” he said. “This was the defendant’s story of drugs, guns and murder, told to you by the people who saw it firsthand.”
The jury heard testimony from six cooperating witnesses who linked Oseguera to drug trafficking.
Defense attorney Anthony Colombo sought to attack the credibility and motives of the witnesses, calling them “sociopaths” who told self-serving lies about his client.
“They are all pathological liars,” he said.
Jurors also saw coded BlackBerry messages that Oseguera exchanged with other cartel members. One exchange showed that Oseguera took offense when his uncle mocked the purity of his cocaine, Sahni said.
“The defendant was proud of the cocaine he distributed,” he added.
Columbo argued that prosecutors did not present sufficient evidence that the CJNG was trafficking drugs in the United States.
“Ten years and not one seizure,” he said. “There is no evidence that it reached the United States.”
But prosecutors said Oseguera used increasingly extreme acts of violence to maintain his family’s hold on a global drug trafficking operation, including in the United States.
“The defendant decided who he worked with and who worked for him,” another prosecutor, Kate Naseef, told jurors.
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