El Paso lawyer to undergo mental exam before trial [El Paso Times, Texas]

May 26--An El Paso lawyer accused of conspiring to launder $600 million for a Mexican drug cartel will undergo a mental examination before a trial can take place, court records show.

U.S. District Judge David Briones ordered the examination earlier this month in response to a motion filed by lawyers for Marco A. Delgado, 46, a former trustee of Carnegie Mellon University who, by all accounts, had exceeded the American Dream.

The defendant, who has pleaded not guilty, was indicted last September on conspiracy to commit money laundering.

Court records filed in connection with the pending case offer further details about what to expect from the government's case against Delgado.

Records also show that Delgado had a brilliant legal career, lived in upscale neighborhoods, was a philanthropist, and appeared by all accounts to lead a highly successful life. There was nothing in his background to indicate he would ever be accused of doing business with dangerous drug organizations.

Court documents also provide glimpses into a contradictory and darker side of Delagado's life in recent years, when U.S. investigators alleged that Delgado agreed to launder up to $600 million for the Milenio/Los Valencia drug cartel.

George Grayson, an expert on Mexican drug cartels who is based in Virginia, said the Milenio cartel currently operates out of Jalisco state.

"It spun off from the Sinaloa cartel," he said.

Drug investigators most recently reported that remnants of that cartel are allied with the Zetas cartel.

His lawyers, Ray Velarde and Richard Esper, were unavailable for comment late Friday, but they previously said their client is innocent.

Delgado, founder of Delgado & Associates PC law firm, was born in Los Mochis, Sinaloa, and immigrated to El Paso with his parents when he was 16 years old. He was the youngest of four children, and became a U.S. naturalized citizen.

He graduated from Austin High School in 1985 in the top 10 percent of his class. He graduated with a bachelor's degree from the University of Texas at El Paso in 1989, and obtained a master's degree from Carnegie Mellon University in 1990, the same year he began law school at Texas Tech in Lubbock, where he graduated in 1993. He also attended the Ecole Superior de Commerce/University Jean Moulin, Lyon III.

Delgado lived in Mexico City for two years after finishing law school, and worked there for the Texas state trade office for Mexico and Latin America.

The El Paso lawyer belonged to the World Jurist Association, the World Energy Council, the U.S. Energy Association and the American Immigration Lawyers Association, and he was a finance professor for ITEC de Monterrey Graduate School in Juarez.

According to his biography and court records, Delgado was a former analysis director for Mexico Ministry of Trade and Industrial Development, and he represented United States and European companies in negotiations with Mexico'sPetroleos Mexicanos (Pemex).

He married in 1986, had four children with his wife, from he was divorced in 2006. Before his arrest last year, Delgado lived with his common-law wife and her three children.

His lawyers told the court that Delgado has many other relatives, including a dozen cousins and 10 nieces and nephews in El Paso and elsewhere in the United States.

"Despite his present incarceration, (Delgado's) mental and physical condition remain good, and he has no history of treatment for any psychological or mental condition," defense lawyers said in a motion to release him from jail pending the trial. The judge turned down the motion.

Delgado has no criminal record and no reported history of substance abuse.

Velarde, his lawyer, said previously that Delgado might not understand the gravity of the charges against him.

In El Paso, Delgado served on the board of the Ysleta Education Foundation, he donated to the El Paso Symphony, and he contributed to the political campaigns of Republicans and Democrats.

His lawyers told the court that one of his brothers works for the United Nations, another works for University Medical Science Center in Houston, and his father has a doctoral degree.

Delgado and his wife owned a home in El Paso valued at $429,483, and he has been a Texas licensed lawyer since 1996, practicing energy law, international law, and focusing on cross-border trade and investment.

No one answered the telephone for his office at 7362 Remcon Circle in West El Paso.

Delgado formerly worked for his uncle's law firm, Delgado, Acosta, Braden & Jones, a firm that changed its structure a couple of years ago.

According to court records, a former girlfriend of Delgado's traveled to El Paso from Mexico claiming that Delgado owed a substantial sum of money, "and had allegedly threatened to refer the matter to other people to collect the funds or put a hit on (Delgado)."

"Delgado was subsequently contacted by ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) and informed about a threat on his life," court records said. "Nothing became of the alleged threat."

The government's criminal case stems from money seizures in 2007 and 2008. The first seizure involved $1 million cash discovered during a traffic stop.

The second seizure involved $50,000, also from alleged drug proceeds.

"Both seizures allegedly involved drug proceeds belonging to the Milenio or Valencia drug cartel," the deposition states. "However, no evidence was presented (during pretrial proceedings) to establish that the money, in fact, belonged to the Milenio or Valencia drug cartel."

ICE Special Agent Josh Fry testified in a detention hearing that "Mr. Delgado said that this million dollars was going to be the initial or trial run," according to a transcript of the hearing.

"Mr. Delgado said he was also approached to attempt to slow down the extradition process of some drug traffickers in Mexico that were wanted in the United States, as well as arrange for some type of prisoner exchange program," Fry testified.

Fry said that in 2007, the Milenio cartel was based in Colima, Mexico, "and it was aligned with the Sinaloa cartels based in the Sinaloa region of Mexico."

The $500,000 referred to in the hearing was wired from Switzerland from someone named Nizri Isais Cohen, an ex-boyfriend of one of Delgado's contacts in Mexico. Fry said the money was deposited in Delgado's common-law wife's account, and was spent "on a lot of travel, a lot of leisure activities."

Delgado told ICE that the $500,000 was a loan from Cohen to start a burial insurance business for citizens of Mexico who traveled to the United States.

The business was supposed to work with embassies, and required new regulations to be passed in Mexico.

Between 2007 and 2012, the investigation period, Delgado traveled extensively, to France, Qater, Germany, Switzerland, Mexico, the Turks and Caicos Islands in the Caribbean and Cuba.

Fry said the trips to Turks and Caicos "was to meet with a lawyer that they refer to as 'Big John,' who was going to help them set up accounts for them to launder money."

Fry said a government cooperating witness told ICE that he traveled to Cuba with Delgado at least five times between 2004 and 2007.

The purpose of the trips to Cuba "was to engage in sexual -- mass sexual activity with minor girls, women," Fry testified.

"(There) was a person in Cuba that would always arrange or, or set up all of these sexual rendezvous."

Fry testified that "(Delgado) told that individual, if they were 18, then they were too old."

Delgado reportedly had a romantic partner in Mexico who claimed that Delgado owed $2 million to the cartels that wanted their money.

From a bank in the Carib bean, Delgado in 2010 sent $200,000 to Carnegie Mellon University, but the purpose is unclear and university officials told The Associated Press that they are cooperating with officials. Delgado was a trustee for the university in Pennsylvania.

The Mellon Carnegie University's website had a biography which Delgado provided and which was removed, asserting that he worked with Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto's transition team, something which Fry testified he was unable to verify.

Court records indicate that Delgado also transferred funds to a local furniture store for a personal purchase, and that the Internal Revenue Service alleged he had underreported his income, something Delgado blamed on his accountant.

During Delgado's detention hearing, the cooperating witness, Victor Pimentel, allegedly told ICE that Delgado would leave the country if caught.

"If he were to -- ever be caught, he would flee to the Turks and Caicos Islands and live with that attorney, Big John," according to the hearing transcript. Officials did not offer other information on Pimentel such as where he is from and what he what he does for a living.

While working for his uncle's law firm, Delgado was forced to settle a lawsuit involving Angelica Fuentes, a prominent businesswoman in Mexico who formerly lived in El Paso, and which involved a loss of $8 million, according to court records. Fuentes is married to Jorge Vergara, best known as the owner of Mexico soccer clubs.

Delgado could face additional charges in Mexico and the United States from a $250 million contractual dispute involving the firm FGG, which Delgado represented, Mitsubishi Power Systems Americas, Inc. and the Mexican government's Federal Commission on Electricity (CFE). Authorities said that Delgado allegedly diverted money from this contract to his personal accounts. He has denied any wrongdoing.

"The government is looking in these contract disputes and contemplating a wire fraud case against defendant. No indictment, however, has been sought," according to a court deposition.

"Additionally, there was testimony that separate funds, ($500,000) were wired from a Swiss bank account to defendant's wife's bank accounts in 2008. Those funds were all subsequently withdrawn."

If convicted, Delgado could face up to 20 years in prison.

___

(c)2013 El Paso Times (El Paso, Texas)

Visit the El Paso Times (El Paso, Texas) at www.elpasotimes.com

Distributed by MCT Information Services