By Jonathan Stempel
NEW YORK (Reuters) – A former Mexican government official who oversaw public security in his country pleaded not guilty to new U.S. charges over his alleged role in a multimillion-dollar bribery scheme, to protect the Sinaloa drug cartel once run by drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman.
Genaro Garcia Luna entered his plea on Wednesday to engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise at a hearing before U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan in the federal court in Brooklyn, a spokesman for Acting U.S. Attorney Seth DuCharme said.
The charge was added in an indictment in July, after Garcia Luna had pleaded not guilty on Jan. 3 to charges including drug trafficking conspiracy and making false statements.
Two former subordinate law enforcement officers, Luis Cardenas Palomino and Ramon Pequeno Garcia, were also charged in the new indictment, despite being at large.
Garcia Luna had been living in Florida prior to his December 2019 arrest in Dallas.
He was detained following his initial plea, when prosecutors called him an “unacceptable” flight risk.
Guzman is appealing his February 2019 conviction and sentence of life in prison without parole for smuggling tons of drugs to the United States in a colorful, decades-long career.
He is incarcerated at ADX Florence, a maximum-security facility in Colorado known as the nation’s most secure “Supermax” prison. Cogan oversaw Guzman’s trial.
Garcia Luna led Mexico’s Federal Investigation Agency from 2001 to 2005, was secretary of public security from 2006 to 2012, and was once considered a leader in Mexico’s efforts to combat drug trafficking.
But prosecutors said the Sinaloa cartel bribed Garcia Luna throughout his time in government to ensure safe passage for its drugs, obtain information about rival cartels, and learn about Mexican probes into its activities.
The cartel delivered bribes to Garcia Luna in briefcases at least twice, prosecutors said.
(Reporting by Jonathan Stempel in New York; Additional reporting by Laura Gottesdiener in Mexico City; Editing by Matthew Lewis)
