Jury deliberating in Southlake cartel lawyer stalking trial

One defense attorney called the U.S. government’s handling of a high-profile informant “embarrassing.” Another said prosecutors are mistaken and have been “unabashed” about it.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joshua Burgess landed a few punches, too, during 2  1/2 hours of heated final arguments in the case against two men accused of stalking a Southlake cartel lawyer who was killed in 2013.

The case went to the jury Thursday afternoon. Jurors deliberated for two hours before stopping for the night.

Jesus Gerardo Ledezma-Cepeda, 59, and his cousin, Jose Luis Cepeda-Cortes, 60, are charged with interstate stalking and conspiracy to commit murder for hire. If convicted on either charge, they could be sentenced to from 25 years to life in prison.

Several of Cepeda-Cortes’ relatives watched from the gallery. Some of them, including his daughters and sister, testified Tuesday.

Ledezma-Cepeda, who said his family is hiding in Mexico, is relying on a duress defense, arguing that he was forced by a cartel leader known as El Gato to stalk Juan Jesus Guerrero Chapa, who was fatally shot by as-yet-unidentified hit men at Southlake’s Town Square.

Guerrero was the personal lawyer for the former leader of the Gulf cartel and was also a U.S. government informant, according to court testimony.

But Burgess steered away from Guerrero’s involvement with the government and cartels. Instead, he focused on how the two defendants — along with Ledezma-Cepeda’s son, who has pleaded guilty to interstate stalking — led the hit men to Guerrero.

“You have tracked the trackers,” he told jurors. “They led the killers to Juan Jesus Guerrero Chapa.”

Neither defendant has denied tracking Guerrero. If Ledezma-Cepeda didn’t look for Guerrero, he testified, El Gato would have killed him “immediately.”

Cepeda-Cortes has argued that he never knew about a plot to kill Guerrero — he was just helping his cousin with what he thought was another private investigation. He acted as a translator, his attorneys have argued, and helped with purchases of rental properties and GPS trackers.

Stephen Cooper, one of Cepeda-Cortes’ attorneys, said the government’s evidence — which includes phone records, numerous emails, GPS tracker data and bank account information — has been “selected and twisted.”

“He was not there, and he was not told about the killing,” said Cepeda-Cortes’ other attorney, Robert Rogers. “And that’s a tough piece of evidence for the government to get itself around.”

But Burgess questioned why Cepeda-Cortes used fake names to set up email and GPS tracker accounts.

He brought up the evidence that Cepeda-Cortes and Ledezma-Cepeda talked on the phone shortly before Guerrero was killed, and that Cepeda-Cortes expressed interest in working again with his cousin in December 2013, months after the killing.

Ledezma-Cepeda’s attorneys, Wes Ball and Warren St. John, emphasized the danger their client faced. Ball used Guerrero’s own death as an example, pointing out that Guerrero had a “handler” from U.S. Homeland Security.

Ball said it’s “embarrassing” that the government allowed Guerrero to die.

“He was killed on their watch,” Ball said. “Where’s all the protection? If El Gato was willing to kill a U.S. informant, what chances does a private investigator who handles infidelity cases have? For the reason of duress, he is not guilty … the pressure was continuous and unending.”

After lunch, St. John displayed a white poster board and pointed to a picture of El Gato.

“This man is the hunter,” St. John said. “This man is the stalker.”

Burgess called the defense attorneys’ final arguments “80 minutes of absolute hogwash.”

Burgess questioned whether Ledezma-Cepeda was under constant duress while in the United States, telling jurors there was “no evidence” that “Captain” and “Clorox” — the nicknames of the hit men also working under El Gato — were always present in North Texas.

Burgess pointed out that evidence showed that the GPS trackers El Gato used to track Ledezma-Cepeda were off for two weeks at one point.

Burgess mentioned that Ledezma-Cepeda looked up records for Guerrero at a police department in South Florida, giving him an opportunity to contact U.S. authorities about El Gato’s conspiracy.

And he brought up again that Ledezma-Cepeda tracked other people, including a Mexican police chief, who were killed or went missing.

Ledezma-Cepeda “is like the Terminator,” Burgess said. “He can keep killing under this perpetual duress.”

This story was originally published May 12, 2016 at 12:37 PM with the headline "Jury deliberating in Southlake cartel lawyer stalking trial."