Hit man for Zetas pleads guilty in Laredo

He could serve life in federal prison.

By Jason Buch, jbuch@express-news.net
Updated 12:42 a.m., Saturday, January 7, 2012

A Zeta hit man pleaded guilty to firearm charges Friday in a Laredo federal court, admitting taking part in a 2005 killing during which members of the cartel posed as police officers.

Wenceslao Tovar, 26, admitted being the triggerman when Zeta sicarios, or hit men, tried to kidnap Nuevo Laredo native Bruno Alberto Juarez Orozco on June 6, 2005, in front of a Laredo industrial park.

According to a transcript of another Zeta hit man's interview with police, the brazen midday hit was ordered by Miguel “El 40” Treviño Morales, now believed to be the organization's second-in-command.

Garbriel Cardona, 25, who's serving a life sentence in federal prison and 80 years in state prison for a series of murders he committed on both sides of the border, told police two days after Juarez Orozco's killing that Treviño Morales ordered him to muster a crew of young thugs to help with the kidnapping attempt — among them was his friend Tovar.

Prosecutors said Juarez Orozco was a former Nuevo Laredo police officer who had worked for the Zetas but turned against them. He came to the U.S. and went to work for a Laredo-area trafficker, raiding across the river to kill Zeta halcones, or lookouts, including one of Tovar's cousins. Later, using a Nuevo Laredo police radio, he would taunt the Zetas, prosecutors said.

About a year later Cardona, out on bail, and his crew gunned down the trafficker who went to war against them, Jesus Maria “Chuy” Resendez, and his nephew at a traffic light on a busy Laredo highway.

Treviño Morales put Cardona in touch with another cell of sicarios, including a man with a light complexion who Cardona said was a former U.S. Marine.

It was the former Marine, Cardona said, who used fake police lights in his car to pull over Juarez Orozco and pretended to be a cop “arresting” him.

But when the Marine cuffed one of Juarez Orozco's hands, the target fought back. And Tovar, who was under orders to kill Juarez Orozco if the kidnapping went south, stepped in, Cardona said.

Tovar “got down with the AR-15 and killed him right there,” he said. “The other guy still had a hand on him when he fired the first shot and then just poom, poom, poom, poom.”

Tovar, a U.S. citizen, uses a wheelchair after a car wreck in Mexico, where he had been living as a fugitive since the Juarez Orozco killing.

During Friday's sentencing hearing, he asked the judge to expedite his sentencing so he can be moved to a prison with better medical facilities, according to online court records.

His attorney was not available for comment Friday afternoon.

The Mexican military in July arrested Tovar and deported him to the U.S. On Friday morning he pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to use a firearm in a violent crime, which carries a penalty of up to life in prison. Because the gun had a silencer, he faces a minimum of 30 years in prison.

Tovar's one of 34 people, many of them U.S. citizens, charged in a 47-count indictment that targets Treviño Morales and the Zetas' drug smuggling conspiracy.

Tovar's the 14th person to plead guilty in the case. One defendant was killed in a Mexican prison and another is scheduled to go to trial this month. The rest are at large.

Tovar's sentencing is tentatively scheduled for April.

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