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See also http://www.alipac.us/ftopicp-6674.html#6674 for background/history of Texas Mexican Mafia

NEW: Jury selection under way in Mexican Mafia trial
Web Posted: 04/04/2005 01:28 PM CDT
Guillermo Contreras
Express-News Staff Writer

Jury selection began today in the case against four alleged members of the Texas Mexican Mafia.

Slowly, more than 100 people were being asked questions such as whether they had heard of the prison-based gang.

All of those queried by noon had heard of the group, meaning jury selection was to continue through at least this afternoon.

"Apparently, everybody's heard of the Texas Mexican Mafia, primarily through (the media)," said Terrence McDonald, a lawyer representing Jimmy "Panson" Zavala, whose alleged rank of gang general made him the highest-profile of the four defendants. "We’re just trying to find 12 people who can put that aside and hear the evidence and hear the whole truth, not just the wrong information that has been put out there."

Amid heightened security, 14 people will be picked as jurors or alternates.

The jurors, who will listen to testimony about the alleged crimes of the Mexican Mafia, will be identified only by number. Whomever is picked will hear the evidence in a courtroom controlled by beefed-up security as guards patrolled the surroundings of the federal courthouse.

More federal marshals and court security officers were brought to San Antonio to help prevent incidents such as one in 1998 when gang members used a car to try to run a U.S. Marshals Service bus carrying gang leaders off the road.

Today, potential jurors and courtroom visitors had to pass through a second metal detector installed at the entrance of the courtroom of U.S. District Judge Orlando Garcia, who will preside over the case.

Those are just some of the precautions that were taken for the three weeks or so of trial for the four remaining defendants.

Of 28 people arrested during last year's crackdown on the gang, 24 took plea deals, leaving four to stand trial: Zavala, 35; Johnny "Gira" Garcia-Esparza, 45, a reported lieutenant; Juan Victor "Smiley" Valles, 30, an alleged ex-lieutenant; and Sammy "Spiderman" Garcia, 37, an alleged soldier.

They face drug, gun and money-laundering charges, but the testimony is not likely to end there.

Informants are expected to testify regarding murders blamed on the gang.

Over the objections of at least one defense lawyer in the case, Assistant U.S. Attorney Joey Contreras asked Judge Garcia last week to keep the jury anonymous because of the gang's proclivity for violence.

"We have targeted the leadership of the Mexican Mafia," Contreras told Garcia. "We believe it (the gang) has been responsible for many dozens of murders. The majority have been murdered because of their cooperation with or because of the belief that they cooperated with the government."

Contreras said that within weeks of authorities rounding up the 28 defendants last year, two government witnesses were killed directly for their cooperation with the government.

"About a week after (detention hearings), the two informants were shot â€â€