Arellano Felix pleads guilty to drug crimes for life sentence
Deal is made after prosecutors say they won't seek death penalty.
The Associated Press


LEADING GUILTY: This photo provided by the Department of Justice shows Mexican drug kingpin, Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, in DEA custody as he arrives in San Diego, in this 2006, file photo. The notorious Mexican drug lord pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court to crimes that carry a mandatory life sentence after prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty. (AP Photo/Department of Justice)

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
SAN DIEGO -- A notorious Mexican drug lord pleaded guilty Monday in U.S. District Court to crimes that carry a mandatory life sentence after prosecutors said they would not seek the death penalty.

Francisco Javier Arellano Felix, 39, pleaded guilty to running a continuing criminal enterprise and conspiracy to launder money.

The plea agreement came after officials in Washington, D.C., agreed Saturday to not pursue the death penalty.

Capital punishment has been a sticking point in relations between the United States and Mexico.

Mexico has long opposed the death penalty even as its government has recently extradited several suspected drug traffickers to the United States.

According to the agreement read in court by a defense attorney, Arellano Felix helped run a Tijuana, Mexico-based drug cartel that brought into the United States hundreds of tons of cocaine and hundreds of tons of marijuana and laundered hundreds of millions of dollars.

As part of the plea agreement, Arellano Felix agreed to forfeit $50 million and his yacht, on which he was captured last year.

U.S. District Judge Larry Burns scheduled sentencing for Nov. 5.

Under the plea agreement all other charges were dropped.

Arellano Felix sat in court wearing an orange jumpsuit and answered procedural questions calmly in Spanish. He was led out of the courtroom in handcuffs.

In December, prosecutors included as evidence of a criminal enterprise, allegations that he ordered the murder of Tijuana's deputy police chief and the beheadings of three police officers.

The Arellano Felix cartel emerged as a drug powerhouse in the 1980s in Tijuana, across the border from San Diego, but its influence has waned.

The cartel was once led by seven brothers and four sisters, but Francisco Javier's brother Ramon was killed in a shootout with police in 2002, his brother Benjamin is in a Mexican prison and brother Eduardo is at large.

The U.S. Coast Guard captured Arellano Felix as he was deep-sea fishing aboard his yacht, the Dock Holiday, in international waters off Mexico's Baja California coast in August 2006.

Authorities said at the time that two suspected cartel assassins were among passengers captured along with Arellano Felix.

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