Zetas Money Laundering Case: U.S appeals tosses out Pancho Colorado’s conviction and 20 yr sentence

by Lucio R. Borderland Beat: Use the search bar to access outstanding posts written by Chivis and Havana on the Zetas Trial and Bribery Cases

Colorado: "I will win the appeal, there was no evidence against me.." turns out the court of appeals agrees with him

Pancho 2nd on left

The decision of the court of appeals gave Pancho Colorado the big win he said he was getting on his appeal. He was the only of the convicted defendants in the Zetas Cartel Horse Racing money laundering trial to win an appeal.

The court of appeals found the District Court in Austin abused its discretion when commingling jury instructions with the other defendants, finding “the jury was improperly and harmfully instructed”, and may not have found the defendant guilty had they not been instructed in the manner identical to the other defendants.

Immediately following is the recap of the findings in a nutshell, but below the text of this post is a complete copy of the appeal and findings for all defendants. The appeal has a good overview of trial details and the appeals for Jose Trevino, Huitron and Garcia Solis.

These findings are for the money laundering case, the guilty conviction for the bribery attempt stands. Pancho, his son and business partner all plead guilty to bribing the Federal Court judge in the money laundering case, offering 1 million dollars in exchange for a light sentence.

I am sure he is kicking himself over that move, after winning his appeal.

Following the arrests in the bribery case, Pancho was distraught that his son would be incarcerated for an extended time. He offered a deal in open court, that in hindsight the court could be ruminating over, Pancho offered;

“Let my son go, and I will not appeal”

Pancho Was sentenced to 5 years in Bribery Case

In February of this year, Pancho was given 5 years the maximum sentence in the bribery case. It was to run consecutively to the money laundering sentence of 20 years. If the appeal sticks, with time served and good behavior he could soon walk out and deported back to Mexico. He was arrested in the money laundering case in 2012 and has been in prison since his arrest. However, it is not certain that a man who conspired behind bars to bribe a judge would qualify for “good behavior”, then again the U.S. has presented some softball judgments and deals when dealing with cartels.

Pancho’s son and business partner already served a very short sentence and were deported to Mexico. Once there, they immediately claimed their innocence, and slammed the U.S. for its corruption in the courts.

With trophy, conviction stands for Jose Treviño brother of Z40 and 42

Findings of the court:

The government repeatedly argued that, because Colorado purchased horses with funds from his company, ADT, and ADT was started with drug money in 2003 and 2004, Colorado therefore knowingly purchased horses in furtherance of the money-laundering conspiracy.


But the horse-racing money-laundering conspiracy did not begin until 2008. Accordingly, our review of the record reveals no evidence from which a reasonable factfinder could trace Colorado’s horse purchases to illegal proceeds—or to illegal proceeds that had been commingled with legitimate funds.

Solis conviction stands

At best, the evidence shows that Colorado purchased 121 horses on behalf of conspiracy members using ADT funds and that he was closely associated with members of Los Zetas. While this might be evidence from which a properly instructed jury could infer that Colorado knowingly joined the money-laundering conspiracy—an issue on which we express no opinion—we cannot say “beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury verdict would have been the same absent the erro[neous]’” jury instruction given in this case.

This is particularly so given that the government’s expert witness specifically testified that Colorado “commingled personal and business” funds and expenses: a confused jury may have inferred from this testimony together with the erroneous instruction that the jury was obligated to infer from this evidence an intent to conceal.

Therefore, the district court abused its discretion in giving the commingling jury instruction it gave. The error was harmless as to Jose Trevino and Garcia–Solis. Because of the centrality of the commingling issue to Colorado’s conviction and the weak circumstantial evidence of his guilt, we cannot conclude beyond a reasonable doubt that the jury verdict would have been the same as to Colorado had the jury been properly instructed. Accordingly, we affirm the convictions of Jose Trevino and Garcia–Solis, but we vacate the conviction of Colorado.

Since we vacate Colorado’s conviction because the jury was improperly and harmfully instructed, we need not and do not address his challenges to the sentence and to the money judgment.

Eusevio Huitron's conviction vacated

Eusevio Huitron Conviction Reversed

No evidence that Huitron was “intimately involved with many aspects of [Los Zetas’] finances,” or that he formed shell entities to protect the identity of the true owners.

Therefore we reverse the conviction of Eusevio Huitron.

Chivis is happy with the Huitron decision (not so much with Pancho's) and thinks it is correct. Eusevio was only found to have trained the horses. A humble man, uneducated, with special needs, who simply loved horses and was a talented trainer.

Eusevio’s brother Jesus was acquitted at the trial, the jury arrived at a not guilty verdict.

Zetas Trial-Fransico Pancho Colorado Cessa Appeal 5.7.15