The Fate of General Cienfuegos

Of the little we know from the documents made public today, and from a few other confirmed revelations regarding the arrest of Gen. Salvador Cienfuegos Zepeda, the former secretary of defense of Mexico, it is impossible to know the magnitude and specific weight of the evidence and, thus, of the accusation. But perhaps for the general, whatever the “truth” happens to be will have little to do with his future.

Those documents and revelations state that the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration knew about the general’s alleged relationship with organized crime for five years, but for some reason, they decided to wait until the summer of last year to act when they presented their evidence to a grand jury in New York.

We know that the same team of investigators and the prosecution behind this accusation also managed the El Chapo case and requested the arrests of Luis Cardenas Palomino and Ramon Pequeno. However, in contrast to those cases, accusations, in this case, were not announced prior to making an arrest.

Instead, the prosecution waited before arresting Cienfuegos on a trip to the U.S., more than a year after a grand jury decision.

And although the same team is involved, the documents indicate that this arrest does not arise from the same lawsuit. The documents that we know speak of wiretaps and witnesses, but we know little of their content and weight.

We do know one thing. Those of us who cannot imagine a Mexican general — a former secretary of national defense — pleading guilty to complicity with organized crime, know his fate will be in the hands of 12 men and women who live in the New York counties of Kings, Nassau, Queens, Richmond and Suffolk.

Hundreds will be summoned at random. After they are interviewed, and selected or rejected by the defense and prosecution, 12 of them will be seated. Some will surely not know or be interested in what is happening in Mexico. For them, the end of the trial will be most important. They will listen to the prosecuting party’s narrative, see the evidence and hear their witnesses. And they will hear the defense attempt to destroy that argument.

It’s called a jury of peers.

I wonder how a Mexican general and a man or woman from Staten Island, probably of Italian or Irish descent, are alike. How they — who surely never set foot in Mexico — are similar to Cienfuegos, or have much interest in what happens here, or in “the truth” of the case.

The fate of the general will rest in those hands. It doesn’t sound too good for him.