Federal Grand Jury Indicts Verdugo on Drug Charges

A new federal indictment charges that Rene Martin Verdugo, the Mexican land developer with supposed knowledge of the kidnaping and slaying last year of a U.S. drug agent, was the kingpin of a far-flung marijuana smuggling ring with operations in Mexico, Arizona and Southern California.

The 40-count indictment, secretly returned Tuesday by a federal grand jury in San Diego and unsealed Wednesday, accuses Verdugo, 34, and 20 other defendants of airlifting nearly 18,000 pounds of marijuana into the United States from Mexico between 1981 and early 1985.

The grand jury first charged Verdugo in late January with marijuana smuggling. Federal prosecutors have acknowledged that the U.S. government paid $32,000 to six Mexicans who seized him Jan. 24 in San Felipe, Baja California, and drove him to the U.S. border at Calexico, where he was arrested on the smuggling charges by U.S. authorities.

In March, Verdugo was indicted on additional smuggling charges.

During court hearings on the initial indictments, prosecutors revealed that Verdugo was the target of a continuing grand jury inquiry. His defense attorney, Michael Pancer, said the ongoing probe was part of the government’s effort to pressure Verdugo to testify before other grand juries investigating the slaying of Enrique S. Camarena, the Drug Enforcement Administration agent kidnaped and then killed in Guadalajara last year.

Verdugo has maintained that he knows nothing about the Camarena case, which has become a persistent irritant in U.S.-Mexican relations as both nations continue to conduct independent investigations of the slaying.

But federal investigators have told The Times they believe that Verdugo was present during Camarena’s torture by drug traffickers.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Warren Reese declined Wednesday to comment on whether prosecutors viewed the new indictment as a tactic designed to pressure Verdugo into testifying. But he said he expected that it would delay Verdugo’s trial on some of the earlier charges, now scheduled for June 10.

The indictment describes an extensive smuggling operation in which Verdugo allegedly bought millions of dollars worth of marijuana in bulk from Mexican growers.

The indictment names Verdugo in 20 counts, including a charge that he conducted a continuing criminal enterprise. Conviction on that count would carry a minimum sentence of 10 years in prison without the possibility of parole and a maximum punishment of life imprisonment.

Only two of the 20 other defendants were in custody Wednesday, and another was free on bond after his arrest earlier in the investigation, Reese said. Federal authorities believe several of the defendants are in Mexico, he said, although the whereabouts of most of them are unknown.