FORT WORTH — A murder at Southlake Town Square three years ago was celebrated with a big party by a Mexican drug kingpin called El Gato. So testified the son of one of two men on trial in connection with the killing of Juan Jesus Guerrero Chapa.
Jesus Gerardo Ledezma Campano gave jurors a rare and chilling inside account of cartel justice Thursday. He has pleaded guilty to stalking Chapa, and agreed to testify. Campano described how he, his father, and uncle used GPS trackers to find and monitor Chapa.
Chapa was a lawyer who reportedly had ties to the powerful Gulf Cartel, and was also a U.S .government informant. Chapa was living in a million-dollar mansion in Southlake.
The actual gunmen have never been arrested. They're identified only by the street names Clorox and Captain.
Campano testified El Gato spent $1 million on the operation, then rewarded his father with a BMW and a hunting trip. The defendants, Jesus Gerardo Ledezma-Cepeda and Jose Luis Cepeda-Cortes, are cousings.
Defense attorneys have said the men didn't know that tracking Chapa would lead to his murder.
Prosecutor Josh Burgess asked Campano what usually happens to people El Gato wants to find. Campano replied, “With luck, they get kidnapped. Tortured.” The unlucky get murdered.
“Was he (Chapa) the first person your father tracked to be murdered?” Burgess asked.
“No,” Campano answered.
“Was he the last?”
“No.”
In court documents, prosecutors have linked the defendants to nine 9 deaths or disappearances of people they have tracked.
Prosecutors asked Campano if he ever saw the alleged assassins, Clorox and Captain, in Mexico. He said he saw them after the murder, acting as bodyguards for El Gato.
Testimony continues in federal court Friday. The case is expected to last about a month.
