EAST TEXAS MEXICANO SEAT BELT RAIDS Pg. 13 A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES OCTOBER 14, 1994 • $1.75 BY MARIA EUGENIA GUERRA official extortion and conspiracy to commit nity 47 miles downriver from Laredo. official extortion. Unable to convince jurors that he and San Ygnacio Guevara offered another explanation for Gutierrez were conducting their own inves- HE DEAD DEPUTY DEFENSE was the events that led to his indictment and ar- tigation, the flamboyant county judge was a first for prosecutors Nancy G. Her- rest, an explanation that may well have found guilty on six counts of official extor- T rera and Bernard E. Hobson, the assis- caused the late Zapata County Sheriff's tion and conspiracy to commit official ex- tant U.S. attorneys who took Zapata County Deputy Jorge A. "Toto" Gutierrez, a bur- tortion. The panel of 10 women and two Judge Jose Luis "Pepe" Guevara to task in glary investigator and 30-year lawman, to men found Guevara not guilty of cocaine federal court in Laredo last June on drug turn in his tomb. and money-laundering charges. trafficking, money laundering and public Guevara's defense did not argue the Tape recordings of conversations made corruption charges. by government witness Guevara, along with • Ramiro "La Enchilada" his brother-in-law, Mi- - Murioz Jr., beginning in guel Angel Rivera, was .early 1992 ,document stung February 19 in Guevara guaranteeing Operation Prickly Pear, protection for the aircraft the five-agency federal landing at the county's undercover operation tiny airport, outlining that also netted Zapata money-laundering County Sheriff Romeo schemes to an IRS un- R. Ramirez and District dercover agent and of- Clerk Arnoldo "Shorty" fering to transport drug Flores on drug, money- proceeds from San An- laundering and public tonio to Zapata in Gue- corruption charges. Ini- vara's maroon Cadillac, tiated by the U.S. Cus- which included a large, toms enforcement office behind-the-dash com- at Falcon Heights and partment for concealing coordinated by the FBI contraband. The tapes and the IRS, Operation also document pay- Prickly Pear required the ments of $24,000 that collaboration of those operative Murioz made agencies with the DEA to Guevara and $400 and the Texas Depart- paid to Rivera for trans- ment of Public Safety porting drug money. narcotics task force. Confronted by prose- Guevara, 39, was VALERIE FOWLER cutors Herrera and Hob- named in a 14-count indictment that al- events, only the intent of the events. The son, FBI agent Jostle M. Martinez and IRS leged that he and Rivera worked with traf- judge testified that he and Gutierrez were agent Enrique Fasci, the county judge stuck fickers and received money from them to running their own sting of narcotics and resolutely to his claim that he had informed allow a northbound 300-kilo load of co- money laundering that ran concurrent with the late deputy investigator Toto Gutierrez caine to land at the Zapata County Airport, Operation Prickly Pear, which culminated in of his every contact with the drug traffick- a desolate airstrip surrounded by ranches. the arrests of the three public officials and ers who had approached Guevara for The indictment also alleged possession of Miguel Angel Rivera in a 50-agent sweep cocaine, conspiracy to distribute cocaine, across this small border ranching commu- Continued on pg. 6 DRUGS, LIES & VIDEOTAPE IN ZAPATA COUNTY PERSPECTIVES The Past 40 Years; The Next 40 Years A JOURNAL OF FREE VOICES We will serve no group or party but will hew hard to the truth as we find it and the right as we see it. We are ded- icated to the whole truth, to human values above all in- terests, to the rights of human-kind as the foundation of democracy: we will take orders from none but our own conscience, and never will we overlook or misrepresent the truth to serve the interests of the powerful or cater to the ignoble in the human spirit. Writers are responsible for their own work, but not for anything they have not themselves written, and in publishing them we do not necessarily imply that we agree with them, because this is a journal of free voices. SINCE 1954 Founding Editor: Ronnie Dugger Editor: Louis Dubose Associate Editor: James Cullen Production: Peter Szymczak Copy Editor: Roxanne Bogucka Editorial Interns: Todd Basch, Mike Daecher, Angela Hardin, Darvyn Spagnolly. Contributing Writers: Bill Adler, Barbara Belejack, Betty Brink, Warren Burnett, Brett Campbell, Peter Cassidy, Jo Clifton, Carol Countryman, Terry Fitz- Patrick, James Harrington, Bill Helmer, Jim Hightower, Ellen Hosmer, Molly Ivins, Steven Kellman, Michael King, Deborah Lutterbeck, Tom McClellan, Bryce Mil- ligan, Debbie Nathan, James McCarty Yeager. Editorial Advisory Board: David Anderson, Austin; Frances Barton, Austin; Elroy Bode, El Paso; Chandler Davidson, Houston; Dave Denison, Cambridge, Mass; Bob Eckhardt, Austin; Sissy Farenthold, Houston; Ruperto Garcia, Austin; John Kenneth Galbraith, Cam- AIM POGUE bridge, Mass.; Lawrence Goodwyn, Durham, N.C.; Jim Mattox and Ronnie Dugger at the Texas Legislature, 1988 George Hendrick, Urbana, Ill.; Molly Ivins, Austin; Larry L. King, Washington, D.C.; Maury Maverick, Jr., San Antonio; Willie Morris, Jackson, Miss.; Kaye I am very proud of my part in having, in was often hard to come by, but discourse Northcott, Fort Worth; James Presley, Texarkana; Susan Reid, Austin; Geoffrey Rips, Austin; A.R. (Babe) cooperation with many others, created and was still valued. Schwartz, Galveston; Fred Schmidt, Fredericksburg. maintained, in the Texas -Observer, a place So, in 1954, a roving band of Texas Poetry Consultant: Thomas B. Whitbread for truly free expression and high social democrats—who had the audacity not only Contributing Photographers: Bill Albrecht, Vic Hin- conscience in this culture, and I am pro- to believe in such values as democracy, terlang, Alan Pogue. Contributing Artists: Michael Alexander, Eric Avery, foundly, profoundly happy that the perma- civil rights and common decency but to Tom Ballenger, Richard Bartholomew, Jeff Danziger, Beth nence of this free place is embodied now in think they could be operating principles for Epstein, Valerie Fowler, Dan Hubig, Pat Johnson, Kevin its ownership by and protection of the government, even Texas government—de- Kreneck, Michael Krone, Carlos Lowry, Gary Oliver, Ben Sargent, Dan Thibodeau, Gail Woods, Matt Wuerker. Texas Democracy Foundation, To the sec- cided to found a journal, this very Texas ond 40 years of the Texas Observer! Observer, as part of their efforts to take Business Manager: Cliff Olofson —RONNIE DUGGER over Texas politics. This august bunch Subscription Manager: Stefan Wanstrom Development Consultant: Frances Barton didn't fit the mold of Texas political N THIS TEXAS Observer enter- thought current at the time because they had SUBSCRIPTIONS: One year $32, two years $59, three years $84. Full-time students $18 per year. Back issues $3 prepaid. Airmail, foreign, group, and prise began, the information super- an abiding faith in the power of average bulk rates on request. Microfilm editions available from University Micro- highway was barely a path in the forest, people to govern themselves, they didn't films Intl., 300 N. Zecb Road, Ann Arbor, MI 48106. Any current sub- scriber who finds the price a burden should say so at renewal lime; no where the hammering of manual Royal think oil was the mother's milk of politics one need forgo reading the Observer simply because of the cost. INDEXES: The Texas Observer is indexed in Access: The Supplementary typewriters was like a flock of woodpeck- and they had an unshakeable addiction to Index to Periodicals; Texas Index and, for the years 1954 through 1981, The ers marking the way. People still had time Texas Observer Index. the idea of equality. THE TEXAS OBSERVER (ISSN 0040-45 I9/USPS 541300), entire contents to think, to talk, to reflect, to build one-on- About 150 of these hard thinkers met in copyrighted, ID 1994, is published biweekly except for a three-week interval between issues in January and July (25 issues per year) by the Texas Democ- one relationships. Television did not domi- Austin one evening and decided to hire racy Foundation, 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. Telephone: (512) 477-0746. E-mail: [email protected]. nate the evenings or determine the news. brash, young Ronnie Dugger to edit their Second-class postage paid at Austin, Texas. POSTMASTER: Send address changes to THE TEXAS OBSERVER, Computers were in their oversized infancy, house organ. Dugger turned them down. He 307 West 7th Street, Austin, Texas 78701. and ideas could still be kicked around— would be no one's mouthpiece, he told though not always in public. Information them. Think how frustrating that must have 2 • OCTOBER 14, 1994 been to some of those political warriors. Nicaragua. Ronnie and I did not agree on They planned for a publication to represent several major issues at that time. I decided rd." THE TEXAS the views of the Democrats of Texas who to open up the Observer to the debate tak- were loyal to the national party, and, in- ing place in this country. Ronnie wrote his stead, they got Ronnie Dugger. Dugger set piece for the Observer. I wrote an editorial 111P server out the conditions for his employment. taking issue with his position. Maury They have run in every issue of the Texas Maverick and many others contributed to OCTOBER 14, 1994 Observer: the discussion. It was a passionate debate, so much so that it became the subject of a VOLUME 86, No. 20 We will serve no group or party but story in the Washington Post. Here's the will hew hard to the truth as we find it point: Never during that entire debate did I FEATURES and the right as we see it.