ON THE FINAL DAY OF THE TRIAL, THE TENSION WAS VISIBLE IN THE FACES of the attorneys on both sides of the courtroom as they prepared to give their closing statements in a last effort to appeal to the jurors.
José’s legal team had elected not to put him on the witness stand to testify. The other defendants had also remained silent throughout the trial. It would be up to José’s lead counsel, David Finn, to speak for his client. Finn strode toward the jury box, then paced before the jurors, making eye contact with each one of them as he spoke. “. . . Remember the timing of all of this. This indictment got handed down one month before the Mexican presidential elections and three months before the U.S. elections. Why presidential? Why is that important? Think back during that summer, what was going on in Washington. All hell was breaking loose about Fast and Furious and Mr. Zapata, Agent Zapata getting killed, murdered by guns that were supplied by the ATF.”
Finn shook his head with a look of dismay. “The Zetas they want are in Mexico. And ask yourself this: why do we have the war on drugs? . . . There’s a problem here in the U.S. If demand dries up, then you don’t need a supply. But there’s also a problem in Mexico, isn’t there? Corruption. Forty and Forty-two are supposedly in Mexico. They’re not hiding in the hills of Afghanistan. It’s not like it’s Osama bin Laden. Don’t you think that if the Mexican government really wanted to find those guys, they could? But here we are. Can’t get the brothers, let’s get the clean brother.”
Now Finn tried to bolster his argument that José was nothing more than a scapegoat for his brothers’ numerous crimes, that he was the real victim in this trial. “José is either the smartest criminal on the planet or he’s not guilty,” Finn said, looking at the jurors. “The FBI was all over him and his family for years. And here we are. Zero plus zero plus zero equals zero. The burden of proof in a criminal case is on the government, and it’s a high burden. That’s why the government gets to sit close to you while we’re sitting on the other side of the room. That’s why the government gets to go first and the government gets the last word,” he said, shaking his head again. “Because it’s proof beyond a reasonable doubt, not maybe, not possibly, not even probably . . . Proof beyond a reasonable doubt is a high standard. I mean it’s moral certainty because you’ve got to live with your verdict. And you are a group of individuals. You are not a team. Deliberation doesn’t mean capitulation. Deliberation doesn’t mean compromise, because, I submit to you, folks, you’ll forget about this trial. But two, three, four years from now in a quiet moment, maybe you’ve taken your family to Big Bend, you’re going to think back about José and you’re going to wonder, ‘Did I get it right? Did the government prove it beyond all reasonable doubt?’” Finn sat down, a look of solemnity on his face.
Doug Gardner would have the last word before the jury was finally excused to make its deliberation. He stood up and walked to the lectern, where his voice could be heard clearly over the mic in the courtroom. He showed, once again, the photos of each defendant on the screen for the jurors to contemplate. “This evidence is here for you to go over on your deliberations. But what I want to do for a few minutes or so is go over a snippet to show that each one of these defendants knowingly participated in this conspiracy.” Gardner clicked through the slides showing image after image of key pieces of evidence: the wiretap transcripts, the photo of José’s son and daughter making the signs of “40” and “42” with their hands in the winner’s circle photo with Tempting Dash.
“It’s about ego. It’s about pride. It’s about winning the horse race at all costs. It’s about establishing the legacy for your family. It’s about being the best trainer, regardless of whether the horse is doped, or batteries are applied to it to win, or money is applied to the gate starters to send it down the track,” he said, addressing the jurors directly. “It’s about having the best horse and it’s about the money. It is not built on sweat, ladies and gentlemen. It’s built on the money from his brothers. Who do you trust more than family? That’s why José Treviño has the horses.”
After Gardner’s final statement, Judge Sparks excused the jurors from the courtroom. Everyone sitting in the packed gallery watched as the twelve men and women slowly filed out of the courtroom and were ushered into a back room where they would deliberate for the next few hours or days. Neither Doug Gardner nor Michelle Fernald could guess how long the jury’s deliberations might take, but they felt good about the evidence they had presented and the number of witnesses who had testified. Even if the jurors decided they couldn’t stomach the testimonies of men like Mamito, they would still have the testimony of Tyler Graham and other horse industry insiders to consider, and the reams of financial evidence that Pennington and his task force had provided. Still, they anticipated it could be a long wait. It was early Wednesday afternoon and Judge Sparks was prepared to receive the verdict as late as Friday, or even Monday, if there were dissenting opinions among the jurors.
The team convened on the fifth floor of the courthouse in an office reserved for the U.S. attorney’s office. They ordered out for pizza and settled in for the long wait. It would be difficult to focus on other work or get much done with the pending verdict hanging over them. Lawson and Perez played a game of trying to guess when the verdict might come down. Lawson didn’t expect they’d hear anything that evening.
But much to their surprise, the phone call from Judge Sparks’s clerk came in less than four hours. “The jury is ready to deliver the verdict,” she told Gardner. The team rushed downstairs to Sparks’s courtroom, still not believing the verdict had come so quickly. Fernald worried it could be a bad sign.
Judge Sparks banged his gavel down on the dais to settle the courtroom as the defendants’ families, reporters, and others quickly took their seats. Lawson felt a rush of adrenaline as he sat down at the prosecution table. Perez was looking nervous, shifting in her seat in the gallery. Lawson also felt his nerves taking over as a member of the jury stood up to read the verdict.
“Guilty”—the word rang out in the courtroom.
Lawson gave Perez a look of triumph across the room. There were times in the course of the investigation when they’d thought they might never see this day.
The jury had found each defendant guilty, with the exception of Jesse Huitron. The jurors had felt the evidence had not proved beyond a reasonable doubt that Jesse had knowingly been part of the conspiracy. His brother, Chevo Huitron, had not been so lucky. The family members in the gallery sitting around Perez wept and hugged one another. José’s mother bowed her head. Jesse Huitron was caught between elation at having been freed and grief as his brother, Chevo, was escorted out a side door by U.S. marshals alongside José Treviño, who looked defiant. Lawson could tell that the jury’s pronouncement hadn’t sunk in yet. He still hadn’t come to terms with the realization that he was on his way to a jail cell and not his Lexington ranch.
Lawson had thought he’d feel a deeper sense of satisfaction. Here was the justice he had been chasing for so long. But he couldn’t shake his disappointment that Miguel and Omar were still roaming free.