A top aide to drug kingpin Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman Loera was sentenced Tuesday to more than 19 years in federal prison for his role in drug trafficking by the violent Sinaloa Cartel.
With a dozen relatives seated in the courtroom gallery at the Dirksen Federal Courthouse, Felipe Cabrera Sarabia, known as “The Engineer,” showed little reaction as he listened to an interpreter’s translation of the sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman.
Cabrera was accused of coordinating the Sinaloa cartel’s heroin deliveries to the United States and overseeing shipments of cash to Mexico from U.S. customers. Mexican authorities said Cabrera ran the operations of the Sinaloa cartel in the northern states of Durango and Chihuahua.
He was charged in a sweeping indictment that targeted the top hierarchy of the Sinaloa Cartel in 2012. In January, Cabrera pleaded guilty to a lone count related to a single six-figure heroin deal with Guzman and other top lieutenants Ismael Zambada, Zambada’s son Vicente and twin brothers Pedro and Margarito Flores.
The Flores brothers were from Chicago and were working with federal investigators.
The sentence was slightly below the 20 years requested by prosecutors. Cabrera will get credit toward his sentence for the more than eight years he spent jailed while awaiting trial on charges brought by Mexican authorities before he was extradited to face federal charges in Chicago.
Attorneys for Cabrera, 52, depicted him as an esteemed member of his community in the tiny, mountainside town of Vascogil, some 200 miles from Durango, Mexico. In letters to the judge, community leaders and family members recounted Cabrera as a generous owner of a large ranch.
The eldest of nine children, Cabrera dropped out of elementary school to help out on the family farm, the lawyers said. He was in charge of his own cattle herd at age 12, was elected a town “representative” and judge by age 18 and managed to get a local mining company to build roads and schools for the isolated region.
A sentencing memorandum drafted by Cabrera’s lawyers stated that Zambada was in charge of the Sinaloa territory and approached Cabrera with an offer to “alleviate (Cabrera’s) concerns regarding the future of his family and hometown.”
One of Cabrera’s lawyer, Ralph Mezcyk, said Cabrera’s standing in the community made him a target for Zambada, who exploited Cabrera’s reputation to avoid scrutiny from authorities.
Outside the courtroom, Mezcyk noted that federal investigators had presented wiretap evidence of only a single — though large— drug deal implicating Cabrera in the larger Sinaloa operation. Investigators relied on hearsay statements from Zambada’s son as proof that Cabrera was involved in other deals, he said.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Andrew Erskine said Zambada would hide from authorities on Cabrera’s ranch. In a wiretapped conversation, Cabrera appeared to know about many prior drug transactions and customers, and his role in a purported deal for six tons of heroin indicated that Zambada, known by the nickname “Mayo,” clearly was close with Cabrera.
“‘Mayo’ clearly trusted this defendant, at minimum,” Erskine said. “It’s clear that ‘Mayo’ trusted Felipe Cabrera with the role that he gave him in that transaction, so again he’s operating at the highest levels of the Sinaloa Cartel.”
Judge Coleman was not swayed by Cabrera’s good works in Mexico and noted the massive amount of drugs trafficked into Chicago by the Sinaloa operation.
“I give you credit for how you’ve treated people in Durango with jobs, legitimate jobs, charity and educational support,” Coleman said. “That’s good for your community. My community up here has been decimated.”
