'El Menchito' Makes a Last-Ditch Effort; Seeks a New Trial or Sentence

“Sol Prendido” for Borderland Beat 

“Despite the financial incentives, years of effort, and resources dedicated to his capture, El Mencho has always been one step ahead. So the (United States) government took what it could get: his son,” says the new attempt by the son of Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes, El Mencho, the absolute leader of the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), to one day get out of prison.

Rubén Oseguera González, alias El Menchito, has appealed his life sentence in federal court in Washington to seek a new trial or, at least, a reduced sentence.

The document, accessed by MILENIO, claims that the man was subjected to an unfair trial, surrounded by the bloody myths of the Jalisco Cartel, unrealistic testimonies, and evidence that should never have reached the jury.

It was September 2024 when Oseguera was tried for just under a month for cocaine and methamphetamine trafficking and possession and use of firearms and instruments of destruction for drug trafficking purposes.

Former drug traffickers, US agents, and Mexican authorities testified against the man, then 34 years old, to convince a jury that this light-skinned young man, wearing glasses and almost always a polo shirt, had been El Mencho's right-hand man during his youth and throughout his adult life while free.

Elpidio Mojarro Ramírez, a former operator of the Millennium Cartel, a former colleague of El Mencho and now a sworn enemy of Oseguera Cervantes, claimed that he met El Menchito when he was about 17 years old. “He was always listening, I imagine he was learning (...) he was always close to his father, I imagine he was helping his father,” testified Mojarro, who by then had obtained his freedom thanks to becoming an informant for Washington.

Another key witness for the prosecution was Herminio Gómez Ancira, alias El Indio, former director of the Municipal Police in Villa Purificación and one of El Mencho's several bodyguards. The man, who never hid his admiration for his criminal boss, gave several accounts that, at times, bordered on the fantastical. Mass weddings that left no evidence, plants that healed bullet wounds, and, of course, executions left and right for drug debts.

“His father didn't want to, but that was El Menchito's idea, to produce fentanyl (...) Menchito himself told me it was his idea,” El Indio said, also linking Rubén Oseguera to the attack on a Mexican Army helicopter that ultimately crashed, leaving several dead and wounded.

His testimony was vital in El Menchito being found guilty and eventually sentenced in March 2025 by the judge in the case, Beryl A. Howell, to life imprisonment plus 30 years.

“The cooperating witnesses generally linked Oseguera González to his father's drug trafficking activities. But one, Herminio Gómez Ancira, went much further. His testimony, discussed in detail below, bordered on the delusional. He told uncorroborated stories about his apparent magical healing powers, hiding weapons in caves, gold bars, and murders,” states El Menchito's defense document, “he claimed to have moved multi-ton shipments of cocaine by hand from boats, across the sand, to waiting trucks.”

In addition, the motion asserts that Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) Special Agent Kevin Novick gave improper testimony by interpreting intercepted messages from various BlackBerry devices and claiming that they were spoken or even written by El Menchito. “The court allowed the government to spend more than half of the trial on largely irrelevant stories about the downing of a military helicopter, images of expensive watches, and stories of parties with 10,000 people. 

All that, and yet, in a case involving drug imports into the United States, there was not a shred of evidence linking Oseguera González to any drug seizures," states Menchito's appeal to the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals by San Diego lawyer Devin Burstein, a criminal litigator different from the duo who represented Rubén Oseguera during his trial: Jan Ronis and Anthony Colombo Jr, "this court should reverse and order a new trial or, at least, a new sentence."

The appeal is one of the last avenues available to El Mencho's son to avoid spending the rest of his life in the Supermax Penitentiary in Florence, Colorado, an almost impenetrable complex where he is also subject to Special Administrative Measures (SAMs) that keep him almost completely isolated from everyone and allow him out of his cell for only a few hours a week.

The young man was arrested in 2015 in Zapopan, Jalisco, Mexico, when he was 25 years old, and since then he has been behind bars, either in Mexican or U.S. territory after his extradition in 2020.

“By virtue of his famous family, securing a truly fair trial for Rubén Oseguera González was always difficult. The sensationalism inherent in prosecuting the proclaimed ‘drug prince of Jalisco,’ the son of a notorious leader of a Mexican cartel, could easily turn the presumption of innocence against him,” the appeal concludes.

Source: Milenio