A federal judge declined to accept a guilty plea from alleged drug trafficker Miguel Caro Quintero on Wednesday because the plea agreement was not specific enough about what the defendant was admitting.
U.S. District Judge Philip A. Brimmer reset Caro-Quintero’s hearing to Oct. 23 and told the prosecution and defense to redraft the documents.
“What exactly is Mr. Caro-Quintero going to get up and admit to in front of me?” Brimmer, a former federal prosecutor, asked the lawyers. “I don’t think the pages in front of me provide that.”
Caro-Quintero, 46, was expected to plead guilty to a charge originally filed in Arizona’s federal jurisdiction for possession of marijuana with intent to distribute. A plea also had been worked out for an organized-crime-racketeering charge out of the District of Colorado.
Prosecutors agreed to consolidate the cases in Colorado to reach a “global disposition” of the charges.
Authorities say Caro-Quintero is a Mexican drug kingpin who headed the notorious Sonora Cartel along with his brother, Rafael Caro-Quintero.
The brother was involved in the death of U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration Agent Enrique Camarena in 1985 and is serving a 40-year term in Mexico.
A 1990 federal indictment says Miguel Caro-Quintero funneled tons of marijuana into the U.S. after harvesting the drug in Mexico.
He’s accused of conspiring to bring more than 100 tons of the drug from Mexico into the U.S. from 1985 to 1988.
The cartel moved some of the marijuana to a farm near Longmont and a storage house in Westminster, the indictment says. The cartel reportedly had $1.5 million in its possession in Boulder and bought cars from Colorado dealerships to transport drugs.
Caro-Quintero’s attorney, Walter Nash, declined to say why his client wants to plead guilty because the judge has not accepted it.
In the Arizona case, Caro-Quintero is accused of moving 3,000 pounds of marijuana from Mexico to Arizona from November 1993 to August 1994.
In February, Caro-Quintero was extradited to Colorado from Mexico. Before his extradition on the indictment, Caro-Quintero was serving time there for drug-related crimes.
Felisa Cardona: 303-954-1219 or fcardona@denverpost.com
