On his 30th birthday, Edgar Yvan Moreno Barragán, the only defendant who went to trial in McAllen on Wednesday for a drug trafficking case out of Starr County, learned that his next few years would be spent behind bars.
Barragán, dressed in sagging jeans and a gray sweatshirt too large for his slender frame, walked out of the courtroom searching the room for a familiar face. He waved to a family member as he disappeared behind a door and into federal custody.
He was the only one of the seven named defendants in a multi-count indictment involving a drug trafficking operation based in Rio Grande City who went to trial. All others avoided it by taking plea deals and entering guilty pleas.
Barragán’s argument to avoid a conspiracy and possession charge was largely predicated on the lack of evidence directly linking him to an incident in which approximately 120 kilograms of cocaine were found on Jan. 22, 2018 in a mechanic shop and a stash house in McAllen.
“You have to ask yourself – what did he do?” Jose Luis Ramos, the defendant’s attorney, asked the jury during closing arguments Wednesday before U.S. District Judge Randy Crane.
On that day, Jan. 22, 2018, Barragán met Daniel Sepulveda and Carlos Maciel Garcia at a mechanic shop in McAllen while a fourth unidentified man acted as a lookout, according to Nathan Foster, an FBI special agent. Foster, who was watching them from a distance, described them as being “comfortable” with each other, smiling, joking, and with their hands in their pockets.
A gray Volkswagen Jetta was parked in one of four bays at the shop with its hood open but at some point the bay doors closed, though the government did show any photographs of the closed bay doors.
After a few minutes, the doors were opened and the Jetta emerged, Barragán and Garcia inside. They drove off to a stash house a couple of blocks away.
Sepulveda and his brother, both driving separate but identical Ford Ranger pick-up trucks, drove their vehicles into the body shop and later left.
Barragán and Maciel got to the residence in the Jetta, but left in two vehicles heading in separate directions; Maciel drove a Dodge Ram truck and Barragán took the Jetta.
Traffic stops were conducted by McAllen police officers, and, through the use of a drug-sniffing canine, false compartments were located in both vehicles, though no drugs were found in either.
Two phones, including a Silent Circle Black Phone — a unique find — were found in the Jetta. An experienced FBI agent explained those phones were designed for encryption and impossible to extract data from without a code. He had not encountered one throughout his entire career.
Law enforcement also searched the premises of the shop and house and found about 100 bundles of drugs stuffed into an L-shaped desk close to the bay where Sepulveda parked his pickup and in the kitchen cabinets of the stash house sparsely furnished.
Investigators went to the apartment of Maciel Garcia, the man with Barragán that day. They recovered a suitcase belonging to the defendant and stumbled upon two identical white BMWs parked at the residence. One was registered to a “Ramon Moreno Barragan.”
Upon further investigating, the same name appeared in a city permit issued to the body shop. A witness for the government alleged it was Edgar’s false name.
Government attorneys had a show-and-tell that included dozens of photographs, text messages, videos, audio recordings and even the cocaine bundles which they estimated had a value of $3.5 million.
Prosecutors worked to connect the dots for the jury to show the links between the drugs and the defendants, since their evidence did not include co-defendants’ testimony, fingerprints or a photo of the defendant handling the drugs.
In the end, the government leveraged a common sense argument.
“You just don’t stumble across 120 kg of cocaine,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Patricia Profit said as she spoke to the jury in the government’s closing arguments. Other evidence, like the lease for the properties in question, indicated preparation and coordination. “If people have gone through all of these steps,” Profit contended, “they’re not just going to allow any stranger to just mosey into it.”
Barragán’s attorney emphasized the government only had one photo showing his client associating with the other defendants, Daniel Sepulveda and Carlos Maciel Garcia, but there was no indication of what they were talking about or if Barragán knew about the drugs that were hidden out of sight.
“All they did was leave suggestions open,” Ramos said.
Even so, only after a few hours of deliberating, the jury came back with a verdict: guilty on both counts.
Barragán will be sentenced in two months with the other defendants. Had he entered a guilty plea like them, the judge explained, his sentence may have been lighter.
