A Colombian drug trafficker testified Tuesday that Mexican cartel leader Joaquin "El Chapo" Guzman boasted about paying a $100 million bribe to the former president of Mexico to call off a manhunt for the notorious kingpin.
Alex Cifuentes spoke about the alleged bribe to former President Enrique Pena Nieto while being cross-examined at Guzman's murder and drug conspiracy trial in New York.
A spokesman for Pena Nieto, who left office last year, called the bribery claim "false and defamatory" when it first came up earlier in the trial. Pena Nieto was still president when Guzman was captured in 2016 and extradited to the U.S. in 2017.
Attempts to contact Pena Nieto and his representatives were unsuccessful Tuesday.
Cifuentes acknowledged that he first spoke with prosecutors about the bribery allegation when he began cooperating with U.S. authorities in 2016. After expressing confusion about the details, he acknowledged that he had told prosecutors that he was informed by Guzman that someone named "Comadre Maria" delivered money in Mexico City in October 2012, at a point when Pena Nieto had been elected president but before he took office.
Guzman's lawyer, Jeffrey Lichtman, also confronted Cifuentes with his prior statements about another debriefing last year where Cifuentes questioned his own memory about the circumstance of the bribe.
"By 2018, suddenly the numbers became fuzzy?" Lichtman asked.
"Yes, sir," the witness responded.
Guzman is on trial in New York on charges that could put him in a U.S. prison for the rest of his life. The trial has featured numerous allegations of bribes or attempts to bribe high-level officials in Mexico and Columbia, including police commanders and other officials in charge of fighting the drug cartels.
The defense strategy for eliciting testimony about Guzman making bribes wasn't immediately clear. At the start of the trial, Lichtman indicated that jurors would hear testimony about bribes paid to both Pena Nieto and another former Mexican President, Felipe Calderon, and suggested Guzman was the victim of a conspiracy by government officials and his narco-rivals to railroad him. At the time, Calderon dismissed the allegations as "absolutely false and reckless."
The judge in the case, U.S. District Judge Brian Cogan, admonished Lichtman after his opening statement to the jury, saying some of it included "inadmissible hearsay" about corruption.
"Your opening statement handed out a promissory note that your case is not going to cash," the judge said at the time.
This story has been corrected to reflect that the testimony happened Tuesday, not Wednesday.
This story has been corrected to show that Pena Nieto's first name is Enrique, not Ernesto.
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TRUMP TRIAL OPENING-AP EXPLAINS — Opening statements in Donald Trump’s hush money trial set the stage for weeks of testimony about the former president’s personal life and places his legal troubles at the center of his closely contested campaign against President Joe Biden. An AP reporter debrief. Newsroom Ready and Consumer Ready edits.
BIDEN-EARTH DAY — President Joe Biden marked Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in federal grants for residential solar projects serving households in low- and middle-income communities — while blasting Republicans who want to gut his policies to address climate change. Newsroom Ready and Consumer Ready edits.
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TRUMP-HUSH MONEY — A longtime tabloid publisher is expected to tell jurors about his efforts to help Donald Trump stifle unflattering stories during the 2016 campaign as testimony resumes in the historic hush money trial of the former president. David Pecker, the former National Enquirer publisher, will be back on the stand Tuesday. SENT: 1,160 words, photos, video. UPCOMING: 1,200 words after trial resumes at 9:30 a.m.
ELECTION 2024-TRUMP-ELECTION INTERFERENCE — Donald Trump faces serious charges in two separate cases over whether he attempted to subvert the Constitution by overturning the results of a fair election. Yet it’s a New York case centered on payments to silence an adult film star that might provide the only legal reckoning this year. Some legal experts are dubious about attempting to tie a record-keeping case to manipulating an election. SENT: 1,050 words, photos.
SUPREME COURT-TRUMP-CAPITOL RIOT-THINGS TO KNOW — The core issue being debated before the Supreme Court on Thursday boils down to this: Whether a former president is immune from prosecution for actions taken while in office — and, if so, what is the extent of the immunity? SENT: 1,070 words, photo.
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TRUMP-HUSH MONEY — Donald Trump tried to illegally influence the 2016 presidential election by preventing damaging stories about his personal life from becoming public, a prosecutor told jurors at the start of the former president’s historic hush money trial. SENT: 1,270 words, photos, video. With TRUMP-HUSH MONEY-TAKEAWAYS — Opening statements provide a clear roadmap of how prosecutors will try to make the case that Trump broke the law, and how the defense plans to fight the charges.
BIDEN-EARTH DAY — President Joe Biden marked Earth Day by announcing $7 billion in federal grants for residential solar projects serving 900,000-plus households in low- and middle-income communities — while criticizing Republicans who want to gut his policies to address climate change. SENT: 860 words, photos.
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Former president Donald Trump, center, awaits the start of proceedings at Manhattan criminal court, Monday, April 22, 2024, in New York. Opening statements in Donald Trump's historic hush money trial are set to begin. Trump is accused of falsifying internal business records as part of an alleged scheme to bury stories he thought might hurt his presidential campaign in 2016. (AP Photo/Yuki Iwamura, Pool)
