Two Mexican citizens were convicted by a U.S. jury in Texas on Friday of helping set up an ambush slaying of a suburban Fort Worth attorney who prosecutors said was a high-ranking member of a Mexican drug cartel.
Jesus Ledezma, 59, and his cousin Jose Cepeda, 60, were each convicted of interstate stalking and conspiracy to commit murder for hire in the May 2013 shooting death of Juan Guerrero at a shopping center in the upscale Fort Worth suburb of Southlake.
Prosecutors presented evidence showing that Guerrero was gunned down by an assassin in a revenge plot masterminded by Mexican citizen Rodolfo Villarreal Hernandez, known as “El Gato” or "the cat," the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Northern District of Texas said in a statement.
Ledezma and Cepeda tracked Guerrero for two years, both in Mexico and the United States to set up the hit, according to evidence presented by prosecutors.
The two men placed surveillance cameras in Guerrero's neighborhood of million-dollar homes and put tracking devices on vehicles owned by him and his relatives, prosecutors said.
Guerrero, who prosecutors said was an attorney for a former leader of the Los Zetas crime syndicate, was shot multiple times with a 9 mm pistol while he sat in a Range Rover parked in an upscale shopping area.
Video surveillance from the shopping center showed a Toyota Sequoia pull up behind the Range Rover. Someone then exited the vehicle and walked toward the passenger side of the Range Rover, where Guerrero was seated.
The gunman and getaway driver are still at large.
