CHICAGO — Shortly after his arrest in early October, Little Village construction worker Juan Espinoza Martinez was ushered into a windowless interrogation room by three federal agents, still wearing a green work T-shirt and holding a small bottle of water.
“You may be a little confused about what happened today, so I’m going to try to explain it all to you,” Homeland Security Investigations Special Agent Christopher Perugini told Espinosa Martinez at the beginning of a taped Oct. 6 interview that was played to a federal jury on Wednesday. “You can ask me any questions you want.”
Agents then blamed Espinoza Martinez, a 37-year-old father of three, for why he was there.
“Murder for hire?” Espinosa replied, throwing up his hands in confusion.
“Correct, that’s what you’re charged with,” Perugini said. “I’ll explain it to you when we leave.”
Agents later confronted Espinosa Martinez with text messages she had sent to an acquaintance, including a photo of a Border Patrol Lt. Cmdr. Gregory Bovino was a representative of Operation Midway Blitz at the time, and agents offered a cash reward for Bovino’s kidnapping and murder.
During the interview, agents repeatedly asked Espinosa Martinez what he thought of the information. He said over and over again that his words meant nothing but social media chatter and that he had no intention of making any actual offer to kill Bovino.
“I’m really confused about this,” Espinoza said at one point in the interview. “I don’t have any gang background…I’m not around. I work every day to make a living. I’m a union worker. I work concrete, so I don’t know.”
Portions of a videotaped interview were played to jurors in the trial of Espinoza Martinez before U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow on Wednesday.
Espinoza Martinez, who has lived in Chicago for many years but is not a U.S. citizen, was charged in an indictment with one count of solicitation to commit murder, which carries a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison.
After an immigration officer shot and killed a woman in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood on Oct. 4, Espinosa Martinez told a construction industry acquaintance, Adrian Jimenez, that “he had dispatched members of the Latin Kings” to the area of 39th Street and Kedez Avenue in response to the shooting, according to prosecutors.
Prosecutors said Jimenez, who had worked on and off for years as a government informant, called the Department of Homeland Security and shared a Snapchat message Espinoza Martinez had sent him that read, “You’ll get $2,000 for information if you catch him” and “You’ll get $10,000 if you knock him out,” along with a photo of Bovino.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Minje Shin said in her opening statement to the jury that the case is not about someone accused of “expressing strong, even angry, views on immigration enforcement policy” or hatred of Bovino.
“There is no doubt that the evidence in this case will show that what the defendant did was not a joke, it was not nonsense, it was not venting behind a keyboard, it was not political speech… What the defendant did was abetment to murder,” Shin said.
Shin said Espinosa Martinez was “obsessed” with Bovino and that he was the “face of the threat” of arresting, detaining and deporting members of the Little Village community, a threat that “hit home.”
Espinosa Martinez’s attorney, Jonathan Bedi, told jurors in his opening statement that the case was “refractory to a reasonable doubt” because “the government can point to nothing that indicates Juan’s intent.”
“When you dissect all their words … all they have is their guesses and conjectures,” Bedi said. “They’re speculating.”
Bedi said there was no bag of money, no follow-up, no recordings and no plans were discussed. There was no site reconnaissance, no escape routes, no surveillance, and no communications saying “Bovino is here now, it’s a good time to take action.”
“It is not a federal crime to repeat neighbor gossip,” he said.
Jurors heard testimony from informant Jimenez before a taped interview with Espinoza Martinez was played. Jimenez walked into the courtroom slowly and with a noticeable limp due to back problems.
Jimenez, who was wearing a blue suit and a gray beard, said he had been involved in construction for decades and had recently started his own construction business. In 2000, he was also convicted of a felony and spent several years in prison.
Although the jury did not hear details of the case, court records show Jimenez was convicted of an armed robbery and burglary in Franklin Park in 2000. He was later sentenced to six years in prison.
Jimenez told the jury he had known Espinosa Martinez for “less than a year.” He said the defendant first contacted him on Snapchat looking for construction work.
Jimenez testified that he took photos of the Oct. 2 Snapchat messages he received from Espinoza Martinez and contacted HSI agents “almost immediately” about the messages.
Jimenez testified that he had “numerous” conversations with Espinosa Martinez about immigration issues.
But when Shin tried to ask what specifically they talked about, the defense repeatedly objected and the judge upheld the verdict.
During cross-examination, defense attorney Dena Singer asked Jimenez a series of questions: You have a family, right? do you work? Do you want to continue working and remain in the United States? Do you take care of your children?
Jimenez answered “yes” to all of them.
“And you’re not a murderer, right?” the singer asked,
“No,” Jimenez said.
Singer also got Jimenez to admit that Espinosa Martinez never asked him to take any action against Bovino or share that information with a wider audience.
Did he ever say, “This is Bovino’s next target?” Singer asked.
“No,” Jimenez replied.
“Did he ever say ‘Here’s a picture of cash’ or ‘I have someone who can pay you this cash?'”
Jimenez said he didn’t.
The trial of Espinosa Martinez was the first criminal case from Operation Midway Blitz to go to trial.
Although limited in scope, the case is expected to be an important litmus test as immigration enforcement operations continue to roil Chicago and other Democratic-led cities long targeted by President Donald Trump, including Minneapolis, where an immigration agent killed a U.S. citizen earlier this month, sparking nationwide protests.
Senior Homeland Security officials viewed the case as an example of immigration agents facing violence and threats from gang members and even international drug cartels.
In the months since, however, no evidence of Espinoza Martinez’s alleged gang ties has emerged. Prosecutors have significantly downplayed that aspect of the case, first dropping any mention of gang ties in the grand jury indictment and then saying during pretrial hearings that they were simply trying to prove that Espinosa Martinez had “close ties” to the Latin Kings.
On Tuesday, the defense objected to prosecutors introducing a text string in which Espinoza Martinez told an unidentified contact: “It’s getting worse, bro, my people are ready in the village (little village). Saints sd and 2Six are bitches. The king is on their asses and they’re scared.”
Prosecutors believe the conversation showed Espinosa Martinez was frustrated that other gangs were not fighting back.
But Lefko sided with the defense in part, saying comments about “Little Village” could be shown to the jury but not references to the Latin Saints or the Twenty-Six Gang.
She also excluded Espinoza Martinez’s later writing about El Chapo’s support for the Latin Kings – a reference to former Sinaloa cartel leader Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman.
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