Man accused of plot to murder US border patrol’s Bovino found not guilty

A man accused of a murder-for-hire plot targeting a top US border patrol leader was found not guilty on Thursday in Chicago, the latest high-profile prosecution by the Department of Justice to fall apart in court.The government alleged that Juan Espinoza Martinez, 37, had offered a $10,000 bounty over Snapchat in October for the killing of Gregory Bovino, the border patrol official who has spearheaded aggressive immigration operations in cities across the country. Defense lawyers argued Espinoza Martinez was sharing an innocuous social media message that did not constitute a threat.The jury’s acquittal, after less than four hours of deliberation, is an embarrassing outcome for federal prosecutors in the first criminal trial stemming from the Trump administration’s major crackdown in the Chicago-area that started last year.The verdict comes after dozens of criminal cases tied to immigration enforcement have crumbled across the country. In September, the first Los Angeles protester to go to trial in connection with the southern California demonstrations against immigration raids was also acquitted in a case that featured direct testimony from Bovino.Espinoza Martinez was facing 10 years in prison for the murder-for-hire charge. When he was arrested last year, the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS) called him a “depraved” gang member and “thug”, and Bovino has cited the case as an example of the increasing dangers facing federal agents.Spokespeople for DHS did not immediately respond to inquiries.The government’s case focused on the Snapchat messages Espinoza Martinez sent to his younger brother and a friend who turned out to be a government informant. One read in part “10k if u take him down”, along with a picture of Bovino.“Those words do not indicate that this was a joke,” Jason Yonan, the second-highest-ranking federal prosecutor in the Chicago region, told jurors. “Those words have meaning. They are not innocent and harmless words.”Defense lawyers said the government failed to produce any evidence Espinoza Martinez intended to carry out or pay for the killing of Bovino, arguing he had sent the messages as “neighborhood gossip” after coming home from work and unwinding with beers. He didn’t follow up on the messages and had only a few dollars in his bank account.“Sending a message about gossip that you heard in the neighborhood, it’s not murder for hire,” his defense attorney Dena Singer told jurors. “It’s not a federal crime.”Prosecutors accused Espinoza Martinez of being “fixated and obsessed” with Bovino and cited other messages where he criticized the crackdown. Defense lawyers countered that Espinoza Martinez was a carpenter and family man who had been upset with the immigration crackdown in his neighborhood, but was not tied to gangs.Neither Espinoza Martinez nor Bovino testified during the three-day trial. The defendant’s brother, Oscar, testified that he took the Snapchat messages as a joke and that they were something he’d already seen on Facebook.Attorneys played clips of Espinoza Martinez’s interview with law enforcement where he said he was confused about the charges and had sent the messages without much thought while scrolling social media.“I didn’t threaten anyone,” he told investigators. “I’m not saying that I was telling them to do it.”Born in Mexico, he’s lived in Chicago for years but doesn’t have citizenship.Federal prosecutors initially referred to Espinoza Martinez as a “ranking member” of the Latin Kings, but their lack of evidence led the judge to bar testimony on the Chicago street gang at trial.Singer pointed out holes in the government’s case, including in the testimony of their first witness, Adrian Jimenez.The 44-year-old owns a construction company and had been in touch with Espinoza Martinez over Snapchat about work. Unknown to Espinoza Martinez, he had also worked as a paid government informant over the years and shared the Snapchats with a federal investigator.Jimenez, who has back problems, walked slowly with a limp to the witness chair and needed help getting up.“Would you solicit for hire an individual that was in that much pain and could barely walk?” Singer said to jurors. “That doesn’t make any sense.”Several federal lawsuits in Chicago have fueled skepticism about DHS’s narratives. Of the roughly 30 criminal cases stemming from Operation Midway Blitz, charges have been dismissed or dropped in about half. In a notable lawsuit that forced Bovino to sit for depositions, a federal judge found he lied under oath including about alleged gang threats.In the failed prosecution of a Los Angeles protester charged with assaulting a border patrol agent last year, Bovino was the only witness to claim he saw the assault, and defense lawyers accused him of “trying to cover up” for the agent.