Francisco Colorado Cessa, Zetas Associate, Arrested After Attempted Bribery Of Federal Judge

Only a day after federal judge Sam Sparks sentenced Francisco Colorado Cessa, Sr. to 20 years in prison along with three other men affiliated with the Zetas drug cartel for their role in a money laundering scheme in Texas and the US Southwest, new charges were opened against Colorado Cessa, his son Francisco Colorado Cessa Jr. and their business partner Ramon Segura Flores: the three are now accused of conspiring to offer a $1.2 million bribe to Judge Sparks in exchange for a lenient sentence. The federal complaint filed on Thursday against the three men alleges that the plan would have involved the use of the code word "golf" by the judge during sentencing to indicate that he had accepted the bribe.

"The latest allegation, if proven, demonstrates that individuals associated with the most violent drug cartel believe that they can corrupt what we hold as the bedrock of American justice - the United States Courts," said U.S. Attorney Robert Pitman in a statement. "We are one step ahead of them and if they continue to try to function as they do in Mexico, we will find them, we will stop them, and we will do whatever it takes to ensure that they are punished to the full extent of the law."

Both Colorado Cessas and Segura began discussing plans to bribe the judge during phone calls with the elder Cessa at the county jail where he was held, after which FBI agents began following Cessa Jr. and Segura as the two sought out someone who would deliver Judge Sparks the million-dollar bribe. A confidential source contacted Segura and introduced him to an FBI agent and an Austin, Texas police officer, both of whom were working undercover. The agents upped the cost to $1.2 million plus a $25,000 fee for themselves; one of them told Segura he could give the judge a $250,000 down payment during a game of golf, according to the complaint.

But the judge, who never uttered the code word during the trial, gave both the elder Francisco Colorado Cessa - a Veracruz businessman - and Jose Trevino Morales, brother of jailed Zetas leader Miguel Trevino Morales the maximum sentence: 20 years in prison. They and two other men were convicted of laundering $60 million for the Zetas through a quarter horse operation in the United States. 46-year-old Jose Trevino, who lived in Dallas and worked as a bricklayer before opening up a quarter horse ranch in Oklahoma, argued during the trial that he was not a Zeta. Judge Sparks agreed, but maintained that he still took drug money for the horses. "You did have the opportunity to say 'No,'" Sparks said before sentencing Trevino. "You just didn't, and you ended up involving your own family."

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