SNM murder case goes to jury

It’s the 7th cold case homicide solved by FBI in investigation into gang’s crimes

FBI Special Agent Bryan Acee paid a visit to a welding class at Central New Mexico Community College more than two years ago to confront a student there — a 51-year-old alleged associate of the violent Syndicato de Nuevo Mexico prison gang who had been accused of getting away with murder.

When Acee asked Anthony “Antone” Cordova about the fatal shooting of a South Valley rival gang member, Cordova tried to “put distance between himself and being an actual SNM member” but didn’t deny involvement in the Feb. 4, 2005, murder, Acee testified recently.

“When I walked away, I was shocked,” Acee told a federal court jury. “He’s not saying, ‘You’ve got the wrong guy. What are you talking about?’ None of that.”

A month later, as part of an FBIled investigation dubbed Operation Atonement, Cordova was indicted on federal charges of assisting the SNM

as an associate in its criminal enterprise by committing a violent crime as the alleged triggerman in the slaying of Shane Dix.

Cordova has pleaded not guilty. And after nearly two weeks of testimony in Albuquerque federal court, it’s now up to a jury to decide whether to convict him.

Testimony showed the 13-yearold murder case had gone so cold that the Bernalillo County Sheriff’s Office initially couldn’t find the case files when the FBI became interested after interviewing an SNM member who became a cooperating witness in 2015.

It’s the seventh cold case homicide solved by an FBI team during its three-year investigation into SNM’s crimes. A major drug trafficker for SNM, Chris Garcia, pleaded guilty in January to ordering the hit on Dix.

During closing arguments Monday, assistant U.S. Attorney Maria Armijo said Dix “disrespected” Garcia by shooting him in the stomach a year earlier in 2004.

“He paid with his life,” she said, adding that for the SNM, “an attack on one is an attack on all.”

A crucial witness, Mario Montoya, testified that Garcia paired him with Cordova for the “hit” on Dix. Montoya said both were high on crack the night they tracked Dix down in his van and Cordova shot him from the passenger-side window of their car.

Defense attorney Marcia Morrissey told the jury the sheriff’s investigation that followed was “botched” and the crime scene a “mess.”

The U.S. Attorney’s Office relied on cooperating defendants and former SNM members, along with what physical evidence was recovered, such as bullet casings and drugs.

There also were secretly recorded conversations involving drugtrafficker Garcia, who was unhappy in 2015 that Cordova might be talking to others about the Dix murder, testimony showed.

“They call it cooperation. I call it testimony bought and paid for,” Morrissey told the jury.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Beck countered that all the testimony from cooperators “is supported by other evidence.”

They have a “huge self-interest” in telling the truth, he said, because the government could use their statements against them if they lie.