Ex-marine gets 16 years as leader of Mexican drug cell
SAN DIEGO — Angel Dominguez Ramirez Jr.’s turn from a U.S. Marine to the leader of a Mexican drug trafficking cell can be traced back to the night of Nov. 29, 1994.
That’s when he swerved to avoid hitting a deer on a back road in North Carolina and flipped his car off a bridge into water. He was seriously injured, forcing a medical discharge from the Marines and ending his dream of joining a special operations unit. Even more devastating, his two daughters, ages 3 and 4, who were in the backseat, were killed.
“He has never made an excuse for the direction he took, only to say that after the accident, he stopped caring. He was numb,” his defense lawyer Nancee Schwartz wrote in a sentencing memorandum. “He didn’t think or care about consequences because he had experienced the worst.”
On Tuesday, Dominguez, 50, was sentenced in San Diego federal court to more than 16 years in prison for what prosecutors characterized as his role as the “unquestioned leader” of El Seguimiento 39.
The drug-trafficking organization, known as “El Seg 39” or simply “The Company,” included a vast network of people to transport and supply drugs for sale in the United States, as well as launder money in a reverse pipeline back to Mexico, prosecutors said. The cell operated in alliance with several cartels, including the Beltrán Leyva Organization, Cártel de Jalisco Nueva Generación, the Sinaloa Cartel, Cártel Del Golfo and Los Zetas, the U.S. Attorney’s Office said.
“Wiretap evidence demonstrates that he controlled every aspect of his organization,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Kyle Martin wrote in a sentencing memorandum.
His allies included corrupt government officials in Mexico, including Ivan Reyes Arzate — a top federal police commander who served as a liaison with U.S. law enforcement officials. Reyes’ cozy relationship with cartels was confirmed in an intercepted phone call between Dominguez and another trafficker — a conversation that was used as a key piece of evidence in Reyes’ own U.S. prosecution. Reyes was sentenced in New York federal court in February to 10 years in prison for drug trafficking.