Search warrants unsealed
Papers are part of federal drug case. Store owner leader of narcotics ring, documents show.
The owner of nine La Michoacana Mexican markets in central Ohio is the leader of a large-scale ring bringing drugs from Mexico to Chicago and then into central Ohio, search-warrant documents in a federal case say.
The January warrants, unsealed this week, say that La Michoacana owner Liborio Alcauter has been trafficking cocaine, heroin and marijuana for years.
And they quote another defendant saying that Alcauter hired a hit man from Mexico to kill the investigators and the federal judge involved in the case.
The information is in affidavits that DEA special agent Scott R. Waugaman filed asking for judicial permission to search cellphones used by the purported hit man, who is being held on an immigration charge.
The documents say that defendant Lorena Sevilla was overheard in her jail cell talking about what Alcauter planned to do.
“Sevilla said out loud that Liborio Alcauter wanted to handle things like they did in Mexico and said ‘judge dead’ and ran her finger across her throat in a cutting motion,” according to one affidavit.
“Sevilla also made similar statements regarding law enforcement” and indicated that the killer would pull out the teeth of the victims as proof of their slaying.
Alcauter, 47, of Sunbury Road in Blendon Twp., was arrested in September as part of a sweep by the Drug Enforcement Administration, the Internal Revenue Service and local lawenforcement agencies. A grand jury indicted 29 people in the case, including Alcauter, whose stores were raided.
Most of the defendants remain in jail. Federal Magistrate Elizabeth Preston Deavers released Alcauter on his own recognizance in October after ruling that he was not a danger or a flight risk. He is charged with conspiring to sell cocaine and heroin.
Terry Sherman, Alcauter’s attorney, said Friday that the claims that Alcauter is the leader of a drug gang or that he intended to hire a hit man are “absolutely not true.”
“They can say anything they want in a search warrant,” Sherman said.
Alcauter is not participating in the management of the markets while his case is pending, Sherman said.
The DEA has been investigating drug allegations since August 2012 with wire taps, tracking devices, searches and surveillance, according to court documents.
Alcauter, who is a U.S. citizen, started his grocery chain in 2000 after emigrating from Mexico in 1985. Besides the markets in central Ohio, he owns one in Dayton.
Assistant U.S. Attorney David J. Bosley declined comment Friday, as did Rich Isaacson, special agent and public information officer for the DEA regional headquarters in Detroit.