‘Absurd’ weight plea in Mexico bribe case

Lawyers for the ex-Mexican security chief accused of raking in a cash bribe of up to $5 million from a cartel leader insisted Tuesday their client could not have accepted the payment — because the bag would have been too heavy.

Genaro Garcia Luna’s defense team made the weighty argument in an application to have their client released on $1 million bail pending his trial.

“The allegations that Mr. Garcia Luna, a famous Mexican public servant, more than a decade ago met in a public restaurant with a leader of the Sinaloa cartel and received $3 to $5 million in a bag (which, of course given the value and that you cannot readily get $100 bills in Mexico, would have had to have been an incredibly large bag weighing in excess of 60 to 100 pounds), are absurd,” wrote Cesar de Castro, Luna’s attorney, in the bail application.

Luna, who served as Mexico’s secretary of public security, is accused of turning a blind eye to the criminal enterprise of Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman in exchange for cash while in public office from 2006-2012.

He allegedly received the huge bribe from Sinaloa cartel leader Rey Zambada in the 2000s at a restaurant.

De Castro argued that the former security chief’s alleged ties to Sinaloa kingpin El Chapo do not mean Luna should be kept in jail before trial.

“This court should see through the government’s attempts to detain Mr. Garcia Luna simply by alleging his association with El Chapo,” de Castro wrote. “The government cannot establish any basis to believe that Mr. Garcia Luna would attempt to evade prosecution.”

The defense proposed a $1 million bond signed by three “financially responsible individuals” and secured by a property owned by Luna worth $1.2 million.

While de Castro argued that Zambada lied about giving the bribe to Luna, federal prosecutors allege that some cooperating witnesses also say they bribed Luna “tens of millions of dollars over several years, in exchange for the defendant’s protection of the cartel,” prosecutors wrote.

Luna is being held in Brooklyn’s federal jail. He is set to next appear in court April 2.