A federal jury on Thursday found a Chicago construction worker not guilty of charges he solicited the murder of Border Patrol Cmdr. Gregory Bovino, delivering a swift repudiation in a case the Trump administration had held up as evidence of violence toward immigration officials.
After a lightning-fast trial, the jury of six men and six women deliberated for about three hours before acquitting Juan Espinoza Martínez of the one count of murder for hire that he faced.
Before the jury was brought in to read the verdict, Espinoza Martínez stood in U.S. District Judge Joan Lefkow’s courtroom as his attorneys helped him put on a lavender tie and adjust his collar.
In the courtroom gallery, his younger brother, Oscar Espinoza, sat hunched forward and clutching a small silver medal of St. Jude, the patron saint of lost causes who, according to his testimony at the trial, became a symbol of hope for the family during their father’s recent illness.
When the verdict was read, Espinoza Martínez, 37, kept his hands clasped in his lap as he looked up in apparent relief and a slight smile crossed his face. About 20 feet away, his brother made the sign of the cross and pumped his fist.
The quick not guilty verdict marked a stinging rebuke in what was the first criminal case stemming from Operation Midway Blitz to go to trial — one that seemed to get weaker for the prosecution at almost every step of the proceedings.
To date, nearly three dozen people have been criminally charged in U.S. District Court on immigration-related cases since the deportation surge began here in early September, mostly involving protesters or observers accused of assaulting agents.
Some 14 cases were dropped or dismissed before ever getting to trial, a staggering record for a Justice Department with a conviction rate typically above 90%.
The verdict also comes weeks after a Tribune investigation found that the vast majority of protesters arrested during Operation Midway Blitz were never charged by prosecutors with any crime, despite federal agents sometimes sensational claims of violence.
When Espinoza Martínez was first arrested in early October, he was labeled by the Department of Homeland Security as a high-ranking member of the Latin Kings street gang, someone who had the power to pay other gang members to commit murder of a top government official.
But those claims, repeated incessantly by DHS Secretary Kristi Noem and other top Trump administration officials, dissolved in court, where no evidence was ever brought forth that he was in a gang, let alone a ranking member.
In fact, Espinoza Martínez, a married father of three, had a steady job, no gang tattoos, and no criminal history whatsoever, according to evidence at trial.
By the time the case went before the jury, prosecutors were forced to abandon any argument that Espinoza Martínez had ties to the gang, though the jury did see passing references he made in text messages to “LK” and their opposition to the ongoing immigration enforcement in Little Village.
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In his closing argument Thursday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Minje Shin went as far as to tell the jury it “doesn’t matter” whether Espinoza Martínez was a Latin King or not.
“You don’t have to be a member of the Latin Kings” to be guilty of soliciting a murder, he said. “If you play a role in that actively, because you’re seeking an outcome you also want, you are making it your own.”
A spokesperson for the Department of Homeland Security did not immediately respond to a request for comment after the verdict.
Joseph Fitzpatrick, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago, declined to comment.
Espinoza Martínez, who has been locked up at the Metropolitan Correctional Center since his arrest on Oct. 6, could have faced up to 10 years in prison if convicted.
Despite the not guilty verdict, however, he will likely not go free, since he’s not a U.S. citizen and there is an Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainer out for him, according to sources with knowledge of the situation.
Espinoza Martínez’s attorneys, Jonathan Bedi and Dena Singer, smiled and hugged their client in court after the verdict, but left the Dirksen U.S. Courthouse without commenting to a horde of reporters in the lobby.
Though limited in scope, the case is an important litmus test as immigration enforcement operations continue to roil Chicago and other Democrat-led cities long targeted by President Donald Trump, including Minneapolis, where the killing of a U.S. citizen by an immigration agent earlier this month has sparked nationwide protests.
According to prosecutors, Espinoza Martínez sent Snapchat messages to an acquaintance from the construction business, Adrian Jiménez, calling for Bovino’s killing after an immigration agent shot a woman in Chicago’s Brighton Park neighborhood on Oct. 4.
Jiménez, who had worked as a government informant on and off for years, shared the messages with Homeland Security Investigations, including one that had a screenshot of a baiduhai photo of Bovino with the words, “2k on information when you get him” and “10k if u take him down.”
Prosecutors also showed jurors other messages Espinoza Martínez sent to his brother, Oscar, around the same time with Bovino’s photo and bounty amounts, along with the words “dead or alive” and “sh– serious.”
“They on fire with the top pig,” Espinoza Martínez wrote, an apparent reference to the Latin Kings targeting Bovino.
In closing arguments, prosecutors said Espinoza Martinez was angry about immigration raids in his neighborhood and “fixated” on Bovino when he decided to send those messages. It was more than just a protest, more than a mere call to action. It was a call for violence, they said.
“He crossed the line,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Jason Yonan told the jury.
But in her closing remarks to jurors, Singer said prosecutors had no evidence of Espinoza Martínez’s intent when he sent the messages, and that if the jury had to make a guess on what it was, the only correct verdict was not guilty.
“The government wants you to convict him on murder for hire based on Snapchat messages sent to a physically challenged friend and his own brother … That’s it. That’s their entire case,” Singer said.
Singer called the Snapchat messages nothing more than repeating online gossip, “sent to two people who had no intent to take action who couldn’t take action.”
Espinoza Martínez, like many people living through Operation Midway Blitz in the Little Village neighborhood, took screenshots and shared information about ICE’s whereabouts and specifically about Bovino, the controversial face of the deportation effort, she said.
“Being upset about ICE raids, about people being deported, being upset about that is not murder-for-hire,” Singer said.
She ended her remarks by urging the jury to “stop the overreaching government.”
“Don’t let them bully you. Use your voice,” she said. “While the government and the agents didn’t want to listen to Juan’s voice, they will listen to yours.”
Prosecutors in their arguments repeatedly pointed out that Espinoza Martínez never told anyone that the messages he was sending were a joke or that he had no intention for any harm to actually come to Bovino.
When Jimenez asked Espinoza Martínez what he meant in his text about the alleged bounty, his explanation was telling, Yonan said.
“If the response (from the defendant) is anything other than ‘this is a joke, I’m not serious, Oh I was just passing this along … that shows his intent,” Yonan told the jury.
Singer, however, played clips from the videotaped interview Espinoza Martínez had with agents on the day of his arrest. In the interview, Espinoza Martínez repeatedly denied that his messages were any call for violence against Bovino.
“This was their evidence! They put these statements in. So you can’t just ignore it,” Singer said, noting that, “Over 30 times, in different ways, Juan says ‘I didn’t intend that.'”
With much of the gang evidence stripped from the trial, only four witnesses were called to the stand, all in about half a day of testimony.
Jiménez testified Wednesday he first met Espinoza Martínez about a year ago after he reached out to him on Snapchat, looking for construction work.
He told the jury he’d had conversations about immigration with Espinoza Martínez “more than a few times.” But when Shin attempted to ask what they talked about specifically, the defense repeatedly objected and the judge sustained it.
Jiménez testified he took Bovino-related photos of the Snapchat messages received from Espinoza Martínez on Oct. 2 and “almost immediately” contacted agents with HSI about them.
Shortly after his arrest on Oct. 6, Espinoza Martínez was led by three federal agents into a windowless interview room, still dressed in a green work T-shirt and carrying a small bottle of water.
In portions of the ensuing videotaped interview played for the jury on Wednesday, the agents pressed Espinoza Martínez repeatedly on how he thought his text messages looked, including references to the Latin Kings street gang backing the offer.
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He said over and over he meant nothing by it, that they were nothing more than social media chatter, and that he had no intention of making any actual offer for Bovino’s killing.
“I’m really confused about this,” Espinoza Martínez said at one point. “I’m not nowhere around there. I work for a living every day. I’m a union worker. I work concrete, so I don’t know.”
After prosecutors rested, the defense called as its only witness Oscar Espinoza, the defendant’s younger brother who testified he’d already seen the language about a Bovino bounty on Facebook an hour or so before his brother sent it to him.
“I took it as a joke,” the brother testified.