El Mencho's Son Reconsiders Plea Deal After Family Lawyer Shows Up at Last Minute

The son of notorious drug lord Nemesio Oseguera, aka El Mencho, was scheduled to plead guilty this week to helping run his father’s criminal empire, but instead it appears he got cold feet following the sudden appearance of a new lawyer hired by unidentified members of his family.

Ruben Oseguera González, alias El Menchito, was set for a change of plea hearing Wednesday in Washington, D.C., where he was expected to admit to federal charges that accuse him of helping run his father’s organization, the Jalisco New Generation Cartel or CJNG for its Spanish acronym, one of Mexico’s most powerful and violent criminal groups.

Instead, following a tense court hearing—part of which has been sealed from the public record—the plea deal has been put on hold as the 33-year-old El Menchito reconsiders taking his case to trial, which is currently scheduled to start in early May. The situation has not been previously reported and VICE News obtained a partially redacted transcript of the court proceeding, which offers some clues about the bizarre turn of events.

El Menchito initially pleaded not guilty to weapons and drug conspiracy charges following his extradition from Mexico in February 2020. While other cartel leaders and their sons, known as “narco juniors,” have been prosecuted in the United States, El Menchito was anticipated to be the first high-profile CJNG figure to take his case to trial. Mexican officials have said he was “considered the second-in-command of the criminal group led by his father.”

But in late March, with his trial date fast approaching, court records show El Menchito notified prosecutors that he intended to change his plea to guilty. Such a move typically happens when a deal has been struck, which can involve the defendant cooperating or providing useful information in exchange for dropped charges or a reduced sentence.

Change of plea hearings are routine business in federal courts, but the first sign of something unusual in El Menchito’s case came on the evening of April 11, before he was scheduled to plead guilty. Federal prosecutors filed a motion asking the presiding judge to hold a “conflict inquiry” over a new defense lawyer seeking to appear on behalf of El Menchito. 

The attorney, Arturo Hernandez, was “purportedly retained by the defendant’s family on his behalf,” wrote prosecutors, who noted that several of El Menchito’s close relatives also face charges in related cases.

“The government has concerns about a potential conflict of interest if Mr. Hernandez is retained and/or receiving attorney’s fees from the defendant’s family members who are charged in related cases or individuals acting on behalf of those family members,” prosecutors told the judge.

A spokesperson for the Department of Justice declined to comment, and the defense lawyers originally hired to represent El Menchito did not respond to phone calls and emails from VICE News inquiring about the situation.

When the lawyers showed up for court on Wednesday, Judge Beryl A. Howell did not mince words when addressing Hernandez as he attempted to appear on behalf of El Menchito.

“This is not the way I do business,” Howell said, according to the court reporter’s transcript. “What are you doing here at the last minute when this case has been pending on my docket for years. What are you doing here?”

When Hernandez replied that he’d been retained by El Menchito the day prior, the judge asked: “Have you ever spoken to Mr. Oseguera-Gonzalez?”

Hernandez said they had spoken, “Yesterday and the day before… over the phone. Numerous times.”

When Hernandez said he would be seeking to delay the trial, which had been scheduled on the judge’s docket since June 2022, Howell interjected: “No, no, no.”

“I was hoping that you would be understanding because there is a conflict between the client and his attorneys with respect to representation, and he hired a different attorney,” Hernandez said. “And it would be hard for a client to proceed when he has a conflict with his attorneys.”

Howell said she’d never noticed a conflict between El Menchito and his other defense attorneys, then ordered Hernandez to “go sit in the gallery,” effectively ending his participation in the hearing.

The judge then peppered El Menchito with a series of questions and informed him that, “just because you want new counsel doesn't mean you automatically get it.”

“Well, I didn't know that,” he said in English, adding a beat later, in Spanish through a court translator: “I just want a second opinion.”

When the judge offered to give him an hour to talk things over with his lawyers, the CJNG cartel leader’s son asked for more time and to postpone the trial.

“I was not happy with the plea,” El Menchito said.

Menchito’s other defense lawyer, Danny Onorato, then asked to speak to the judge in a conversation that was sealed by the court, with the transcript pages redacted. When they went back on the record, the judge agreed to postpone the hearing to give El Menchito time to get his “second opinion.” 

El Menchito told the judge that he was aware of who in his family had retained Hernandez, but did not say the name on the record.

Howell asked: “And even if the family members who retained Mr. Hernandez are people who have their own legal problems with their own best interests at heart rather than yours, do you still want to proceed with Mr. Hernandez representing you?”

“Yes, your honor,” Menchito replied.

Hernandez spoke to VICE News by phone on Thursday as he was preparing to visit his new client in jail. Based in San Jose, California, Hernandez said he’d been practicing law for over 40 years across multiple federal districts and never been ordered to go sit in the gallery during a proceeding like he was by Judge Howell.

Hernandez said he had previously represented other high-profile cartel figures, including an associate of Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán, but does not have any other CJNG clients. He said he was hired by one of Menchito’s uncles in California—the same person who hired the other defense attorneys—after the family started to have doubts about the plea agreement. He declined to disclose a name or the exact relationship to his client, but said the person is not facing any criminal charges. 

“I usually come in on the spur of the moment, they call me the SWAT team of the legal profession,” Hernandez said. “I can be there the next day, cross-country, which I did in this matter. I notified the court that my client was not going to enter a plea.”

Hernandez criticized the other lawyers on the case, saying the client’s family was unhappy with their work on the case. “They pressured my client into pleading guilty because obviously they were not ready to go to trial,” he said.

Asked about the implication that he’d been hired by El Mencho or another family member to shut down the plea deal over concerns about cooperation, Hernandez responded: “Ridiculous, ridiculous, ridiculous.” 

“I am going to take over the case,” Hernandez said. “We will do our due diligence, submit any motions necessary, and we will decide whether or not he needs to have a plea or not.”

A subsequent hearing has been scheduled for April 21 to determine what happens next. A plea deal would keep many aspects of the case shrouded in secrecy, while a trial could lead to bombshell disclosures similar to recent high-profile cases against Sinaloa Cartel leader El Chapo and corrupt former security official Genaro García Luna.

Born in 1990 in California, which gives him U.S. citizenship, El Menchito allegedly joined his family in the drug trade as far back as 2007, when he was just 17. His father, El Mencho, founded the CJNG around 2010 amid a splintering of his previous group, and it quickly became a dominant and violent force in the Mexican underworld, rivaling the Sinaloa Cartel led by El Chapo and his sons, known as Los Chapitos. 

The younger generation cartel bosses are known for ruthless violence and flaunting their lavish lifestyles on social media. Several have been extradited to the United States and pleaded guilty, including three sons of fugitive Sinaloa Cartel leader Ismael “El Mayo” Zambada, one of whom testified as a key government witness against El Chapo.

El Menchito’s position made him a top priority of Mexican law enforcement, putting him in and out of prison in a series of bizarre events. 

In January 2014, El Menchito was arrested in Guadalajara, the state capital of Jalisco and the bastion for the hyper-violent CJNG cartel. He was accused of drug trafficking, illegal possession of firearms, and money laundering, but after 11 months in custody, a federal judge ordered his release later that year.

El Menchito remained free for over six months until he was rearrested in June 2015, again in Guadalajara. He was found with four grenades and four assault rifles, including a customized AR-15 inscribed with “Menchito” and “CJNG 02.”

A U.S. law enforcement source who was involved in the case and not authorized to speak publicly, called the CJNG a “family affair” and said Menchito was a “major player,” but said his arrest seemingly did little to weaken the organization.

“They have too many bosses—it’s self-healing,” the source said. “CJNG has never been consistently hit.”

After his arrest, a widely circulated mugshot showed El Menchito with bandages over his swollen nose. Authorities said he’d recently had a nose job before he was detained and the plastic surgery had yet to heal.

But just 10 days later, the CJNG scion was released from prison again because of a lack of evidence. This time he only remained free for a few minutes, before he was arrested again outside the prison by a different police unit related to his potential involvement in the kidnapping and disappearance of two people. After his third and final arrest, El Menchito remained in a Mexican prison until his 2020 extradition.

Matt Donahue, a former regional director for the DEA in Mexico City, called Menchito “the son of the most ruthless drug trafficker in Mexico.”

Mexico’s adoption of a law that requires U.S. agents to share intelligence with Mexican counterparts has chilled cooperation and limited operations against high-profile targets, said Donahue. The January arrest of El Chapo’s son Ovidio Guzmán, a leader of Los Chapitos, led to a wave of violence in the city of Culiacán that left at least 29 people dead.

“You’re not going to see anyone get arrested in Mexico under U.S. orders,” Donahue said. “Once it gets there, they’ll know and they won’t get picked up.” 

El Menchito’s guilty plea would have been the latest blow delivered by authorities against the Oseguera family. In 2020, El Mencho’s daughter and El Menchito’s sister, Johanna Oseguera, a.k.a La Negra, was arrested when she attempted to visit her brother after his extradition in Washington, D.C.

La Negra later pleaded guilty to violating the U.S. Kingpin Act by helping run businesses linked to the CJNG. She was released in 2022 after spending nearly two years in the U.S. federal prison system.

Their mother and El Mencho’s wife, Rosalinda González Valencia, was also arrested in Guadalajara on money laundering and organized crime charges in November 2021. She remains incarcerated in a Mexican prison. Three of Gonzalez Valencia’s brothers, who allegedly worked closely with El Mencho via an organization known as Los Cuinis, have also been arrested in recent years. Two of the brothers—El Menchito’s uncles—are currently in U.S. prisons awaiting sentencing; the third is still in a Mexican prison.

In December 2022, Mexican authorities arrested El Mencho’s brother, Antonio Oseguera, alias “Tony Montana,” in a suburb of Guadalajara. The Mexican government alleges he worked as a “logistics operator” for the CJNG, with his crimes including money laundering, buying weapons, and coordinating “violent actions against antagonistic groups.”

But as El Mencho’s family members face ongoing arrests and significant prison sentences, the CJNG founder himself remains on the lam. The U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) currently has a $10 million bounty on his head, making him one of the world’s most wanted fugitives.