by Mia Flores
Olivia
Vicente had never been your average drug lord. While most narco juniors drive around in Lambos, Ferraris, and Maseratis and dress themselves in designer clothes, red bottoms, and iced-out jewelry, Vicente seemed humble. He wasn’t looking for everyone to cater to him. Instead, he was serious about his business, and that’s why he’d become number three in the Sinaloa Cartel.
Junior got along with Vicente and talked to him pretty regularly. Vicente was charming and sophisticated almost all the time, but on occasion, he displayed these really strange quirks. One of them was that he liked to blow shit up.
Once Junior went to visit Chapo in the mountains. Vicente was there, surrounded by a crowd of guys in military gear. It wasn’t any big thing for cartel bosses to have militia with them, but Vicente liked to be around men with hand grenades and AK-47s just a little bit more than most people. This time was no different.
Vicente turned to Junior and said, “Hey, look at that truck over there.” He pointed toward a brand new pickup truck, with dealer plates and shiny leather seats.
“That’s a nice truck,” said Junior.
“It is,” answered Vicente. “But watch this.”
Vicente motioned for one of his guys, who then walked over with a rocket launcher in his hand.
“Ready. Aim. Fire!” Vicente yelled. Then Junior heard a huge boom and jumped back as the truck burst into flames.
I guess blowing shit up was just Vicente’s thing.
Mia
Vicente was one of the last cartel members Junior caught on tape, so we figured that was why the feds jumped on his case faster than everyone else’s. Maybe the trail of evidence was shorter, or possibly it was because Vicente was already feeding the US government information about rival cartels. Snitching like that wouldn’t have been unusual, in fact; it’s believed that the Sinaloa Cartel became so powerful because they would rat out other cartels’ members, in an attempt to dismantle their organizations.
Olivia
Because of Vicente’s position and all that our husbands had on him, Junior and Peter were going to have to testify against him.
Well before the trial date, Vicente hired a dream team of lawyers from New York City, who argued that the US government promised Vicente immunity in exchange for intel while he was in Mexico. In their minds—and his, too—he had carte blanche as long as he was feeding the government info.
Mia
As Vincente’s trial approached in 2012, Junior and Peter’s faces were plastered all over TV because they were the biggest witnesses against him, and his was one of the biggest drug cases ever to happen in a US court of law. Unfortunately, the proceedings kept getting delayed again and again.
Worried about the upcoming trial and the threats we’d been receiving, eight DEA agents drove up to my house in blacked-out minivans, Chevy Tahoes, and a working van so that they could sweep my home for bugs and tracking devices. They asked me to wait in the kitchen with my babies as they brought out these huge pieces of surveillance equipment that looked like something out of the movies. While they were sniffing around, I peeked out the window and saw two agents lying on plastic under my car, holding flashlights to search the undercarriage. When they were finished, they came inside and spoke to me.
“You should look under your car once a week,” they said.
They hadn’t found anything, but that didn’t mean I never would.
Unfortunately, Olivia had suffered something worse, and her whole life was about to be turned upside down.
Olivia
Sergio Gomez was an orderly at the Chicago MCC while Vicente was being held there, awaiting trial. Sergio was allowed to move around freely, doing odd jobs around the center, and he befriended Vicente and gained his trust.
At the time, my first husband, Leo, was imprisoned there, too. Sergio knew I’d been married to Leo, so he cozied up to him, trying to get information from him about where my parents lived. He knew that Vicente wanted to kill Peter and Junior, so Sergio’s brilliant plan was to sell this information to Vicente. He even went so far as to transfer $6,600 into Sergio’s lawyer’s account for it.
Even though Leo snitched on me and sent me away to prison, I’m sure the last thing he wanted was to see the cartels kill me or my parents. So he told the feds everything. I’m pretty sure he benefited, but I was still appreciative. As a result, prosecutors ripped up Sergio’s plea agreement for tampering with a federal witness. Sergio’s now serving forty years.
Unfortunately, Sergio getting punished once again didn’t ensure a happy ending. The feds took his threat so seriously that they relocated my parents from the home they’d lived in for twenty years. My innocent parents who had worked so hard to give me a decent life, and who had loved me unconditionally despite all I’d put them through, had to uproot their lives and move, far from everything and everyone they knew. Junior and I felt horrible. My mom and dad didn’t deserve to be affected by any of this, and Junior and I will forever live with guilt for the burden we put on them.
Mia
The dangers posed didn’t end there. In fact, they only got worse.
Olivia
In August 2011, I had moved to the Midwest and was beginning to settle in. I’d just unpacked all our things and was trying to make my kids and myself feel at home.
One night I was looking out my window, which I do routinely, and I noticed a man sitting outside my house in a car, with a blue light shining up into his face. I realized right away he was staring at a computer.
What the hell? I wondered. This can’t be good.
I immediately ran into the living room and unplugged my router, turned off all the lights, and lay down on the couch. Every hour or so for the rest of the night, I’d stand up in the pitch dark and walk to the window to peek out and see if the man was still there. Sure enough, all night long, he sat in his car on his computer, and all night long, I panicked, thinking, This guy is going to kick in my door any minute and kill me and my children.
The next morning, I didn’t take my kids to school and refused to let them go outside to play. I crawled on my knees past my windows, crouching so I could peek out and try to get a visual of him. I started to write down his schedule, which didn’t consist of much except him leaving for fifteen minutes or so every now and then. I just assumed he was driving to Walmart so he could go to the bathroom.
One of my neighbors called the cops, and they showed up while the guy was on one of his fifteen-minute pee breaks. When he returned, they questioned him, and the man drove off. Just before the police left, I walked out of my house, pretending to be a concerned citizen rather than the focus of the guy in the car, and cornered them.
“Did you find out who that man is?” I asked innocently.
“He’s a private investigator working on a case,” the officer said. “And we can’t tell him to leave. He has every right to be here.”
I walked back inside, defeated. I wanted more than anything to march up to his car, bang on his window, and tell him I knew exactly who he was working for. I wanted to get up in his face and scream, “You’re working for the cartels, you fucking coward. How can you live with yourself knowing that your boss wants to kill me and my kids? I hope you rot in hell.”
I called the feds, and they told me they were sending agents to investigate, but I needed to get my things and leave immediately.
That evening, I packed up my car in the garage, waited for the man to drive away, put my boys in their car seats, and drove to a hotel as fast as I could and never looked back. We lived there, in hell, for six months.
The three of us were crammed into a tiny room with double beds. I needed space, so the hotel removed the desk and office chair, and I stacked up plastic storage bins full of all of our possessions. One had teddy bears in it, another held toys, another had books, and the rest held clothes.
After we woke up in our little beds side by side, I’d open up the mini fridge, take out a half gallon of milk, and serve cereal. After breakfast
, I’d put on Brandon’s and Benjamin’s backpacks, and we’d walk through the lobby, where the maids and front desk staff would wave at them and say, “Have a good day at school!” I’d drive them to school, go back to the hotel, lock my door, close the blinds, and sit in the dark all day.
But when it was time to pick the boys up, I always had a smile on my face. “This is so much fun! It’s a mini vacation!” I’d say.
I don’t know who I thought I was kidding. At night Brandon would cry that he just wanted to go home, and in the dark I would lie and cry silently so that he couldn’t see or hear me. My breaking point was when I came back to the hotel after his kindergarten graduation, and he threw himself on the bed in a little ball and screamed, “I just want Dad!”
I wanted the exact same thing.
I started questioning whether or not cooperating was the right thing to do, wondering, If this is hurting my kids and feels so wrong, how can it be right?
I knew I was being selfish, but all I could think about was how much pain and suffering my family was going through. We did this for a normal life, but running for your life in the middle of the night was not normal.
After six months, the government finally relocated me to a different state. The US Attorney investigated who had hired the PI, but they weren’t allowed to tell me their findings. Maybe I’ll never know. All I can do is be thankful that no one killed me or my kids.
CHAPTER 29
Grand Jury and Plea Agreements
Mia
When Peter and Junior agreed to become informants and turn themselves in, they formally and legally admitted they were criminals. This acknowledgment didn’t change during their years of proffering, although then, they were protected: anything they said couldn’t be used against them in a court of law.
Olivia
In order to face indictments, they had to sit in front of a grand jury, which they did from December 2008 to June 2009, during their time at the Chicago MCC. Federal grand juries are typically larger than those in state courts—they can contain anywhere from sixteen to twenty-three jurors. In front of these law-abiding citizens, Junior and Peter were prepared to be 100 percent truthful, incriminate themselves, and tell on everyone they cared for. They knew they were going to be charged, but for what was still in question. That would depend on the grand jury testimony and the government’s thorough investigation to make sure all that they’d said was true.
Mia
Peter and Junior had to go in front of a grand jury maybe a dozen times, and it was one of the hardest things they’d endured in the whole course of their cooperation. Standing before the grand jury, they had to read out every criminal act they’d committed while they ran their organization. Every single terrible thing.
It made Peter feel awful. He didn’t even want me to read his sworn statements, let alone his kids one day in the future.
“I’m so ashamed,” he told me on one Sunday visit. “When I turned myself in, I wasn’t proud of what I’d done, but at the time, I thought I should be forgiven. Now, I’m not sure anyone should ever forgive me.”
Olivia
Junior was so nervous before his first grand jury appearance, but he wasn’t the only person on edge. The whole thing was such a big deal that before he and Peter walked in, officials cleared the entire court. Even the parking lot was empty. When they entered, Tom was sweating profusely. Apparently it was a big day for everyone, even the US Attorney.
Mia
The moment Peter stood in front of the grand jury and stated his name, all those people staring at him in disbelief made him feel humiliated. In the drug world, he felt normal, even respected. Out there in the open in a court of law, he felt so vulnerable, like such a criminal, that it was hard for him to think straight.
Olivia
Tom broke down their whole case, walking the jury through everything: from the very first day they started, when they sold their first thirty kilos, to their peak, when they had a $2 billion empire. Then, he let the grand jury ask Junior and Peter questions. Pretty soon, the talk turned personal; everyone was so intrigued with them.
Mia
At one point, someone on the grand jury stopped in the middle of his inquiry, stared at them, and said, “Are you guys going to write a book or make a movie?”
Olivia
Finally, in August 2009, the grand jury considered the testimony, read all the evidence, and handed over the indictments. When Mia and I first read them, we were overwhelmed.
“This is a lot to take in,” I said to Mia.
“Yeah,” she answered. “Reading everything Junior and Peter did on paper is different than living it every day.”
Mia
Those indictments were hard pills to swallow. Junior and Peter had always wanted to protect us, so in a lot of ways, we’d been shielded from the whole truth of what they did. They never wanted us to worry, so in Mexico, they made our lives feel almost normal.
Still, we didn’t feel lied to, and we certainly weren’t mad at them. Sure, we were disturbed to see everything in print, but we knew that Peter and Junior changing their lives had all been done for us and our children. They’d become the men they promised us they’d be and that we always knew they were.
Olivia
After the indictments were handed over, the US Attorneys and Peter’s and Junior’s lawyers set to work on a plea agreement.
Plea bargains are essentially contracts that are governed by layers upon layers of statutes, rules, guidelines, Department of Justice policies, and case law. In their plea agreements, Junior and Peter would accept all that they’d been charged with. They’d take responsibility for the distribution, the manufacturing, the trafficking, you name it. Then, they’d agree to a range of years that the judge might sentence them to—and it could be five years or five times that.
Sounds straightforward, right? It was actually a living hell. It was this complicated, painful process that began June 2012, four long years after they left Mexico, and took two months.
Mia
Over that whole summer, people were angry, and I don’t just mean at each other; they were angry at us. The US Attorneys went back and forth with our lawyers, then our lawyers went back and forth with Peter and Junior. Both sides were eager to settle, and because of that, our lawyers pressured Junior and Peter.
“Do you know how many kilos of cocaine you sent into the United States?” one of them once asked.
“Yes, why?” Peter asked.
“Because it was so much that most people would get life in prison. You need to sign this plea agreement. Stop fucking playing games.”
Peter was pissed. “Why are you scolding us? You’re our lawyers. You’re supposed to be on our side.”
Peter and Junior loved their lawyers, and so did we. They’d slaved away for them. Joe, especially, had been on their side since way before they were on the international stage. Junior and Peter never lost sight of that. But everyone in a situation like theirs wants the best deal. Of course they were going to fight.
Olivia
I was making calls to David and Joe and his legal team day in and day out, and after weeks of endless conversations they began to get really frustrated with me. We weren’t seeing eye to eye. They were advising us, pleading with Peter and Junior to sign, and we were giving them every reason why they shouldn’t. It became a nonstop screaming match.
Things got so bad that our lawyers grew tired of explaining themselves to me. I stopped getting straight responses, and sometimes I’d just get a one-word answer, which is almost as bad as no answer at all.
Mia
I’d have to pass messages from our lawyers to Peter, then relay his questions back to them because in prison, you don’t get special privileges to call your lawyer whenever you want. It has to be a matter of life and death. All this back and forth every day felt endless. There were so many calls I started to get dizzy every time the phone rang.
Olivia
Our lawyers wanted Peter and Junior to s
ign a plea agreement for ten to sixteen years, but I couldn’t comprehend why they should settle for that. I thought they didn’t deserve a day more than ten years after everything they’d done. They’d jeopardized their lives when they worked undercover in Mexico. They’d given the government every major player in the cartels on a silver platter. On top of that, they’d voluntarily turned themselves in to serve their time and pay for their crimes. Theirs was the biggest case that had ever touched the Chicago office. Bigger than Al Fucking Capone.
Plus, their intentions had always been good, light years more honest than anyone else in the drug trade. I tried to spell this out to our lawyers.
“In this business, many men use their money and power to hurt and kill people,” I said. “Our husbands have been robbed, kidnapped, and almost left for dead, and not once have they gone out for revenge or been violent. Doesn’t that count for something?”
Apparently, it didn’t. I knew there were hitmen for the mob, with bodies stacked up and hidden away, who had been offered better deals for cooperating. These guys were in and out of jail in less than ten years.
I guess that shit only happens in New York City, I thought.
Mia
When things didn’t go our way, we assumed the worst: that the government didn’t need our husbands as much anymore since Vicente was now cooperating.
