One of the vehicles shot dead during the LeBarón family massacre in Sonora (Mexico) in November 2019.César Rodríguez
The massacre shook Mexico. On November 4, 2019, gunmen from the criminal group La Línea, the armed wing of the Juárez cartel, ambushed and murdered three women and six children from the Langford and LeBarón families, who belonged to a Mormon community in the north of the country. Eight months after the tragedy, the victims filed a class action lawsuit in a North Dakota court seeking damages. An American judge closed the case this month, ordering the criminal organization to pay more than $4.6 billion to the mourners and other members of the clan, in an unprecedented decision for the amount and the actors involved. The case involves an even greater unknown: how and to whom the money will be collected.
The civil suit was led by Howard Miller, who lost his wife, Rhonita LeBaron, and four of their children, including eight-month-old twins, in the attack. Miller is also portrayed as the legal guardian of three other young children, ages nine, six and two. Rhonita’s parents, Adrián LeBarón and Shalom Tucker, also joined, as did their ten siblings. It was also promoted by Tyler Johnson, husband of the late Christina Marie Langford and father of Faith, a baby who was one year old at the time of the ambush and despite the fact that the car she was traveling in was one surviving Blast more than 200 shots. Included in the lawsuit were the mother and seven brothers of Dawna Ray, another of the women killed by the killers. The massacre occurred as the women and their families were traveling in a three-car caravan that was intercepted by cartel gunmen near the La Mora ranch in Sonora, northern Mexico.
All 25 plaintiffs belong to four large families and have dual citizenship of Mexico and the United States. The LeBarón neighborhood was founded in the 1920s in the border state of Chihuahua, very close to the neighboring state of Sonora and US territory, by members of a fundamentalist branch of Mormons fleeing polygamy bans on the other side of the border. Regardless of their beliefs, the community in Mexico is known for the attacks it has suffered over the past 15 years at the hands of organized crime in Mexico, in a chain of tragedies that includes kidnappings, extortion, murders and constant friction with the authorities… amid lamentations about the wave of insecurity sweeping the country. However, its members have not severed ties with the United States, where they have at times lived and conducted business in areas with a strong presence of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the official name of the main “Mormon” church). ), a designation discouraged by their religious leaders) and their apostates such as Utah and North Dakota. That was the legal basis for a US court to take over the so-called Miller case.
The unusual thing is putting a criminal cartel in the dock. No commander of the Juárez or La Línea cartel appeared in court to testify, nor did he assume the role of representative of the organizations. The victims filed their complaint under the US Anti-Terrorism Act, which gives any US citizen the right to seek damages against his or her person, property or business as a result of a terrorist attack, in this case an act of “drug terrorism”. . .” . The compensation must cover three times the amount of the damage suffered, as well as the costs of litigation, such as attorneys’ fees. Amounts of individual compensation range from $21 million to $228 million and cover economic, psychological, physical damage and the death of their loved ones “The LeBarons have become a symbol of Mormon resistance to the cartel,” the court summary said. “Consequently, the cartel sees the Mormons in and around Chihuahua as its opponents,” it added.
“I am convinced that terrorism exists in Mexico, but the authorities are more afraid of speaking out than of its consequences,” Adrián LeBaron wrote on his Twitter account last weekend. The family is counting on the verdict in their favor to strengthen cooperation in the binational fight against crime, and the episodes of violence endured have strained relations between Mexico and Washington. Rafael Caro Quintero, aka El Narco de Narcos, was arrested last week after spending 13 years on the run from Mexican and US authorities. In an attempt to rebuild his criminal empire, he forged an alliance with La Linea and made Sonora his main stronghold. “It’s terrorism, what the cartels are doing to gain power. Therefore they hang, throw, mutilate, burn cities; If it is understood here as in the United States, they can act together, yesterday we saw that it brings results,” said Bryan LeBarón, another man of the clan, a day after the arrest of Caro Quintero became known.
Beyond the symbolism, the lawsuit opens a series of lines to follow: the possibility of new lawsuits being pushed by the LeBarón family on the basis of this precedent, implications for legal entities that have links to criminal organizations, such as banks and established ones Money-laundering companies, the primary goals of the US offensive against the Mexican cartels, and the charges drug traffickers will face in the United States if they are also tried as members of terrorist organizations. Nearly three years after the massacre, the case is still garnering attention on the legal, political and media fronts in conspiracies involving alleged revenge by organized crime, a dozen arrests, claims of impunity and fresh episodes of violence. As for North Dakota, the collection of the $4.6 billion remains unknown.
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