EX-DEA AGENT APOLOGIZES FOR PLOT

7-Year Sentence For Seeking Hit Man To Avenge Cousin's Death

LAREDO -- A former federal drug agent stood before a judge Friday and
turned down a chance to prove his innocence, apologizing for trying to hire
a hit man to avenge the 1995 slaying of his cousin.

Salvador Martinez's sentence of seven years in prison was the result of a
guilty plea three months earlier. This could be the end of a tragic and
complex border family saga.

But it probably isn't.

Another cousin of Martinez's is the retired head of the Dallas office of
the Drug Enforcement Administration, Phil Jordan. It was the shooting death
five years ago of Jordan's younger brother, Bruno, that Martinez was trying
to avenge.

The way Jordan sees it, there are now two injustices: the murder of his
27-year-old brother, which he believes was financed by a drug cartel, and
the prosecution of his cousin, Sal, the result of an ongoing feud between
the DEA and the FBI.

"When the FBI first got wind that Sal was talking recklessly, they should
have notified the DEA, and Sal should have been ordered to return
immediately to the United States, where he would have been disciplined and
received counseling," Jordan said. "The FBI should have handled this much
like they have for their own agents -- keeping the matter internal."

Prosecutors have said that Martinez's plot was outrageous and demanded
criminal prosecution. Said FBI Special Agent John De Leon in McAllen, "We
took the facts that were brought about originally, (and) we did what we
felt we had to do to bring the case to where it is today."

Martinez, 37, with an eight-year track record for the DEA, was an agent
working in Monterrey, Mexico, when he was arrested last December.

He said he still remembers distinctly the day his cousin, Lionel Jordan,
whom they all called Bruno, was slain. He heard it on television on his
wedding anniversary.

Investigators called it a carjacking, because Bruno Jordan, a college
student, had been dropping off a new Chevy Silverado truck for a friend. He
was confronted in a store parking lot in El Paso and shot with a handgun.
The truck was stolen.

The killing happened just days before Phil Jordan was to take over El
Paso's high-tech intelligence center, a move that would bring him back home
from Dallas.

Jordan, who for five years has been obsessed with the motives behind his
brother's slaying, is convinced that it was an effort by high-powered drug
lords to intimidate him.

Just as he is now convinced that the prosecution of his cousin, Sal, is the
result of the FBI's desire to damage the DEA's reputation as part of "a
petty turf war" for drug-related funding.

An outspoken critic of corruption within the Mexican government and the
U.S. government's renewed certification that allows Mexico to receive
federal anti-drug funding, Jordan said he believes that FBI agents were
motivated by mistakenly thinking that Martinez's case would lead back to him.

But the evidence against his cousin in the murder-for-hire case is not
insubstantial.

Shortly after Bruno Jordan was killed, a suspect was arrested. The alleged
killer was a 13-year-old from Ciudad Juarez named Miguel Angel Flores, who
police said was working for a car theft ring.

The boy was convicted of the murder on June 1, 1995, and sentenced to 20
years. But the judgment was overturned, and after two retrials ended in
mistrials, Flores was finally freed last year and deported to Mexico at age 17.

Martinez found out where Flores lived. The agent arranged to meet one of
his drug informants last Sept. 24 at a gas station in McAllen, according to
his plea agreement. There, he gave the informant a photograph of Flores and
his name and address.

As payment for the murder, Martinez promised a government-issued Colt
pistol and up to $10,000 from DEA investigative funds.

The informant went to the FBI, whose officials asked him to tape-record
further conversations with Martinez. Court records said secretly recorded
conversations between the informant and Martinez from October through
December "substantiated the existence of the agreement."

Martinez was arrested Dec. 15 in Brownsville.

A Dec. 20 search of his office at the U.S. Consulate in Monterrey uncovered
a semiautomatic pistol, a photograph of Flores and a typewritten chronology
of events regarding the murder of Bruno Jordan.

At his sentencing Friday, Martinez told U.S. District Judge George Kazen
that his cousin's slaying was "a tragedy that spurred me to think with my
heart instead of my head."

Kazen asked Martinez if he wanted to reconsider his guilty plea.

"If you think you were entrapped, then take back your plea," Kazen said.
"I'll give you a change right now; we'll go to trial. But if that's not the
case, then you ought to level with your friends and family."

In a written statement, Martinez said he decided to plead guilty because he
did not want to put his family through additional emotional and financial
stress.

"If I had given priority to my own self-interest, many people would have
suffered through an agonizingly painful and expensive jury trial, the
public image of federal agents on the Southwest border would have been
tarnished, U.S.-Mexican diplomatic relations would have been further
strained, and U.S. drug interdiction efforts would have taken a giant step
backward," his statement said.

Kazen appeared to be torn over whether to accept the plea deal. He told
Martinez he could have received a stiffer sentence, but he also said he had
received many letters praising his character.

The judge advised Martinez to do the best he could, to take advantage of
learning opportunities while in prison.

"You may not think so," he said, "but you are still a very young man."