DRUG AGENT PLEADS GUILTY IN MURDER-FOR-HIRE PLOT

Mexico-Based Officer Accused Of Revenge-Killing Plans

A U.S. drug agent has pleaded guilty to charges in connection with a
murder-for-hire plot and probably will be sentenced to about seven
years in prison, authorities said Friday.

Salvador Martinez, 37, a Drug Enforcement Administration agent, was
charged in December with plotting to avenge the 1995 killing of his
cousin in El Paso.

Relatives said Mr. Martinez decided to plead guilty because he didn't
want his family to have to endure a criminal trial.

"The family wanted him to fight it, said Mr. Martinez's cousin, Phil
Jordan, a former DEA agent living in Plano and brother of the slain
man. "I feel confident that an American jury - or a Mexican jury -
would have found him innocent."

Mr. Martinez, who had been based in Monterrey, Mexico, was originally
charged with violating federal murder-for-hire statutes and, if
convicted, could have been sentenced to 10 years or more in prison. As
part of a plea bargain, he pleaded guilty Thursday to one count of
using interstate commerce facilities - in this case, a phone line - as
part of the alleged plot.

If the court accepts the agreement, Mr. Martinez will probably receive
a sentence of seven years and three months. Sentencing is expected in
March or April.

Mervyn Mosbacker, the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of
Texas, said Mr. Martinez "violated the trust of the American people,
breaking the very laws he was sworn to uphold."

The defendant's cousin, Lionel "Bruno" Jordan, 27, was killed during a
carjacking in 1995. A Mexican teenager, Miguel Angel Flores, then 13,
was convicted, but that decision was later overturned and he was freed.

Mr. Martinez was accused of trying to hire a Mexican man to arrange
the teenager's murder. The agent allegedly promised to pay him $10,000
and give him a government .38-caliber semi-automatic handgun, court
documents show. The $10,000 would have evidently come from a DEA fund
set aside for legitimate payments to informants, the documents show.

Donnie Marshall, the DEA's acting administrator, said he condemns Mr.
Martinez's actions "in the strongest terms. It is reprehensible when
an individual takes the law into his own hands, made more egregious in
this case by someone sworn to uphold the law."

Mr. Martinez's relatives said they believe an informant - said to be a
Mexican police commander - "set up" Mr. Martinez, taking advantage of
his grief over his cousin's murder.

"We don't want him to go to jail. We still believe that he is
innocent," said the agent's cousin, Virginia Castaneda.

"We've been praying he wouldn't accept the plea. But it came down to
Sal's decision," Mr. Jordan said. "It's devastating."

After his arrest, Mr. Martinez told The Dallas Morning News that his
feelings over his cousin's murder "were misinterpreted and built into
a criminal case."