POLITICS ENABLES MEXICAN FUGITIVE TO DEFANG A LAW

MEXICO CITY - Despite being a federal fugitive, accused of laundering
millions of dollars for one of Mexico's most ruthless drug cartels,
Julio Cesar Godoy says he simply walked into the national legislature
here unnoticed in September, right past the cordon of federal police
officers watching the building.

He then raised his right arm, swore allegiance to the Mexican
Constitution and, 15 months after disappearing from public view,
finally claimed the congressional seat he won last year.

It was too late for prosecutors to do much about it. Mr. Godoy's
newly conferred status came with a special perk: immunity from prosecution.

Now, a political saga that underscores the persistent fears of
political infiltration by drug cartels and the many frustrations of
rooting it out continues to swirl around him.

Mexico's attorney general has been incensed at Mr. Godoy's ability to
hide in plain sight, while others debate intriguing details in local
news reports, like accounts that Mr. Godoy had actually been spirited
into the building's basement garage in another lawmaker's car.

"It undermined the seriousness of the Chamber of Deputies and the
rule of law that he could just show up and take the oath," said John
J. Bailey, a Georgetown University professor who studies organized
crime and democracy in Mexico. "The natural reaction was, 'What is
going on here?'"

On Tuesday night, the chamber, Mexico's lower house of Congress,
voted overwhelmingly to strip Mr. Godoy of his immunity and
legislative duties, a development that could lead to his eventual
arrest and trial - if he can be found.

Mr. Godoy has professed his innocence, calling the charges a
political vendetta against him by President Felipe Calderon's
governing party. But he was not at Tuesday's session. His lawyer
attended the session in his place, leaving Mr. Godoy's own whereabouts unclear.

That mystery has only added to an affair that for lawmakers and
analysts has stood out for its sheer brazenness and fed a political
firestorm that has lasted months.

It is certainly not unusual for political and government figures here
to be implicated in organized crime. Dozens of mayors suspected of
ties to criminal networks have been arrested or killed in recent
years, and even the country's former senior antidrug official was
arrested and accused of taking bribes from a cartel.

Federal prosecutors contend that Mr. Godoy is an important associate
of the top leaders of La Familia, a cultlike drug organization that
is among the most violent in Mexico. A legislative panel on Monday
said it found that Mr. Godoy had, among other things, not explained
the origins of $2.2 million deposited in his bank accounts or calls
from his cellphone to known leaders of the gang.

A memo from federal prosecutors to lawmakers said Mr. Godoy had been
among a group of local mayors, police officers and other officials in
the state of Michoacan serving as paid informers for the cartel. Mr.
Godoy is the half brother of the state's governor, Leonel Godoy, who
has said he was unaware of any illicit activity his brother may have
engaged in.

In a twist to a case with many of them, Julio Cesar Godoy was
supposedly caught on tape discussing cartel affairs with Servando
Gomez, a top cartel leader known as La Tuta, who emerged last week in
a drama of his own. It was discovered that Mr. Gomez had been
collecting a salary for the past 15 years from the Education
Ministry, from a previous job as a schoolteacher.

A former mayor, Mr. Godoy was elected to the legislature in 2009, but
he disappeared from public only days later after federal charges were
filed against him accusing him of ties to organized crime and money
laundering. The federal government considered him a fugitive.

How Mr. Godoy eluded the police for so long remains a mystery.

When he surfaced, he no longer had a mustache, and news reports said
his hair was noticeably grayer. Mr. Godoy said he was at his home the
whole time.

But his supporters worked to get him into his legislative seat and
attain the immunity that comes with it. Mexican law provides
legislators freedom from prosecution as a check against political
persecution by the executive branch.

Some experts have noted that the broader investigation in Michoacan
initially swept up more than 30 mayors and other local officials,
mostly members of Mr. Godoy's party, which Mr. Calderon narrowly beat
in 2006 to win the presidency. Michoacan is Mr. Calderon's home
state, and he has focused federal forces on it to break up organized crime.

But most of the people initially arrested have been released for lack
of evidence or other problems with the case, said John M. Ackerman,
editor of the Mexican Law Review. "Instead of collecting evidence
they acted way too quickly, right around the 2009 elections," Mr.
Ackerman said.

While Francisco Blake Mora, the interior secretary, has insisted that
the evidence against Mr. Godoy is solid, a judge last summer issued a
ruling that Mr. Godoy had the right to take his seat despite the
pending charges - though the ruling said nothing about how he would
get into the legislative building without being arrested first.

The government had posted police officers around the building to
prevent him from doing just that.

Still, Mr. Godoy arrived at the legislative building in the heart of
the capital on Sept. 23 - driven in by a leader of his leftist
Democratic Revolutionary Party, according to the Mexico City
newspaper El Universal - and was sworn in, to the shock and dismay of
the authorities.

Afterward, he walked out free, saying later, "I am no little angel,
but neither am I a criminal."

Since then, he has been swarmed by reporters, instead of police
officers, at nearly all his public appearances.

One of the more intriguing tidbits came in October, when audio tapes
were leaked to news organizations with a voice that sounded like Mr.
Godoy's chatting with Mr. Gomez, the cartel leader from La Familia.
Mr. Godoy said the voice was not his.

La Familia, which blends its own form of Christian teachings with
methamphetamine trafficking and the beheadings of rivals, is now also
the focus of an assault by federal forces aimed at dismantling it.

The spiritual leader of the group, Nazario Moreno Gonzalez, was
believed to have been killed last week in a confrontation with the
federal police, the government said.