Star Tribune
Mexican cartel employee gets 13 years for selling drugs, operating meth lab in Shakopee
One agent testified at trial that the case involved, at the time, “the largest seizure of methamphetamine in the history of the Minnesota River Valley Drug Task Force,” which worked the case alongside the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension, the federal Drug Enforcement Administration and Shakopee Police Department.
Daniel Gerdts, an attorney representing Rodriguez Pineda, maintained ahead of sentencing that his client agreed to help a Mexican cartel distribute meth while under “explicit” threats to his and his family’s safety. He could not walk away from the operation nor report it to Minnesota law enforcement because police here “could not protect his wife and children in Michoacán once his deception was detected by his oppressor in Mexico,” Gerdts wrote in a memo ahead of sentencing.
“The threat essentially constituted a loaded gun put to the head of his wife and children in Mexico,” Gerdts wrote. “The foreign handlers enforced his cooperation through required daily contact and by sending their enforcers to supervise him.”
Gerdts described Rodriguez Pineda’s role as that of a caretaker who minded the Shakopee residence and distributed drugs to customers. He wrote that his client “was by all accounts an unknown replacement for the original person whose task was to mind the residence and distribute the drugs to the customers.” The original caretaker’s “precipitous disappearance without warning to the organization’s customers continues to bedevil the investigators,” Gerdts added.
Coburn pointed out before sentencing that, during their deliberations, jurors did not ask any follow-up questions about Rodriguez Pineda’s testimony that he had previously been held captive for several days when he visited his hometown in Michoacan, Mexico. Coburn argued that the story was not consistent with evidence presented at trial and did not make sense.
“The defendant’s abduction story appears to be pure, unsubstantiated fabrication, and nothing about that story in any way mitigates the seriousness of his criminal conduct,” Coburn wrote. “The evidence instead demonstrates that while the defendant was present in Minnesota selling vast amounts of methamphetamine, he was having fun, even offering the informant beer during at least one of the controlled purchases, showing off his new Hummer, and partying with cocaine (which was found in his bedroom).”
Star Tribune
Jackson Gatlin pleads guilty to sexually assaulting teenage girl in Vineyard Church youth group
DULUTH – Jackson Gatlin, dressed in a dark suit with his hands cuffed behind his back, was led by authorities from the courtroom Wednesday morning after pleading guilty to felony-level criminal sexual conduct in a case where numerous women have come forward with similar stories of being sexually assaulted as girls when he was their youth leader here at The Vineyard Church.
As part of a deal, Gatlin pleaded guilty to one count and on four others entered an Alford plea — in which he maintains innocence, but admits there is sufficient evidence for him to be found guilty during a trial. The third-floor courtroom at the St. Louis County courthouse was at capacity for the hearing, with several of his victims sitting together in a row. Gatlin, 36, will be sentenced during separate hearings November 25-26, with all the impact statements during the first.
He will likely serve 13 years in prison and have to register as a sex offender.
Civil charges are expected to be filed soon against Gatlin — in addition to his father Michael Gatlin, who was a senior pastor at the church, his mother Brenda who was also in a position of power, The Vineyard Church in Duluth and Vineyard USA, according to Spencer Kuvin, a Florida-based attorney who has represented victims of Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby. There will be 10 complaints against each entity, nine from victims and one from a mother whose daughter died by suicide.
“The church should be a place where people feel secure — a sanctuary to find God, practice your faith and find support within your community,” Kuvin said during a press conference after the hearing, sitting alongside the victims in a conference room at a downtown law office. “Unfortunately, the church became a living hell for these young girls.”
Neither of Gatlin’s parents were in the courtroom on Wednesday.
As part of the Alford plea, the prosecutors went through each victim’s allegations and the testimony that would have occurred during a trial. It showed a pattern of Gatlin, then in his early 20s, establishing closeness with 11 to 16 year old girls that extended beyond just the church.
His text messages went from friendly to flirty to sexual. He brought them to his bedroom in his family home or drove them in his car or made them sit next to him on a bus ride. He touched them or made them touch him. He bound their wrists or otherwise restrained them. He raped them and at least in one case laughed when they told him to stop.
Two Minnesota House races won by Democrats by narrow margins are close enough to trigger automatic recounts.
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Prosecutors allege that he shot the passenger of a vehicle that may have cut him off.
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