“Socalj” for Borderland Beat
Denisse Ahumada-Martinez, a city councilwoman in Reynosa, Tamaulipas, Mexico, was indicted and arraigned last Friday on new federal drug charges. Last week she also had state possession drug charges brought against her by the Brooks County Sheriff. Previously, she had been arrested at a Texas checkpoint after 42 kilos of cocaine was discovered in her Mazda SUV.
Those federal drug-trafficking charges against her were dismissed on June 15, 2023, during a hearing in which the judge said federal prosecutors had lacked probable cause to arrest her. Now, a federal grand jury has indicted Ahumada-Martinez. She is charged with two counts of conspiracy to distribute a controlled substance.
Denisse Ahumada-Martinez, 34, was arraigned in the U.S. Southern District of Texas court in McAllen on Friday afternoon. She went before U.S. Judge Juan Alanis in federal court in McAllen, Texas. He is the same judge who dismissed the federal drug-trafficking charges against her. Ahumada-Martinez has been assigned a new attorney for these federal charges.
She was ordered held without bond and remanded to the custody of the U.S. Marshals, her whereabouts are unknown. Hidalgo County Sheriff Eddie Guerra, who had been housing Ahumada-Martinez, said that she was no longer at his jail because he does not house federal inmates.
She has a federal court hearing on August 7, 2023, before U.S. District Judge Ricardo Hinojosa on the new charges.
Her previous lawyer Samuel Reyes, who was initially appointed to represent her on the first federal drug-trafficking charges, stated that his client told federal officials that she was coerced and threatened by Mexican drug operatives who said they would kill her and her two young daughters if she did not drive the vehicle north to San Antonio, Texas. Reyes said she did not know what was in the vehicle. And this was the second time she was ordered “under duress” to drive a vehicle north from Reynosa into Texas, he said. However, initial reports stated that she had confessed to DEA Agents following her arrest, even stating that she had made similar trips before.