A Chicago jury has cleared a Mexican immigrant accused of trying to put a price on the head of a top Border Patrol official. Juan Espinoza Martinez, a longtime Chicago resident and union carpenter, had faced a federal murder-for-hire charge over Snapchat messages that included a photo of senior tactical commander Gregory Bovino and lines like "10K if u take him down," the New York Times reports. Prosecutors argued Espinoza Martinez intended to solicit Bovino's killing and pointed to messages that also offered money for information if Bovino were captured. One of the two recipients was his younger brother. The other, a construction business owner, was a longtime government informant who forwarded the messages to law enforcement.
Defense lawyers countered that Espinoza Martinez was not organizing violence but passing along social media chatter reflecting anger over immigration raids in his neighborhood. They said he lacked the money, means, or plan to carry out a hit, and emphasized that the government produced no evidence of concrete steps toward an attack. "Sharing Facebook posts is not a federal crime," said attorney Jonathan Bedi. Defense lawyers played clips of an interview with law enforcement in which Espinoza appeared confused about the charges and said he sent the messages while unwinding after work, the AP reports. "I didn't threaten anyone," he said. "I'm not saying that I was telling them to do it."
After Espinoza Martinez was arrested, federal authorities called him depraved and Bovino, described by the Times as the "swaggering public face" of immigration raids, said it was evidence that Chicago was a "war zone." Claims in early court filings that Espinoza Martinez was a "high-ranking" Latin Kings member were later scaled back by prosecutors to an "affinity" for the gang, prompting the judge to bar gang references at trial. After a three-day proceeding and roughly three hours of deliberations, jurors acquitted him. Espinoza Martinez, who prosecutors say is in the country without authorization and lives with his wife and three children, remains in custody while a separate immigration case proceeds.
The verdict comes as federal prosecutors struggle to secure charges and convictions stemming from immigration protests and operations in Chicago, with grand juries rejecting some cases and judges sharply criticizing tactics by Homeland Security and Border Patrol. Out of 31 people charged in federal court in Chicago with non-immigration crimes linked to the crackdown, 15 have now been cleared, the Chicago Sun-Times reports. Espinoza Martinez was the first to go to trial. In a post on X, Stephen Miller, President Trump's deputy chief of staff, blasted "leftist judges and juries," claiming they were "empowering violent insurrection against the government."
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