The founder of música Mexicana powerhouse Del Records started his criminal trial in downtown Los Angeles with claims he was “manipulated” by a “trusted” former employee and should not be the one on trial for illegally conducting business with a Guadalajara-based concert promoter with alleged ties to Mexican drug cartels.
Angel Del Villar, CEO of Del Records, sat in the federal courtroom for opening statements on Tuesday as his defense lawyer, Marissa Goldberg, alleged a company vice president named Brian Gutierrez acted as the label’s compliance officer and “convinced” Del Villar that “everything” the company was doing was legally acceptable. Goldberg claimed that the evidence will show Gutierrez was actually working as a paid confidential informant for the FBI at the time and helped authorities “manufacture a gotcha situation to take down someone they perceived to be on top.”
Del Villar, 44, watched silently from the defense table as prosecutors said in their opening that Del Records’ former top artist, Gerardo Ortiz, had already pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in the case and would be testifying against Del Villar.
According to prosecutors, FBI agents tracked Ortiz down at a Phoenix airport and handed him a letter in April 2018 that informed him he needed to stop performing at shows organized by Mexico-based promoter Jesus “Chucho” Pérez Alvear. The letter said Pérez had been formally designated a drug trafficker under the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Act and was now subject to U.S. sanctions. Prosecutors claimed Ortiz initially planned to stop playing shows for Pérez but was persuaded by Del Villar to keep appearing. Prosecutors alleged it was Del Villar who convinced Ortiz to ignore the FBI warning because a portion of the profits from Pérez-backed shows flowed directly to Del Villar’s talent agency, Del Entertainment, a co-defendant in the trial. They say Ortiz went on to play 19 more concerts for Pérez.
“Gerardo Ortiz has himself pleaded guilty to conspiracy to transact [with] a specially designated narcotics trafficker, one of the crimes the defendants in this trial are charged with,” Assistant U.S. Attorney Alexander Schwab revealed Tuesday.
Schwab said that Ortiz, a Grammy-nominated narcocorrido singer known for his ballads about the drug trade, will take the witness stand in the case. “You’re going to hear Gerardo Ortiz himself. He’ll tell you that he is now cooperating with [investigators] in this case, and he hopes that his cooperation will be taken into account at the time that he’s sentenced,” Schwab said. “Mr. Ortiz will tell you about his experience meeting the FBI, being told he could no longer perform in concerts that Chucho [promoted]. He’ll tell you [that it was] Del Villar who directed him to ignore the letter and to continue performing at these concerts.”
Schwab told jurors that Gutierrez, the vice president, reached out to the FBI “to blow the whistle on the company.” He said Gutierrez provided the FBI with incriminating voicemails and text messages implicating his superiors. “Eventually, [Gutierrez] also became what’s called a confidential human source for the FBI,” said Schwab.
Goldberg said Gutierrez couldn’t be trusted. She alleged he had political aspirations, sought what she called “the limelight” and was essentially on the FBI’s payroll.
“Brian Gutierrez found out about the designation of Chucho Pérez [as a drug trafficker], and he began his scheme of manipulation,” Golberg claimed in her opening. “He convinced everyone to just leave it to me. ‘I’ll contact the lawyers and I’m going to make sure everything we do going forward is acceptable.’”
She alleged it was Gutierrez who scrapped an April 2018 press release that was supposed to announce that Ortiz would not be performing at the annual music festival organized by Pérez in Aguascalientes, Mexico. The lawyer claimed that the press release was prompted by the FBI letter handed to Ortiz and was supposed to say that Del Records was “not going to be doing business with Chucho Pérez or his company anymore.”
“It was Brian who put a stop to that press release,” Goldberg told jurors. “Instead, he convinced everyone to just, ‘Leave it to me. I’ll contact the lawyers. I’m gonna make sure everything we do going forward is acceptable.’ … Brian Gutierrez took it upon himself. He actually reached out to political officials in Aguacalientes and got them to write him a letter inviting Ortiz to come perform at the concert.” She alleged Gutierrez booked the jet and traveled with Ortiz to his first Pérez-promoted show after receiving the letter. She alleged Gutierrez reached out to the FBI to insulate himself and that Del Villar “trusted” Gutierrez to handle the matter appropriately while Del Villar was busy running the rest of his entertainment business empire, which included sports and restaurant ventures at the time.
“There is something deeply wrong and manipulative about how this case was created and investigated,” Goldberg told the jury on Tuesday. “The ones who actually created this crime, who manufactured it, are not sitting as defendants, which is even more deeply wrong.”
Ortiz parted ways with Del Records in 2019 amid a contract dispute. He and Del Villar remain locked in dueling lawsuits that have been consolidated into a single case in Los Angeles County Superior Court. Gutierrez, meanwhile, sued Del Villar and Del Records for wrongful termination, discrimination, and harassment in April 2023. His lawsuit alleges that Del Villar learned about Gutierrez’s cooperation with the government on Aug. 1, 2022 and fired him “in retaliation for his whistleblowing the very next day.”
Attempts to reach Ortiz and Gutierrez through their representatives were not immediately successful Tuesday. If convicted of violating the Kingpin Act, Del Villar would face a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.
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