Republished May 12, 2016 - 7:21 PM
Original Publication Date May 12, 2016 - 5:20 PM
FORT WORTH, Texas - A jury has begun deliberations in the case of two men accused of plotting to kill a lawyer in Texas who was acting head of a Mexican drug cartel.
The jury deliberated for about two hours Thursday in the federal trial of Jesus Gerardo Ledezma-Cepeda and Jose Luis Cepeda-Cortes. Jurors will resume deliberations on Friday.
The two are charged with interstate stalking and conspiracy to commit murder for hire in the 2013 shooting death of Juan Jesus Guerrero Chapa in Southlake, a Dallas-Fort Worth suburb. Law enforcement officials say the men used video cameras and a GPS device to track Chapa before he was gunned down in a shopping centre parking lot.
Prosecutors say the men tracked Chapa on the orders of a Beltran Leyva cartel member known as El Gato.
The gunman who killed Chapa hasn't been captured.
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This story has been corrected to reflect that the two men are accused of plotting to kill the lawyer and that another person is accused of fatally shooting him.
News from © The Associated Press, 2016