Tonight, the owner of the District 5 bar, José Manuel Sánchez Cruz (aka Manu Vaquita) was released from jail. District 5 was the restaurant and bar where the former governor of Jalisco, Jorge Aristóteles Sandoval, was assassinated.
Sánchez Cruz left the Puente Grande prison around 9:30 p.m. this Friday after the State Prosecutor’s Office requested the dismissal of charges for the crime of homicide.
The businessman and socialite had been detained since April 2021, when Mexico City authorities arrested him for the crimes of homicide and cover-up in the assassination that shocked the state of Jalisco and the city of Puerto Vallarta.
Due to the dismissal of one of the crimes, his 30-day sentence for cover-up remained, for which his defense requested an abbreviated procedure during a hearing, and his sentence was considered compulsive.
Miguel Zaragoza García, a journalist for Televisa in Guadalajara, announced that José Manuel Sánchez left the courtroom and got into a black car without answering questions from the media.
Sánchez Cruz was the only person arrested for the murder of Aristóteles Sandoval was released. There are still no other suspects named by the authorities.
The owner of District 5 ordered employees to clean the restaurant before police arrived on the scene after the murder of the ex-Governor of the state.
Sandoval’s 2013-18 term as governor was overshadowed by the Jalisco New Generation Cartel (CJNG), a local outfit that rose from obscurity to become one of the most powerful cartels in Mexico, leaving a trail of death and defiance behind it.
Today the CJNG competes with the Sinaloa Cartel for control of much of the drug trade inside Mexico as well as to the United States.
The attorney general of Jalisco said the restaurant had “manipulated” the crime scene, cleaning up fingerprints and taking security cameras in an apparent attempt “to evade justice.”
He said investigators believed 8 to 10 suspects were part of the attack but did not indicate who was responsible. A federal official said authorities suspected CJNG involvement.
