{"id":4813,"date":"2025-03-20T17:35:24","date_gmt":"2025-03-20T17:35:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/gerardo-ortiz-testifies-against-del-records-angel-del-villar-in-trial\/"},"modified":"2025-03-20T17:35:24","modified_gmt":"2025-03-20T17:35:24","slug":"gerardo-ortiz-testifies-against-del-records-angel-del-villar-in-trial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/gerardo-ortiz-testifies-against-del-records-angel-del-villar-in-trial\/","title":{"rendered":"Gerardo Ortiz Testifies Against Del Records’ \u00c1ngel del Villar in Trial"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n

\n\tR<\/span>egional Mexican superstar Gerardo Ortiz testified against \u00c1ngel del Villar<\/strong>, the CEO of his former label Del Records, on Wednesday (March 19) in a downtown Los Angeles federal courtroom. The West Coast-based executive\u2019s criminal trial began on Tuesday where he is accused of doing business with a concert promoter linked to Mexican drug cartels. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe trial follows a 2022 criminal complaint that charged Del Villar, among other defendants, with conspiring to violate the Foreign Narcotics Kingpin Designation Act. The complaint also alleged that on April 19, 2018, FBI agents approached Ortiz in Phoenix to inform him about Jesus \u201cChucho\u201d P\u00e9rez Alvear\u2019s<\/strong> designation under the Kingpin Act. Mexican concert promoter P\u00e9rez Alvear \u2014 who was killed in 2024 \u2014 ran a company called Gallistica Diamente (Ticket Premier) and until March 2019, promoted concerts in Mexico for DEL Entertainment. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe designation prohibited Ortiz from conducting business with P\u00e9rez and performing concerts that P\u00e9rez promoted. Prosecutors claim that the m\u00fasica mexicna hitmaker went on to perform concerts organized by P\u00e9rez after Del Villar \u201cconvinced\u201d Ortiz to \u201cignore the FBI warning.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tOrtiz \u2014 who pleaded guilty to a conspiracy charge in the case and is cooperating with the FBI \u2014 took the stand and told the jury he saw P\u00e9rez Alvear with Del Villar at the Del Records office in Los Angeles two or three times, according to Univision Noticias<\/a>. He added that P\u00e9rez Alvear was at the office to hire bands and artists to perform at his shows in Mexico. He went on to confess that he had performed at Feria de San Marcos in Aguascalientes, Mexico in April 2018, promoted by P\u00e9rez Alvear, even after he had already been designated under the Kingpin Act and FBI agents had alerted him that if he performed at the Feria, he could face up to 10 years in prison and pay a fine of $1 million \u2014 which is why he was charged initially. <\/p>\n

\n\tThe \u201cD\u00e1maso\u201d singer \u2014 who signed to Del Records in 2009 and parted ways with the company in 2019 amid a contract dispute \u2014 testified a day after the trial began where Del Villar\u2019s lawyers argued in the opening statements that the Latin music executive was allegedly \u201cmanipulated\u201d by former Del Records employee Brian Guti\u00e9rrez who \u201cconvinced\u201d Del Villar that \u201ceverything\u201d the company was doing was \u201clegally acceptable,\u201d according to reports by Rolling Stone<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere is something deeply wrong and manipulative about how this case was created and investigated,\u201d Del Villar\u2019s defense lawyer Marissa Goldberg said on Tuesday. \u201cThe ones who actually created this crime, who manufactured it, are not sitting as defendants, which is even more deeply wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tFounded by Del Villar in 2008, Del Records is considered a powerhouse in regional Mexican music. The label has been m\u00fasica mexicana giants including Ortiz, Ariel Camacho and Eslabon Armado, whose global hit, \u201cElla Baila Sola\u201d with Peso Pluma, became one of the biggest songs of 2023.<\/p>\n

\n\tPassed in 1999, the Kingpin Act allows the U.S. to impose targeted sanctions on foreign individuals involved in the illegal drug trade and ban U.S. residents from doing business with them. If convicted of violating the law, Del Villar would face a statutory maximum sentence of 30 years in prison.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Regional Mexican superstar Gerardo Ortiz testified against \u00c1ngel del Villar, the CEO of his former label Del Records, on Wednesday (March 19) in a downtown Los Angeles federal […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":4814,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[5172,2979,5170,5171,1463,2901,342,5173],"class_list":["post-4813","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-lawyers","tag-angel","tag-del","tag-gerardo","tag-ortiz","tag-records","tag-testifies","tag-trial","tag-villar"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4813"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4813\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4814"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4813"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4813"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/usatrustedlawyers.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4813"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}