In December 2025, Ramon Alexandro Rovirosa Martinez was found guilty after a bizarre trial of various charges in connection with an alleged Mexican bribery scheme. (See here for the prior post).
As reported here: “the US corruption trial of Mexican businessman Ramon Alexandro Rovirosa Martinez featured no fact witnesses, which led the judge to block the government from introducing most of its evidence until their closing argument.”
Post-trial, Rovirosa filed a motion for a judgement of acquittal and among the reasons stated were the following:
(i) “the Government presented evidence to the jury that was either not properly admitted into evidence and/or that should not have been admitted into evidence;”
(ii) “the jury was provided with text messages to and from alleged co-conspirators that were never properly admitted into evidence, and the Government never offered evidence to satisfy any legal exception to the hearsay rule;” and
(iii) “the jury was provided with testimonial translations of text messages with no testimony by the translator, despite defense counsel’s request and objection, in violation of the Confrontation Clause.”
With that motion pending Rovirosa also filed a “Motion to Dismiss Case with Prejudice Based on the Court’s Supervisory Powers.” Among the reasons stated were the following: “the Government attorneys in this case (1) made misrepresentations to the Court and/or to the jury that willfully mispresented both the record and the legal standards; (2) failed to provide evidence to defense counsel, and (3) failed to present any witnesses at trial with actual knowledge of the facts. Even more alarming, the case was under the legal supervision of a Department of Justice supervisory attorney, who apparently allowed such conduct to occur.”
As highlighted in this recent post, on February 9th Judge Kenneth Hoyt (S.D. Texas) issued an order stating:
“Before the Court are the defendant’s motions for Rule 29(a) dismissal and for acquittal.
Also before the Court are the government responses. After careful review of the motions and responses, the Court determines that clarification is necessary in three areas:
a) When, if ever, do WhatsApp and email transmissions become testimonial, as opposed to instances of translations of a foreign language conversation?
b) When, if ever, do government translations of written foreign communications become admissible and under what federal rules of evidence? The Court seeks case precedent over arguments.
c) Who translated the WhatsApp and email transmissions from the defendant’s device? Are there certificates to support translations? What rules support admission?
It is ORDERED that within 15 days, the defendant and the government shall respond with case law to support limited arguments.”
Yesterday, counsel for Rovirosa (R. McConnell Group) filed a brief which began as follows.
The government tried this case almost entirely through flawed English translations of Spanish-language messages. Under [Crawford v. Washington, 541 U.S. 36 (2004),] those translations were testimonial from the moment they were prepared for prosecution—and the translators were required to appear for cross-examination. The government noticed one surrogate translator witness, Maria Vega, who certified translations she did not perform, and then never called her, nor any of the at least 15 different translators. That violated the Confrontation Clause.
The defense challenged the translations at every stage of the proceedings and included expert analysis that showed a patchworking of guessing and speculation—over fifteen different people trying to tell a government story. Wrong words. Missing text. Slang butchered. Meaning invented that was never there. Even pre-Crawford case law mandated a witness. The government’s response has always been burden shifting and reliance on legally deficient certifications. But “[t]he Confrontation Clause imposes a burden on the prosecution to present . . . witnesses, not on the defendant . . . .” MelendezDiaz v. Massachusetts, 557 U.S. 305, 324 (2009).”
The brief concludes as follows.
“This Court asked the right questions. The answers all point one way. Over fifteen government-paid translators turned five-year-old private Spanish messages into English for trial. Under Crawford, that makes them testimonial—and the translators were required to appear for cross-examination. They never spoke to a single participant, never understood the culture or context, and never got the words right. The government knew certifications were not enough—it prepared Maria Vega as a witness—then never called her. No translator testified.
The defense preserved this objection at every stage and was overruled each time. In closing, the government told the jury: “Forget the narrator.” (Day 4 Trial Tr. at 947). But the jury could not forget. It sent a note asking for the original Spanish. Twelve citizens knew something was wrong with the English and tried to look past it. They could not. This error was not harmless. The translations were not supporting evidence for a case built on other proof. They were the case. Without them, the government had no witnesses with personal knowledge, no cooperators, and no documents linking Rovirosa to the charges. The government bears the burden of proving the error harmless beyond a reasonable doubt. See Delaware v. Van Arsdall, 475 U.S. 673, 684 (1986). It cannot meet that burden. The government built its entire case on English words that no one in these conversations ever wrote—chosen by translators who never met any of them, certified by someone who did not do the work, and presented to a jury that knew something was wrong. Remove the translations, and there is nothing left. The appropriate remedy is acquittal.”
