Twincities.com

A Ramsey County judge sentenced a meth dealer to more than six years in prison Wednesday, Jan. 9, rejecting his bid for a new trial on a claim of jury bias.

Basurto Estaquio, 28, had asked Judge Gary Bastian for a new trial after a juror told the defense attorney that another juror had made racist comments during deliberations.

The anti-Hispanic comments led the juror to agree to convict Estaquio, which he immediately regretted, he told attorney Murad Mohammad.

Estaquio, a Mexican living in the U.S. illegally, was convicted Aug. 10 of first-degree conspiracy to sell methamphetamine. The jury deadlocked on two other charges, which later were thrown out.

After the verdict was announced in court, juror Jacob Cuffe lingered in the hallway to talk with Mohammad, according to an audiotape of a later interview between Cuffe and Mohammad at the attorney's office. Cuffe told Mohammad that a fellow juror had expressed negative opinions about Hispanics along the lines of "they're all bad. They're all drug dealers. They're taking over our country," Cuffe said in court at a later hearing.

Mohammad argued that the comments robbed Estaquio of a fair trial. The state disagreed. Prosecutor David Miller wrote in a brief that there was "no substantial evidence that racial prejudice permeated or infected the jury's deliberation or its ultimate verdict."

Bastian wrote in his order denying a new trial that he believed Cuffe was "trying to use the (racist) comments as a way

to go back and change his verdict based on his verdict remorse not on the basis that the comments had an actual affect (sic) on his decision."

Miller said at trial that police found 6 pounds of meth during a Jan. 17, 2012, traffic stop of a GMC Yukon in St. Paul. Estaquio had been riding in a car behind the Yukon and the two vehicles were traveling "in tandem," Miller argued.

Before the stop, police were watching a house near Western and Jessamine avenues in St. Paul. They saw a Chevrolet Impala, later identified by investigators as the car Estaquio was in, driving around slowly.

Miller told the jury that Estaquio and another man were acting as a backup in the drug operation.

Mohammad said the state lacked any meaningful evidence against his client.