by Richard Marosi and Ken Ellingwood, Los Angeles Times. June 13, 2011

The Mexican soldiers stormed the casino mogul Jorge Hank Rhon’s Tijuana estate, rousting him out of bed and allegedly recovering a cache of 88 weapons, among them a revolver engraved with his name: Still in his pajamas, Hank was whisked to Mexico City to be questioned by federal investigators. With authorities dropping most charges against Jorge Hank Rhon, some are speculating the recent raid was a politically motivated bid to set back the PRI in 2012 elections.

The whirlwind case has transfixed Mexico, morphing into a soap opera with political intrigue, intense media scrutiny and claims of injustice from Hank's cancer-stricken wife. It has also done something few thought was possible: Cast the flamboyant impresario as a victim worthy of sympathy.

Far beyond Baja California, Hank's arrest has become talk-show fodder for its possible effect on national politics. Most of the discussion skips past details of the criminal case to a more tantalizing question: Was the arrest aimed mainly at Hank's party, the once-dominant Institutional Revolutionary Party, or PRI, now seeking to retake power?

Hank's image darkened in 1988, when his chief of security killed a local columnist who had written critically of Hank. In the 1990s, he was investigated by U.S. authorities for alleged money laundering. Suspicions were reinforced in 2009 when an alleged drug trafficker fled to Hank's nearby casino after U.S. authorities alerted police that the man was at the U.S. Consulate trying to renew his passport, READ MORE…