Fed red tape eyed in bloodbath
Suspect free while facing deport hearing
By Laurel J. Sweet and Marie Szanislzlo
Thursday, September 9, 2010 - Added 12 hours ago


A fatal federal red-tape delay may have left a suspected illegal alien accused of gunning down two people at a Lawrence birthday party free to roam the country while awaiting a March 2011 deportation hearing, the Herald has learned.

Dominican immigrant Fernando Guerrero-Lara, 27, was awaiting a March 7 preliminary removal hearing in U.S. Immigration Court in Harlingen, Texas, when authorities say he and a second triggerman unleashed a bullet bloodbath at a Labor Day birthday bash at La Guira Restaurant on Broadway in Lawrence.

Guerrero-Lara, charged in Texas with violating immigration law, was scheduled to appear at a so-called master calendar hearing on March 7, a preliminary step toward deportation, said Kathryn Mattingly, a spokeswoman for the Executive Office for Immigration Review.

When he and co-defendant Johan Saintclair, 30, were busted, Guerrero-Lara coughed up to cops he was the subject of an “arrest of alienâ€