Man pleads not guilty in killing of Border Patrol agent

By Greg Moran, UNION-TRIBUNE STAFF WRITER
February 12, 2010 at 3:35 p.m.

FEDERAL COURT — Two years after Border Patrol Agent Luis Aguilar was run down in the dunes of the Imperial County desert, a Mexican man charged with murdering him pleaded not guilty in federal court Friday.

In a brief hearing, Jesús Navarro Montes entered the plea to a charge of second degree murder, and a second charge of smuggling marijuana.

Federal prosecutors want to keep Navarro in jail, citing both his danger to the community and the risk he may flee. A hearing on that issue is set for Tuesday afternoon.

Aguilar was laying down spike strips in the desert dune recreation area Jan. 19, 2008, when a Hummer prosecutors say was driven by Navarro ran him down. Navarro fled to Mexico.

He was captured by Mexican authorities and held for five months on separate smuggling charges. However, when that case collapsed he was released from jail. Mexican officials later said they had did not receive an extradition request from the United States before they had to release Navarro.

He was captured again in February 2009 and extradited to the United States on Jan. 28.

Court records also showed another blunder. In September 2007, just before the fatal run-in with Aguilar, Navarro was caught with another woman smuggling a half-ton of marijuana. But they both escaped in a Border Patrol vehicle for reasons that remain unexplained.

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