Thread: Man jailed in Mexico pleads to come home!

American jailed in Juárez wants FBI to 'take me back'
By Louie Gilot / El Paso Times
Article Launched: 10/13/2007 12:00:00 AM MDT


Robert Wirtz, a former paralegal, is jailed at Cereso Prison in Juárez for fleeing the scene of an accident that occurred after he robbed a Las Cruces bank. (Adriane Jaeckle / El Paso Times)JUAREZ -- Robert Wirtz was getting away with it.
The former paralegal from Colorado had just robbed a bank in Las Cruces on Halloween 2006 and driven straight to Mexico. But his getaway was cut short when he got into a fender bender and was arrested by the traffic police in Juárez.

He was sentenced to 21/2 years for fleeing the scene of the accident -- much less than the 20 years he could have gotten in the United States for bank robbery.

But after a year inside the infamous Cereso prison in Juárez, he couldn't stand it anymore.

He called the FBI and gave himself up.

"I called the FBI and I said, 'I did it; come and get me.' I'm begging them, 'Take me back.' It's a country club over there" in U.S. prisons, he said last week, still behind bars in Mexico.

Bill Elwell, spokesman for the FBI in Albuquerque, said he wasn't allowed to say whether his office knew about Wirtz before his phoned-in surrender because the investigation is ongoing.

"We are aware of Mr. Wirtz. We are aware of the case," Elwell said.

Wirtz is one of 30 to 40 U.S. citizens -- men and women -- held at Cereso for various crimes committed in Mexico. They live with 3,400 other inmates in the prison built 30 years ago for 1,800.

José Reyes Ferriz, Juárez's new mayor, vowed last week to deal with the overcrowding by building a new prison, a long-term project.

"People are sleeping in hallways, no blankets, with their pants (rolled up) as pillows," he said. "The conditions are terrible


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there."
Troublesome life

Wirtz, 41, should be used to prisons. He has been in an out of penal institutions since he was 13, he said, for bar fights, driving under the influence and theft.

But he is also used to making the best of his time behind bars.

He prepared legal documents for other inmates and ran legal libraries. When he was last released from a Colorado prison in 2003, he worked as a paralegal for several lawyers in Denver and even got his cases published by the Colorado Supreme Court.

The rags-to-riches story caught the eye of a reporter from KUSA-TV in Denver, who interviewed him in 2005. In the story, Wirtz described his early years in California surviving a drug-addicted mother and a series of stepfathers. He also expressed his faith in American justice.

"I believe we have a fair system. More than fair," he said.

But a year later, after a divorce, his life again spiraled into drugs and crime.

In need of cash

On Oct. 31, 2006, he ended up in Las Cruces looking for fast money. He said he picked the first bank he saw -- First Savings Bank at 2804 N. Telshor.

Armed with an empty box, he went in.

"We had a client who did it this way. He had an empty box and he said it was a bomb," Wirtz said in a recent prison interview. "I ad- libbed. I took a calculator and put it face down in my hand, so it was a little black box and I put my finger on the black button for the batteries and I told them it was a remote."

He got the money and left the box in the bank. According to newspaper reports, several nearby businesses were evacuated while the Doña Ana County Sheriff's Department cleared the supposed bomb.

The next day, Wirtz, allegedly drugged up, drove to Juárez, where he got into a car accident and fled the scene. He was caught by Juárez traffic police soon afterward.

Beaten and robbed

He said the officers found the $10,000 in stolen bank money he had stuffed in a white sock and tucked in his waistband. He said they stole it and beat him up, knocking out five front teeth, cracking ribs and fracturing his back.

Police officials could not be reached to answer the allegations because of the recent change in city administration last week in Juárez.

Wirtz said he suffers from persistent back pain and has no money for medicine. By April, he had been to Juárez General Hospital several times when he decided to break free.

Prison officials said Wirtz was to have his back X-rayed, but he slipped into an adjacent blood laboratory that was connected to a nursing school and made an exit onto a patio. He was recaptured a few hours later before he could make it to the international bridge.

The stint earned him three months in lockdown in a small cell with five other inmates, two sleeping on slabs of concrete and the others on the floor.

In July, after what he said was a cursory trial with little translation, Wirtz was sentenced to prison.

Money is vital

U.S. citizens are usually eligible to be extradited to the United States to finish their Mexican sentences in U.S. prisons, but it takes time and money. Wirtz said he has neither.

Some U.S. citizens choose to do their time at the Cereso. Except for walking out the gate, there are few things one can't do there. One can eat at several taco stands and restaurants inside the compound, shoot pool and spend the night at the 35-room motel for conjugal visits.

Female inmates can keep their babies with them. Drugs are easily obtained.

But that lifestyle isn't free.

Inmates interviewed estimated they need between $10 a day and $100 a week to pay for it.

The ones who do well at Cereso often have family and friends in the area to keep them flush with cash. Wirtz doesn't.

"I'm on a concrete slab with three blankets under me. That's my bed. I have my Bible, which I read a lot. The (U.S.) consulate brings some old magazines sometimes. I do sculptures out of news papers and water -- eagles -- and I paint them," he said.

Inmates also must contend with warring prison gangs. In his one year locked up in Juárez, six or seven large fights or full-blown riots have occurred at Cereso, including one in June that left two inmates dead and more than 50 injured.

The homesick bank robber said he has no regrets about his decision to turn himself in to the FBI for a crime punishable by up to 20 years in prison.

"That way," he said, "I can still have some kind of purpose in my life."

Louie Gilot may be reached at lgilot@elpasotimes.com; 546-6131.


http://www.elpasotimes.com/news/ci_7165253

Can you imagine if the U.S was treating an Illegal alien in our jails this way! There would be outrage that we were torturing him, violating his human rights!
No our laws say that you can come over our border bring 700lbs of drugs, get shot in the butt, be set free to testify against the officers that busted you and then turn around and sue the American government for millions of dollars because you were hardshipped!!! I swear stories like this just make me MAD!
Only in America!