Thread: Mexican judge sentences man for 2 Oregon killings

Sep 16, 4:34 AM EDT


Mexican judge sentences man for 2 Oregon killings



GRESHAM, Ore. (AP) -- A Mexican judge has convicted a man of killing two people in Oregon.

Manuel Dominguez Flores, 27, a gang member known by the street name of Spider, will serve his 40-year sentence in his home country. In 2002, he fatally shot Cresencio Vazquez Perez and Antonio Morales Cano in a Gresham parking lot after incorrectly thinking they were responsible for the molestation of a 13-year-old relative, said Don Rees, a senior district attorney in Multnomah County.

Dominguez quickly left for Mexico after the shootings. That's typically problematic because the Mexican Supreme Court will not grant extradition in death penalty cases, and until recently would not extradite if the penalty was a life sentence without parole.

But Mexican officials were more willing to prosecute Mexican nationals based on Article 4 of the Mexican penal code, which went into effect in the 1930s, Rees said. It allows U.S. officials to prosecute Mexican citizens in Mexico for crimes committed in the U.S.

After hearing from Rees, Mexican authorities located Dominguez and made a surveillance tape. In April, Rees and Gresham police Detective Bob Galbreath took an investigative file, which was translated into Spanish, to the Mexican attorney general's office.

Rees said the case file was reviewed by a Mexican judge, and the process finally ended with Dominguez sentenced to 40 years in prison. Rees received word from Mexican prosecutors last Friday.

It was the first time the Multnomah County district attorney's office prosecuted a citizen of Mexico in Mexico for a crime committed here.

"It's obviously a great outcome," Rees said.

Galbreath agreed, but added it wasn't a surprise because he knew that investigators had built a solid case against Dominguez.


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Not only do they not have the death penality in mexico, but I guess they do not have life sentences either.