Pier-slaying defendant came to S.F. at sheriff’s request

By Jaxon Van Derbeken, Carla Marinucci and Evan Sernoffsky
Updated 10:46 pm, Wednesday, July 8, 2015



San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi gestures during an interview Monday, July 6, 2015, in San Francisco. Mirkarimi has defended the release of Francisco Sanchez from jail on April 15, who is now accused in the shooting death of a woman at a popular tourist site. (AP Photo/Ben Margot)


San Francisco Sheriff Ross Mirkarimi has deflected blame in the release of a Mexican national now facing murder charges in the Pier 14 slaying by demanding to know why federal authorities returned him to San Francisco to face a 20-year-old marijuana charge in the first place.

The answer, it turns out, is that the Sheriff’s Department asked federal officials to do so.

Mirkarimi’s agency requested custody of Juan Francisco Lopez-Sanchez as he was completing a 46-month stint in federal prison in March in San Bernardino County, according to a Sheriff’s Department letter obtained by The Chronicle. Lopez-Sanchez had been deported five times to Mexico and had been imprisoned for illegally re-entering the U.S.R

The federal Bureau of Prisons alerted the Sheriff’s Department in March that Lopez-Sanchez was going to be released. Mirkarimi’s agency, realizing that Lopez-Sanchez was wanted on a $5,000 bench warrant related to a 1995 marijuana possession-for-sale case, asked prison officials March 23 to hold him and to notify San Francisco authorities “when the subject is ready for our pick-up.”

“Also, please notify us if the hold cannot be placed or the named subject is released to another jurisdiction prior to our receipt,” said the letter, signed byVic Gaerlan of the sheriff’s warrant bureau.

Lopez-Sanchez arrived in San Francisco on March 26, and the marijuana case against him was discharged the following day. He was returned to jail, however.

Prisoner in legal limbo

For the next three weeks, sources with knowledge of the matter told The Chronicle, sheriff’s deputies sought clarification from the department’s legal division on whether to hold Lopez-Sanchez so Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials could pick him up for possible deportation. ICE had requested that the city detain Lopez-Sanchez.

http://www.sfgate.com/news/article/L...to-6373929.php