http://www.poststar.com/story.asp?storyid=2165

By DON LEHMAN, dlehman@poststar.com

Updated: 12/2/2005 9:46:52 PM


Reyer Aruero, if that's his real name, knew he was in trouble.

So within hours after police said he cause an Aug. 25 car-motorcycle crash that killed a Kingsbury man, the illegal Mexican immigrant was long gone.

That has left Washington County authorities scrambling trying to find ways to locate him so he can face multiple criminal charges in the collision that claimed the life of 51-year-old Daniel "Digger" Irwin.

Washington County sheriff's officers said Aruero was to blame for the crash on Route 4 that occurred when he turned a Ford Explorer sport utility vehicle into the path of Irwin's Harley-Davidson motorcycle.

After the crash, Aruero presented officers with a driver's license in the name of David Zavala, but sheriff's officers suspected it was not his real name, Undersheriff Matthew Mabb said.

Sheriff's officers quickly suspected he was an illegal alien, but without confirmation from the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, and without a commitment from that agency to pick him up to face federal immigration charges, local police released him the night of the crash.

Mabb said the Sheriff's Department tried to work with INS that night to determine exactly who he was. But the federal agency had one officer on duty in its Rouses Point station, and was unable to free up someone to help at that point, Mabb said.

Sheriff's Investigator Bruce Hamilton eventually determined he had illegally entered the country in Texas and bought fake identification that allowed him to get a driver's license. They learned he had been working for a stone company in Granville and has three children who were born in the United States.

But when police went to find him to arrest him the day after the crash, he was nowhere to be found, Hamilton said.

"He disappeared that night," Hamilton said. "He packed up his family and he was gone."

"He's probably got another set of (identification) papers by now," Mabb said.

Further compounding the difficulties in finding him is that he had as many as six vehicles registered in his name and has lived a number of places in Washington County, including Gilchrist Road in Argyle and Clay Hill Road in Fort Ann, Mabb said.

Some of his relatives apparently stayed behind after Aruero first disappeared, and Mabb said police have checked his past residences frequently in recent months, police said

Police have filed a felony count of criminal possession of a forged instrument, a misdemeanor count of criminal impersonation, and a traffic charge of failure to yield the right of way against Aruero. An arrest warrant for him has been issued in Kingsbury Town Court.

Hamilton said they also plan to seek an indictment against him in Washington County Court.

Anyone with information in the case was asked to call the Sheriff's Department at 747-4623.