Thread: Teen anchor-baby assassin to be set free, may return to U.S.

Teen assassin to be set free

By Morgan Lee10 A.M.NOV. 23, 2013

FILE - In this Dec. 3, 2010 file photo, Mexican soldiers present Edgar "El Ponchis" Jimenez Lugo to the media in the city of Cuernavaca, Mexico. A Mexican judge on Tuesday sentenced the 14-year-old U.S. citizen to three years in prison for organized crime, homicide, kidnapping, and drug and weapons possession. Authorities say the teenager confessed to working for the Beltran Leyva brothers' cartel and to killing four people whose beheaded bodies were hung from a bridge in the tourist town of Cuernavaca. (AP Photo/Antonio Sierra, File) — AP

Three years after his arrest for beheading four young men on behalf of a drug gang in central Mexico, a San Diego-born teenager is preparing to walk out of juvenile detention next month.

Edgar Jimenez Lugo’s destination is uncertain, given fears that violent reprisals could await him at his former home in a working-class village south of Mexico City, where he arrived as a toddler from San Diego and fell into crime on the cusp of adolescence.

A request by Edgar to serve out his sentence in the United States, submitted earlier this year, was never endorsed by U.S. authorities.

That has left Mexican and U.S. officials to weigh the appropriate response to concerns about what comes next for the 17-year-old whose birth certificate confers the rights of U.S. citizenship.
The governor of Morelos, the state where Edgar is being held, wants him sent to the United States when his sentence is completed on Dec. 3.

“We have 13 days to see if he can be deported to the United States so that he can be placed in an institution there,” Gov. Graco Ramirez told a radio station in Mexico on Thursday. “He is an American citizen.”

U.S. consular officials have visited Edgar during his detention, according to his family. Officials at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City declined Friday, as they have in the past, to respond to inquiries about Edgar’s release and their obligation to him as a U.S. citizen.

Related series
Cartels' Grip: A boy, his family, two nations

Edgar was 14 in August 2010 when he killed the young men — a student, a cook at a university, a gas station attendant and a small-business owner. Their bodies were mutilated and strung from a bridge in Cuernavaca, a tourist destination just south of Mexico City.

Graphic online videos that talked of a boy assassin named “El Ponchis” — Edgar’s nickname — emerged and the search was on for the teen.

That December, soldiers arrested the boy at an airport near Cuernavaca as he and an older sister waited for a flight to Tijuana.

They were planning to reunite with their mother, Yolanda Lugo Jimenez, in San Diego. She was arrested days later in Barrio Logan on immigration violations and deported this past April. Her whereabouts now are unclear.

A BOY AND THE CARTELS

Edgar was convicted in juvenile court in July 2011 of homicide and organized crime charges, and sentenced to three years in custody, the maximum allowed. With time served before his conviction, he’s now due for release.

Once freed, Edgar will face no clear legal obstacles to crossing into the United States, said Guadalupe Valencia, a San Diego criminal defense attorney with extensive experience in immigration and extradition proceedings.

“He can come live here when he turns 18 (in May) without any supervision. The U.S. can’t do anything, and Mexico cannot do anything. ... He wasn’t charged with conspiracy in the U.S.,” Valencia said.

While he’s a minor, if Edgar returns to the U.S. with no parent or guardian living here and no place to live, he could potentially be placed in government foster care, said Candi Mayes, executive director of Dependency Legal Group of San Diego, a nonprofit that provides legal counsel to children in the system.

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2013/...-jimenez-lugo/

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http://www.alipac.us/f12/how-boy-san...-3-4-a-232381/

SERIES

A thriving family, upheaval and Edgar’s birth

Part One


Edgar’s rescue, early travails in Mexico

Part Two


When cartels overrun a town

Part Three


Four voices: What are the lessons of Edgar’s story?

Part Four


Spanish: Lea la serie en español

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Anchor baby assassin gets $2500 per hit, I Can See Clearly Now! 12/3/10 5:23 PM, Mexico Arrests US Boy Alleged to Be Drug Cartel Hit Man . . .

Teen hit man for drug cartel freed by Mexico, heads for US

FILE - In this Dec. 3, 2010 file photo, Mexican soldiers present Edgar "El Ponchis" Jimenez Lugo to the media in the city of Cuernavaca, Mexico. The teenage U.S. citizen who acknowledged being a drug-cartel killer has finished his three year juvenile-offender term for homicide, kidnapping and drug and weapons possession. The interior secretary of southern Morelos state says the teen was released and taken to an airport Tuesday, Nov. 26, 2013, to be sent to the United States, where he has family. (AP Photo/Antonio Sierra, File)

By The Associated Press
POSTED: 11/26/13, 9:18 AM PST |


MEXICO CITY — A teenage U.S. citizen who acknowledged being a drug-cartel killer has finished his three-year juvenile-offender term for homicide, kidnapping and drug and weapons possession.

The interior secretary of southern Morelos state, Jorge Messeguer, told Milenio television the teen has been released and taken to an airport to be sent to the United States, where he has family.

Jorge Messeguer said Edgar Jimenez Lugo would apparently go to a facility, “one of these centers for support, for aid” in San Antonio, Texas. His office did not immediately respond to requests for further information.

It does not appear that Jimenez Lugo faces any charges in the United States. The U.S. Embassy said it would not publicly discuss the case due to privacy considerations.

The embassy said in a statement it was “closely coordinating with our Mexican counterparts and appropriate authorities in the United States” regarding his release.

Jimenez was popularly known in Mexico as “Ponchis,” which roughly translates as “husky,” a nickname a relative has said his family gave him because he was a pudgy child.

In 2011 at the age of 14, Jimenez Lugo confessed to killing four people whose beheaded bodies were found suspended from a bridge.

He was born in San Diego, California, but was raised in Mexico by his grandmother. Authorities said Jimenez Lugo said he had been forcibly recruited by drug traffickers when he was 11, and confessed to working for the South Pacific drug cartel, led by reputed drug lord Hector Beltran Leyva.

He had been trying to return to the United States when he was detained in 2010.

He and a sister were arrested in Morelos state, south of Mexico City, as they tried to board a plane to Tijuana, where they planned to cross the border and reunite with their mother in San Diego. When he was handed over to federal prosecutors, the boy calmly said in front of cameras that he participated in four killings while drugged and under threat. The bodies were found in the tourist city of Cuernavaca, which is in Morelos.

He served his three-year sentence, the maximum allowable in the juvenile system, at a juvenile detention center in Morelos.

Morelos state was formerly controlled by the Beltran Leyva gang, which broke up after alleged leader Arturo Beltran Leyva was killed in a shootout with Mexican marines in 2009.

Because Jimenez Lugo’s case was so highly publicized, some Mexican activists, such as members of the Network for Children’s Rights, expressed concern for his safety after he was released and suggested he might need special protection or a new identity.

http://www.presstelegram.com/general...o-heads-for-us

Mexico frees teen drug cartel killer; next stop, San Antonio

[IMG]http://media.wfaa.com/images/470*262/600x334-edgarlugo-112613.jpg[/IMG]Credit: A Mexican soldier escorts Edgar Jimenez Lugo aka 'El Ponchis', alleged member of the South Pacific drug cartel, in Cuernavaca, Morelos State, Mexico, on December 2, 2010. Mexican authorities have arrested a 14-year-old boy accused of serving as a drug cartel hitman and beheading the victims, the army said Friday.(David Monroy/AFP/Getty Images)

wfaa.com
Posted on November 26, 2013 at 4:51 PM
Updated today at 4:51 PM

MEXICO CITY (AP) — A 17-year-old U.S. citizen who acknowledged being a killer for a Mexican drug cartel finished his three-year juvenile-offender term for homicide, kidnapping and drug and weapons possession and returned to the United States.

The interior secretary of southern Morelos state, Jorge Messeguer, said Edgar Jimenez Lugo had been released, though he added it wasn't clear if the teen had been rehabilitated.

"Being able to say whether he's been rehabilitated, that would be risky. I wouldn't really dare say that, because obviously the crimes he committed were so severe," Messeguer said.

He said Jimenez went to San Antonio, Texas, where he has family and apparently will go to a residential support facility there, though he didn't know its name.

It does not appear Jimenez faces any charges in the United States. The U.S. Embassy said it would not publicly discuss the case due to privacy considerations.

The embassy said in a statement that it was "closely coordinating with our Mexican counterparts and appropriate authorities in the United States" regarding the release.

In 2011, at age 14, Jimenez confessed to killing four people whose beheaded bodies were found suspended from a bridge.

He was born in San Diego, California, but was raised in Mexico by his grandmother. Authorities quoted Jimenez as saying he had been forcibly recruited by drug traffickers when he was 11 and confessing to working for the South Pacific drug cartel, led by reputed drug lord Hector Beltran Leyva.

Jimenez was trying to return to the United States when he was caught in 2010.

He and a sister were arrested in Morelos, south of Mexico City, as they tried to board a plane to Tijuana, where they planned to cross the border and reunite with their mother in San Diego. When he was handed over to federal prosecutors, the boy calmly said in front of cameras that he participated in four killings while drugged and under threat. The bodies were found in the tourist city of Cuernavaca, which is in Morelos.

Jimenez served his three-year sentence, the maximum for juveniles, at a juvenile detention center in Morelos.

The states was formerly controlled by the Beltran Leyva gang, which broke up after alleged leader Arturo Beltran Leyva died in a shootout with Mexican marines in 2009.

http://www.wfaa.com/news/crime/Repor...233530381.html