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Trial shines light on savage world

Web Posted: 05/08/2006 12:00 AM CDT
Jesse Bogan
Rio Grande Valley Bureau

RIO GRANDE CITY — It was a claustrophobic ride — six men stacked like cordwood behind the driver's seat of a pickup — but also a typical one for many undocumented immigrants.

These immigrants, however, weren't typical.

They were loyalists to the notorious Mara Salvatrucha gang, also known as MS-13, names which some of the immigrants had tattooed extensively across their bodies, according to court records and testimony at a recent murder trial here.

MS-13 member Carlos Omar Martinez Rivera was sentenced April 27 to 50 years in prison for slaying the guide who led him and about a dozen other undocumented immigrants across the U.S.-Mexico border.

Martinez, of Honduras, and a small group of other Maras took turns beating the guide with a stick in retaliation for an attack on one of their associates at the beginning of their journey in a safe house in Miguel Alemán, Mexico, which sits across the border from Roma. The attack came after one of the Maras did the unthinkable and actually complained about their treatment.

Mara Salvatrucha gang
Also known as MS-13, the gang originally started in California prisons by undocumented migrants who fled civil wars in Central America in the 1980s.
It is reported to have some 50,000 members in Central America and 10,000 in the United States.
Of the 160 Maras caught by the Border Patrol entering the U.S. illegally in 2005, two-thirds were apprehended in Texas. The leading area is the Rio Grande Valley, with 51 apprehensions.



The trial revealed frightening details of street justice in the world of human trafficking, a tale that included the death of at least one person, possibly a second, and accusations that Mexican federal agents aided the smugglers.

"These guys are proud gang members, so they don't stand to be abused by the coyotes. These guys stand up for themselves," said Jose Luis Ramos, Martinez's defense attorney.

"Most immigrants are submissive. (The Maras) have a different sense of pride," Ramos added.

Once they arrived at the safe house in Miguel Alemán, the Maras blended in with other immigrants and then waited for nightfall to be led across the Rio Grande.

But first came the complaints from a Mara named "Yogi."

The smugglers, apparently irritated by his remarks, took him to a separate room and pummeled him severely, possibly fatally, as the other immigrants listened in horror.

"Two coyotes started to beat Yogi, and we heard him gasping because they were choking him," Martinez told a Starr County Sheriff's investigator, giving his version of the chain of events that started around Aug. 10, 2005.

When the smugglers threw Yogi's body in the back of a vehicle, he and the other Maras ran for help. Instead, they said, the Mexican police returned them to the safe house in three trucks. According to testimony and to statements to police, at least one of the trucks had the insignia "AFI," which stands for Agencia Federal de Investigación, the equivalent of Mexico's FBI.

The Maras and about a dozen other immigrants were loaded onto the trucks and the police drove them to the river, where they crossed safely into some woods around Roma. It was unclear to them what happened to Yogi, but he's believed to be dead.

From there the group set out in the middle of the night on foot to a ranch, about an hour's walk, where a truck was to pick them up. As they walked in a single file line, with a guide in the front and another in the rear, an immigrant overheard the Maras planning an attack on the guides with a knife and rocks, according to court records.

As the rear guide, Juan Javier Ulloa Gutierrez, 18, made sure everyone made it over a fence, one of the Maras started beating him. The others circled around him, apparently taking turns with the stick.

"We suspect that there were more than two people involved in this killing," said Marco Treviño, the Starr County assistant district attorney who prosecuted the case.

The other immigrants scattered, but at least two notified police in Roma about the incident and were held until the trial as witnesses. Ulloa, the guide, was left lying in the brush without his shoes. He died of blunt trauma to the head. The second guide was unharmed.

Later that night, the Border Patrol apprehended two of the alleged Maras — Martinez and Alfredo Lopez Gutierrez, 40. Lopez was indicted for murder, but prosecutors dismissed the case April 24 because of a lack of evidence, Treviño said.

Lopez, who authorities couldn't positively identify as a Mara, testified against Martinez. The other two witnesses at the trial told authorities that they saw him in the group that circled the guide on the ground, but they didn't see Lopez beat him.

"We just had to cut bait with Alfredo (Lopez)," Treviño said. "If Carlos (Martinez) would have pleaded guilty and testified against Alfredo, we'd be here talking about Alfredo."

Trevino said he was satisfied with the 50-year sentence handed Martinez.

Ramos, Martinez's attorney, said the punishment was too stout, given the killing was done in retaliation and considering the line of work the guide was in.

Some aspects of the case remain murky, including the alleged involvement of the Mexican police and Yogi's whereabouts.

Questions at the AFI office in Miguel Alemán were forwarded to the commander, who couldn't be reached for comment. A spokesman for the FBI in San Antonio said they haven't had any reports of Mexican federal agents helping smuggling organizations.

Martinez, who's awaiting transfer to a state prison, has tried to remove some of his tattoos, according to a photograph of his shoulder.

His older brother, Hector Orlando Martinez Rivera, contacted by telephone in Honduras, said his family pitched in to get some of the tattoos removed because of a crackdown on anyone in the country with visible ties to the gang.

"We did everything we could to get them removed, but we are struggling and we couldn't gather enough money to get all of them taken off," he said.

He said they hadn't heard from his brother, one of 14 siblings, since shortly after he left in July 2005. He said his brother has a wife and two girls; one who was born after he immigrated north.

"He left to look for a new life," Hector Martinez said.



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jbogan@express-news.net