Father Says He Paid Bribe for Son’s Body

A Huntington Beach man whose son died in a motorbike accident in Baja California over the weekend said on Tuesday that he had to bribe Mexican municipal officials with $550 to get the body to the United States.

Victor Ziegler, 40, also described an 11-hour ordeal to get his stepson, critically injured in the accident, across the border to a hospital.

“I’m not mad; I’m sad that something like that happens,” Ziegler said. “It’s a beautiful country down there, with a lot of beautiful people. The bad thing is that a few s.o.b.’s in the government operate the way they do.”

Ziegler’s son, Joseph, 16, was killed in an accident involving a three-wheel, all-terrain vehicle Saturday afternoon near the village of Colonet, about 80 miles south of Ensenada. William Leffert, 15, Ziegler’s stepson, was critically injured in the same accident.

Nightmare Just Begun

In an interview Tuesday, Ziegler said the boys were riding three-wheelers on the beach. “They must have been going at high speed over a sand dune,” he said. “They shot into the air and fell about 30 feet. I have a (vacation) house down there, and neighbors came and got me after the accident. I was there in less than 10 minutes. Joe was dead. Billy was unconscious.”

The nightmare, however, had just begun, Ziegler said. “I knew there was going to be trouble,” he said. “And Billy would have died if it hadn’t have been for this Mexican-American FBI man who came up and did everything to help us.”

Ziegler said “the FBI man” is an American of Latino descent who told him he was working undercover, assigned to the Mexican government. Ziegler said he didn’t want to disclose the man’s name.

His stepson had been taken to the nearest Mexican hospital, in San Quintin, about 40 miles away, he said. It was night by the time the hospital had readied the injured teen-ager for a helicopter flight to the United States.

“You see, the thing down there is they won’t allow the (U.S.) Coast Guard to come in after dark,” Ziegler said.

Half an Hour From Death

“Billy was losing blood,” he said. “His mother had given him blood at the hospital, but he was still bleeding. He was only a half-hour from dying. I got hold of the American officials, but they said they couldn’t get permission to come into (Mexican airspace) after dark.

“That’s when this FBI fellow used his influence. He got on the phone and made calls. The Coast Guard helicopter then could come in. It picked up my wife and stepson at the hospital in San Quintin and flew them directly to the hospital at UC San Diego.”

Billy left Mexico at about 1:30 a.m. Sunday, 11 hours after the accident.

Ziegler said that thanks to the mercy flight, his stepson, who had suffered serious internal injuries, was in stable condition Tuesday at the UC San Diego Medical Center.

But Ziegler said that although “the FBI man” was able to pull strings to get the injured boy out, it was not so easy to get permission from the Mexican government to have his dead son’s body returned to the United States.

$550 in Bribes

Ziegler said that he had to pay $550 to various San Quintin officials to get the necessary papers for the body to be transported north and across the border at Tijuana. One of the payments, Ziegler said, was to a San Quintin doctor to sign a death certificate “even though the local doctor at Colonet had already signed the certificate.”

Ziegler said the FBI man made the various payments. “I or my friends saw all but one of the bribes being paid,” Ziegler said. “After all my money was gone, the FBI fellow gave his service revolver to one of the (Mexican) Transit Department people.” The revolver was given as a mordida, or bribe, Ziegler said.

Ziegler, who is a contractor for building overhead doors, said that in addition to “the FBI fellow,” several other people helped him and his wife Carisa during their ordeal in Baja.

“We had two federal government police, they call them federales, who were very compassionate,” Ziegler said. “The fire department people at San Quintin also went out and made lights for the helicopter to land that night. And the mortuary people in Ensenada, who made arrangements for my son’s body, were understanding, fair and very professional.”

Graveside services for Joseph Ziegler will be held at 10 a.m. Thursday at the Good Shepherd Cemetery in Huntington Beach.

His father said Tuesday night that he was publicly relating the family’s ordeal “because people should know that when you cross that border, you lose your rights.”

He added: “It’s not right. We give the illegal (immigrant) Mexicans all the rights of American citizens. But down there, it’s not an equal situation.”