Mother Will Not Be Prosecuted for Abducting Her Son

A woman who as a teen-ager was sold into marriage through an agreement reached by a clan of Mexican Gypsies will not be prosecuted for abducting her son from her late husband’s family, Alhambra police said.

Yolanda Aguilar, 20, and Carlos Alvarez Aguilar, 3, were allowed to remain in the care of officials at an East Los Angeles church, where they have been sheltered since Nov. 11, when Aguilar took the boy from his Granada Avenue home, Detective Jim Henchey said Tuesday.

Meanwhile, the boy’s uncle, Jorge Alvarez Vasquez, and grandfather, Ricardo Alvarez Fuentes, who initially reported that Aguilar was a baby-sitter who stole the child in the night, have disappeared, Henchey said.

“It’s been very confusing trying to sort all this out,” Henchey said. “It’s a strange story that involves elements most of us can’t relate to at all.”

The men told police when the boy disappeared that their baby-sitter, who they said was named Eneida Cruz-Rivera, had stolen the child, his birth certificate and passport, Henchey said. They told police that Vasquez was the boy’s father, and that Rivera had often said she wished she had a child like him, he said.

“After we found several inconsistencies in their stories, we decided to probe a little further,” Henchey said. “We found out that the whole group belongs to a Mexican Gypsy clan with its own particular traditions.”

Family Agreement

Investigators learned that Aguilar, at age 15, was married by family agreement to Fuentes’ son, Carlos Alvarez Vasquez, in 1982, the detective said. His family had the rights to any offspring, and her family received $7,000, he said.

“It’s not as devious as it sounds,” Henchey added. “It’s more along the lines of a dowry, I think.”

But when Carlos Vasquez died in 1984, Henchey said, the family took his son from Aguilar and moved from Miami to somewhere in Texas. Another move brought them to Alhambra. Aguilar tracked the family down and was allowed to see her son periodically until she abducted him.

When police understood what had transpired, Henchey said, Fuentes and Vasquez were booked on suspicion of filing a false report, a misdemeanor, and attempting to falsely indict a person for a crime, a felony. Both were free on $1,000 bail when they disappeared.

“As far as the law is concerned, the natural mother has as much of a right to her child as the father’s family,” Henchey said of Aguilar. “And since that family has slipped away, we see no reason to separate mother and child.”

If Fuentes and Vasquez fail to appear in court Dec. 12 as required, a warrant will be issued for their arrest, Henchey said.

“I’m not sure what’s going to happen with them,” he added. “They have shown that they don’t care for authority and they don’t hold the truth in particularly high regard.”