Officer Gets 8 1/2 Years in Mexico Jail Killing

A Mexican police officer has been sentenced to 8 1/2 years in prison for the strangling death of a North Hollywood man in a Rosarito jail, a rare victory for human rights activists who contend that Mexican police mistreat foreign tourists with impunity.

It was also a ringing triumph for the victim’s brother, who mounted a home-grown protest that dragged a U.S. congressman and the president of Mexico into the case on his behalf.

“This decision . . . shows that you can still get justice if you keep trying,” Joe Amado said from his home in Sun Valley, bursting into tears at hearing the news Thursday. “I am very happy that we won, but, unfortunately, my brother lost.”

Mario Amado, a 29-year-old welder, was found dead in his jail cell in Rosarito, a beach resort just south of Tijuana, after being arrested for drunk and disorderly conduct in June 1992. Police said he had hanged himself from the bars of his cell with a sweater.

But Joe Amado--in a series of investigations that cost him thousands of dollars--proved that his brother had been severely beaten before his death and had probably passed out from the pain of liver injuries when he was strangled with a rope, not a sweater.

Former Rosarito police officer Jose Antonio Verduzco Flores was sentenced Wednesday to 8 1/2 years in prison for intentional homicide in Amado’s death, Verduzco’s defense attorney, Jorge Esparza Luna, said Thursday.

The sentence by Tijuana Judge Jesus Antonio Chavez Hoyos, which ended Verduzco’s trial, gives him credit for 2 1/2 years in custody, so he will be released in six years, Esparza said.

Esparza said he would appeal the sentence to the Baja California State Superior Court in Mexicali, saying Verduzco had been framed by the testimony of two “bums and thugs” as vengeance for arresting them repeatedly.

The conviction is believed to mark one of the few times that a Mexican law enforcement officer has been convicted in a Mexican court of murder in the jail death of a foreign tourist.

Mario Amado was one of several Americans to die in Mexican jails in recent years. The U.S. State Department reported that in 1992, Mexican authorities arrested 977 Americans, 67 of whom complained of being beaten or otherwise mistreated.

Human rights activists called Mario Amado’s death a prime example of the problem. Mexican officials, however, have said that the prosecution of Verduzco proves they take allegations of abuse--of U.S. citizens, Mexican citizens or others in custody--seriously.

At first, Mexican authorities ignored Joe Amado’s protests that his brother’s “suicide” was a cover-up for murder.

Joe Amado, who was on holiday with his brother and their girlfriends in Rosarito when his brother was arrested, was determined not to let the matter rest. He began by picketing Mexico--carrying a sign at the border crossing.

In time, his methods became more sophisticated. He made himself an expert on the Mexican legal system and the problems of foreigners in Mexican custody, linking up with several human rights organizations. Securing his brother’s body for burial in the family plot at Corcoran, near Bakersfield, he hired a private pathologist in Los Angeles to conduct an autopsy.

Dr. Richard Siegler declared that Mario Amado did not commit suicide, but had been beaten so badly that he had severe internal bleeding from liver injuries and had probably passed out from the pain before dying. His findings were confirmed by an autopsy conducted, at Joe Amado’s expense, by the Los Angeles County medical examiner. In a third examination, a Kings County pathologist concluded that Mario Amado was slain by strangulation.

The clincher came from the FBI. In claiming her brother’s body, Amado’s sister had also reclaimed the sweater with which he had purportedly hanged himself. An FBI lab determined that the fibers embedded in Mario Amado’s neck came from a rope, not the sweater.

Persuaded by Joe Amado, Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), a ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, interceded in the case, pressuring then-Mexican president Carlos Salinas de Gortari to look into it.

In January 1993, Salinas--who was then promoting an anti-corruption drive--said he would ensure that Mario Amado’s killer was found and prosecuted. The Tijuana police chief remarked at the time that the pressure from the president’s office was “very unusual.”

Verduzco, a Rosarito municipal police officer assigned to the jail, was arrested four months later.

Defense lawyer Esparza said Thursday that Verduzco was not even on duty at the time of the killing.

“The only testimony against him came from two criminals, bums and thugs, who were in jail on drug charges but hated Verduzco because he had arrested them many times,” he said.

Joe Amado, however, has no doubts. “The small [sentence] really hurts,” he said, but “I got who I was after. It’s been a long haul--three long years--but I knew I could do it.”

He said he still plans to fight Verduzco’s appeal and bring a $50-million civil suit against the Mexican police. “They are not dealing with a guy who is going to give up easy.”

Times staff writer Josh Meyer contributed to this story.