Authorities Hit Many Roadblocks When Seeking Fugitives Who Flee U.S.

Ventura County authorities were patting each other on the back last week following the successful extradition of a 19-year-old murder suspect who had fled to the Philippines to avoid prosecution.

The extradition of George Doctolero, who allegedly shot and killed 24-year-old Jose Basilan on Jan. 19 in front of an Oxnard restaurant, was the first under a new treaty negotiated between the United States and the Philippine government.

“I think this is a God-given gift for us,” said Teresita Hacumen, Basilan’s mother. “That he was the first one was very lucky.”

But the process of extradition does not always go so smoothly. If Doctolero had been a Mexican national and fled to his homeland, the outcome might have been very different.

Many more Ventura County fugitives flee to Mexico to escape prosecution in connection with crimes committed here than any other country, and bringing them back is never easy, authorities say.

Mexican citizens accused of committing crimes here and who have fled to Mexico have a right under Mexican law to be tried in their own country.

At least six people from Ventura County suspected in slayings are believed to have disappeared south of the border in the past five years, authorities said. All are Mexican nationals.

“It’s just logical for a fugitive to go back to where he has family,” said Agent Kevin Kelly of the FBI’s Ventura office. “We just happen to have a number of fugitives that have family in Mexico, so that’s where a number of them end up.”

Mexico, of course, is not the only haven sought by local fugitives.

In other recent cases wanted suspects have fled to such places as France, Sri Lanka, Peru, Taiwan and most recently the Philippines, Kelly said.

Each country presents its own problems for local authorities trying to bring those suspects to trial, Kelly said. Some countries, like the Philippines, now have extradition treaties with the United States, but others do not, he said.

Hacumen, who is also originally from the Philippines, said she had family members in the country who tracked down Doctolero to his mother’s home in the small town of San Antonio in the province of Zambales.

“We didn’t want him to get away,” she said. “I think if this happened before [the treaty] it would have been much more difficult and it all would have eventually been forgotten.”

In the cases in which suspects who are Mexican nationals bolt for Mexican soil, finding them and bringing them back can be very difficult, said Deputy Brian Worthan, one of two deputies who track fugitives for the Ventura County Sheriff’s Department.

“There are cultural ties with Mexico, family ties, that make it a prime destination,” Worthan said. “We have a high Hispanic population here, and if someone commits a serious crime they are going to run to where they feel safe. For a significant number of them, that’s Mexico.”

Among those who are believed to have fled to Mexico is Tony Martinez Nava, 24, who is suspected in the fatal shooting of his neighbor, Noe Guzman Romero, 18, after the two got into an argument while drinking with friends.

Detectives in Santa Paula are still hoping to track down Everardo Meza Alamillo, who is suspected of shooting to death his estranged wife Adriana Meza Alamillo, 21, and her boyfriend, Armando Antonio Cauich, 22, in October 1993.

Alamillo is believed to have fled to Mexico, said Santa Paula police Officer Henry Aguilar, who investigated the homicides.

“It would be pretty difficult to get him back in custody over here, and finding him down there can be difficult--they can get lost in these little towns and ranches,” Aguilar said.

“We could prosecute him in Mexico because he is a Mexican citizen,” he said.

American citizens who flee to Mexico can be extradited back to the United States. Although there are provisions for extraditing Mexican citizens, such extraditions are very rare.

That leaves local authorities with two options: They can go through the process of having Mexican authorities arrest and try a suspect, or they can wait and hope that the suspects return to the U.S.

“A lot of them will be back,” Worthan said. “It’s an economical thing. They can’t make money down there, the wages are poor, and for the same reasons they drifted over to this side of the border in the first place, they will drift back again and then we will get them.”

It is not a false hope. County prosecutors recently obtained a murder conviction against an Oxnard man, Marcos Ortiz, 40, for a two-decade-old homicide. Ortiz fled to Mexico after the March 18, 1976, stabbing death of Louis Provincio at an Easter dance in Oxnard. He returned to Oxnard and moved into an apartment about three blocks from where the stabbing occurred, Oxnard detectives said.

“Sometimes they do come back,” said Supervising Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Holmes, who oversees prosecutions of major crimes in Ventura County. “And we don’t forget.”

Instead of waiting, the other option is to go through the process of having the suspect prosecuted in Mexico.

Los Angeles has had so many suspects flee across the border that in 1985 officials set up a Foreign Prosecution Unit to present cases in Mexico.

Ventura County officials use the help of the FBI and the California Department of Justice to present cases against people in Mexico suspected of committing crimes here.

“Although we’ve had five or six successful prosecutions there over the years, we don’t make that decision lightly,” Holmes said. “There are some very important things we weigh before we would seek prosecution in Mexico.”

Holmes would not discuss any current cases that the Ventura County district attorney is trying to prosecute in Mexico.

For the prosecutions to work, the district attorney must be willing to give up local jurisdiction.

That means if a suspect is caught and tried in Mexico and is acquitted, he or she cannot be retried in the United States for the same crime.

“We don’t want to do that unless we have a reasonable certainty of success,” Holmes said.

In addition, Mexico does not have the death penalty and the maximum sentence allowed is 50 years, officials said.

“Frankly, that is a concern,” Holmes said. “There is a guarantee that if he is convicted in California, he will serve 85% of his sentence. I don’t believe the same can be said for Mexico.”

Then there is the expense and hassle of putting together the paperwork and translating it all into Spanish, Holmes said. But other agencies have had different experiences.

When presenting cases in Mexico, prosecutors and detectives put together what is called a “murder book” on the suspects, which includes such things as witness statements, affidavits from investigators, photographs and lists of evidence.

The information is presented to a Mexican judge, in most cases in Mexico City, said Agent Enrique Mercado of the California Department of Justice. It is Mercado and one other agent’s job to help usher the cases through the Mexican legal system.

Once a suspect is arrested by Mexican authorities, Mercado estimates that more than 90% of the cases end in convictions.

But the suspect must be found before the trial can start and that, authorities say, is often the difficult part of the process.

Mercado estimates that his small department has succeeded in obtaining about 260 Mexican arrest warrants for people suspected of committing crimes in California since 1979. Of those, he said, about 54 have been arrested and convicted and 32 are in custody waiting trial. The rest are still at large, he said.

“I wish we could say we had more convictions,” Mercado said.

More than 90% of the 260 cases involve slayings, Mercado said. The others involve attempted murder, child molestation and a few other serious felonies, he said.

And part of the problem, he said, is that many agencies are not aware of the law governing prosecutions in Mexico or that Mercado and his partner can help in those prosecutions.

“I think there’s a false perception that if a suspect goes down into Mexico, you’ve lost him, that it’s not worth wading through the corruption or incompetence or bureaucracy,” said Ventura police Det. Gary McCaskill.

“But that’s not true,” McCaskill said. “ . . . I think you just have to know how the system works.”

In the last year Ventura police detectives were pursuing a man suspected of shooting to death another man in front of his wife and children.

Through informants, detectives learned that the suspect had slipped across the border and was living near Tijuana.

So McCaskill got in touch with Mercado.

“I had seen a presentation he made at a conference on homicide investigations and so I called him up,” McCaskill said.

The detectives submitted the evidence on the case. The information was condensed and translated into Spanish. A few additional forms were filled out, and then McCaskill and Mercado went across the border and talked to a judge.

“I think the whole thing cost us about $1,000 to have translated,” he said. “It wasn’t any trouble at all.”

As with all the cases of fugitives in Mexico, however, the trouble has been in finding the man, whom authorities have not yet tracked down.

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Ventura County Fugitives Believed to Be in Mexico

Everardo Meza Alamillo, wanted for allegedly shooting to death his estranged wife Adriana Meza Alamillo, 21, and her boyfriend, Armando Antonio Cauich, 22, on Oct. 14, 1993, in her Santa Paula home.

Armando Rivas Balderama, 23, suspected of shooting to death Roberto Leyva, 35, on July 10, 1994, in Oxnard after Balderama accused Leyva of staring at his sister.

Roberto Guizar Cervantes, wanted for allegedly shooting to death Jose Delgado, 26, and wounding Delgado’s cousin Angelina Delgado during a family dispute in Oxnard on April 19, 1992.

Tony Martinez Nava, 24, suspected of shooting to death his next-door neighbor Noe Guzman Romero, 18, on April 14, 1997, after a drunken argument in front of Romero’s home. Romero and Nava shook hands and ended the argument but when it flared up again a short time later, Nava allegedly shot Romero.

Nasario Calderon Palacios, wanted in connection with vehicular manslaughter. Authorities said Palacios, also known as Juventino Calderon, was arrested for driving under the influence Aug. 22, 1992, after his car flipped over on the Ventura Freeway and killed Anthony Moya, 21. Palacios was charged with vehicular manslaughter, but posted bail and fled the county, officials said.

Raul Cervantes Viveros, suspected of shooting to death his 31-year-old neighbor Juan Vargas at the Victorian Park mobile home park in Ventura on May 8, 1994. Vargas and Viveros were arguing over loud music; Viveros allegedly went home, got a gun, returned and shot Vargas.

Source: Ventura office of the FBI