Posted on 02/20/2007 11:10:41 AM PST by SwinneySwitch
PIEDRAS NEGRAS, Mexico — Two police officers here were formally charged Monday in the rape of a 22-year-old San Antonio woman.
A judge ordered the pair to remain in prison without bail after upholding the initial charges of rape and abuse of power.
The officers, Jonas Santiago Morales, 42, and Oscar Ramirez Vazquez, 20, said they would fight the charges and maintained that the sexual intercourse with the San Antonio resident was consensual.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys will submit their evidence to Judge Maria Beatriz Mendoza within 40 days.
The officers face between 10 and 21 years in prison, Mendoza said.
The charges stem from the San Antonio woman's complaint to Mexican authorities that on the morning of Feb. 3, Santiago and Ramirez picked her up in downtown Piedras Negras and drove her around against her will before sexually assaulting her in a field.
The officers at first denied the incident and later changed their story to say they had consensual sex with the woman.
"They were not able to substantiate that circumstance," Mendoza said, explaining her decision to send the case to trial.
"There is other evidence that backs the young lady's story and contradictions in the officers' own statements that I looked at," Mendoza said.
Interviewed at the local jail, the two officers strongly rejected the charges.
"We don't agree with this," Santiago said. "I don't know anything about these accusations."
The accuser's original complaint was taken down with the help of a translator, but Ramirez insisted the woman spoke Spanish well and said there were no communication problems between them.
"There wasn't violence, there wasn't anything against her will," Ramirez said.
The woman has said she had gotten in a fight with her boyfriend before police picked her up for reasons she was unsure of.
"The whole time she thought was going to be taken to a police station for some kind of curfew violation," Mendoza said.
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mcastillo@express-news.net
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Piedras Negras Ping!
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Mexican police make the worst of the New Orleans police look like justice incarnate. My bet, these guys get off after "la mordida" is paid. Then ,the girl better head for the hills, if not sooner. Yet another reason why Mexicans leave Mexico in droves.
Curfew violation? For a 22-year-old?
When I lived in New Orleans I had a friend who had lived there all of his life. He said that it wasn't until he was 25 years old that he found out it was the city that was supposed to pay the police.
If these guys were in a Muslim country, this would be par for the course. Word to the wise; don't get caught with your pants down in Mexico.
I try to stay north of the Rio Bravo.
She was lucky she lived to tell the story. In El Paso, the desert has been filled with dead bodies of rape victims.
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Inventory kept at this blog.
I assume this running tally is just for the morning crimes?
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