A man sentenced to 63 years in prison will now defend himself in freedom

San Pedro Sula

With unusual speed, the Criminal Chamber of the Supreme Court of Justice (CSJ) rejected the evidence with which a Sentencing Court sentenced a person who Police identify as Jesus Valmaña Cruzleader of the gang 18now achieving his release.

The resolution of the Criminal Court declared an appeal of cassation in favor of Valmaña Cruz and ordered, therefore, to repeat the oral and public trial.

The leader and administrator of the gang 18who is also known by the name Ricardo Ezcecson López Cerrato, has two sentences: one of 63 years for the kidnapping and murder of a Ceibeño businessman, issued in 2017, and another of 2023 of 23 years for crimes of name theft, falsification of public documents, bribery and breach of sentence.

Valmaña Cruz was held in prison, but during a transfer he managed to impersonate another inmate named Edwin Modesto Contreras and left the prison. prison El Pozo, in Ilama, Santa Bárbaraon December 28, 2018.

After spending three years quietly in the Villas Mackey area of ​​San Pedro Sula, police officers captured him, but at that time he identified himself with a driver’s license and an ID with the name Ricardo Ezcecson López Cerrato.

On June 2, 2021, when the suspect was captured, he was taken by agents of the Police Investigations Directorate (DPI), who detected that the man had alterations in the fingerprints of his hands, which is why they said he was nervous.

Then, they said, he offered them three million lempiras to set him free.

The agents began the investigations and managed to confirm with photographic records that the captured person was the leader and administrator of the gang 18 Jesús Valmaña Cruzwho should have been in prison, since he also had a firm sentence of 63 years in prison for illicit association and aggravated kidnapping.

The case was presented to the Prosecutor’s Office against Organized Crime, an office that ordered all the investigative procedures, and experts were sworn in to make an opinion on fingerprints and DNA tests, as well as document comparisons, taking statements, among others. Actions.

Valmaña Cruz was accused of usurpation of name, falsification of public documents, bribery and breach of sentence, so the case reached an oral and public trial.

During the oral and public trial, an agent served as a witness. He participated in the investigation of the kidnapping and murder of the Ceibeño businessman Victor Manuel Tejadawhich occurred in 2015, and stated that Valmaña was captured at that time for having participated in the criminal act and saw him again in the media when he was captured again in 2021.

For the sentencing judges, the investigation agent’s story was coherent and credible, as well as consistent with the certification of Valmaña Cruz’s criminological file, issued by the National Penitentiary Institute (INP), where he was registered as a prisoner sentenced to 63 years in prison.

In the ruling, the sentencing judges of room 4 indicated that the testimonies of the agents who participated in the capture of Valmaña in 2021 concatenated with the rest of the evidence presented.

They also indicated that the information on the license with which he identified himself was falsified, so he made an ideological falsification.

“While it is true, as the defense pointed out, we do not have forensic expertise to establish this point, we consider that the evidence related to the process, when evaluated as a whole, led us to establish that Jesús Valmaña Cruz and Ricardo Ezecson López Cerrato “They are one person,” indicated the judges’ ruling issued in June 2023.

With the forensic serology report (identifies body fluids) they excluded a person who was registered as the father of Ricardo Ezecson López Cerrato, who also did not appear in the National Register of persons (RNP), as the falsified documents indicated.

In September 2023, the defense filed an appeal, resolved in just seven months. The magistrates of the Criminal Chamber of the CSJ They affirm in their resolution that, after exhaustively reviewing the evaluations that the sentencing has made of the evidence presented at trial, “we find that, as the appellant denounces, he has violated the rules of sound criticism, specifically of the logic”.

It points out that although an individual assessment of some means of evidence is carried out, also in a joint and harmonious manner, it has ignored the use of the rules of derivation and correct human thought.

They indicate that after seeing documents, the judges concluded that they were credible, to the extent that they established that a facial identification ruling was not necessary to reach the conviction that Jesús Valmaña Cruz and Ricardo Ezsecson López correspond to the same person.

The magistrates also pointed out that the forensic genetic serology report dated December 1, 2022 of genetic comparison between Jesus Valmaña Cruz and his brother Fulgencio Valmaña Cruz turned out to be inconclusive; That is, with this test it was not possible to determine whether Jesus Valmaña Cruz was the person who underwent the criminal process.

The magistrates are faced with the question that if it is not Jesús Valmaña Cruz or Ricardo Ezecson López Cerrato, “who is the person subjected to the criminal process? It remains uncertain.”

In its resolution, the Criminal Court It is the opinion that the sentencing judges concluded their ruling following subjective conjectures, since they indicated that the accused altered his fingerprints to prevent a comparison from being made with the fingerprints on the photographic registry.

The magistrates declared null and void the sentence issued by the Sentencing Court in 2023 and ordered the trial to be repeated.

Yesterday, the judges of room 1 at the hearing to review the measures of López Cerrato, known as JValmaña Cruz, ordered the immediate release of the accused and imposed alternative measures to prison, since his preventive detention had expired.

The defense alleged that the process has been delayed, to which the presiding judge responded in his resolution: “This is a process that has been handled so quickly that in a short time we heard an appeal.” The accused will have to be brought before the judges.