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 News Around the Republic of Mexico | June 2007 
Seemingly Airtight Murder Case Facing A Question Of Fabrication
 Sean Mattson - San Antonio Express-News
Monterrey, Mexico — The cops said they had a slam-dunk case against Sergio Dorantes.
When his estranged wife was found stabbed to death in the Mexico City offices of Newsweek in 2003, police heard allegations that Dorantes had been an abusive husband.
His alibis the night of the killing didn't check out. Police found a glove with blood on it at his home and Dorantes, a freelance press photographer at the height of his career, fled the country.
Captured this February in California more than 31/2 years after the slaying of Alejandra Dehesa, he is now being held without bail.
But a federal judge weighing his extradition to Mexico is facing one difficult question: Did police fabricate the evidence against him?
A key witness in the case clearly lied once.
One month after the killing, Luis Eduardo Sánchez Martínez told police he saw a rattled Dorantes leave the Newsweek bureau, where Dehesa worked in a clerical job, at the approximate time of her death, according to excerpts of a police file made public in April.
Two years after making his statement, Sánchez retracted it, saying police investigators paid him the equivalent of $100 to fabricate his story about seeing Dorantes that day.
The retraction was videotaped and the Mexican media obtained it last fall, igniting a firestorm in which nearly everybody in the case — the accused, the prosecutor and the family of the victim — cried foul.
Authorities knew of the retraction as early as 2005 but have been slow to accept that it might blow their case apart.
Should he stay or go?
Mexican police officials at a preliminary hearing on Dorantes' extradition initially denied Sánchez changed his story, according to defense lawyers.
"I think the judge considers it serious that the Mexican government first said there had been no retraction and then later said that yes (there was one)," said Manuel García, the lawyer handling Dorantes' case in Mexico.
Dorantes is being held in Dyer Detention Facility in Oakland, Calif., awaiting a new bail hearing scheduled for June 15. "I am in maximum security, living in filthy conditions ... and intimidated by other inmates," Dorantes, 61, claimed in an e-mail relayed through a friend.
If denied bail, he could be held for months before a decision is made on the extradition request. But Sánchez's admission is giving his lawyers hope.
"A recantation like that is a basis on which to deny extradition," said Dennis Riordan, Dorantes' U.S. defense lawyer.
Dorantes pins his innocence claim on that recantation, too. But he refused to surrender to the Mexican justice system after becoming aware of it late last year. García said Dorantes spent years of covering crooked law enforcement in Mexico and has a deep mistrust of it.
Under Mexican law, the case against Dorantes can't proceed — by either being thrown out or going to trial — until he is arrested and brought before the judge hearing his case.
Prosecutors hammered
It's hardly news that police in Mexico are plagued by corruption, inefficiency and lack of accountability, but the Dorantes case laid bare just how bad it can get.
The prosecutor's office in the capital was chastised by Mexico City's human rights commission in a series of recommendations released this April.
The commission was responding to complaints by Dorantes, Ana María Dehesa, the murder victim's sister; and María del Rocío García, one of the prosecutors, who was investigated for "manipulation of witnesses" but never charged.
Dehesa's sister complained that the release of the video allowed Dorantes to air his defense in the media.
García complained that irregular methods were used in the investigation against her.
The commission, or CDHDF, said authorities violated due process in all three cases and recommended sweeping reforms in the way prosecutors investigate crimes.
The CDHDF found that prosecutors and police botched their probe in a number of ways. Perhaps the most disconcerting example was that officers who first saw the body tipped off the Mexico City media. Reporters and photographers arrived before investigators and trampled the crime scene.
Forensic specialists also were unable to complete the analysis of a bloodstained glove found in Dorantes' home, strangely noting that the samples on the glove were insufficient not just to determine blood type, but to determine what species the blood had come from.
Regarding the waffling witness, authorities "did not carry out the corresponding tasks to verify (his) statements" in either his original statement or retraction, the commission said.
Case still murky
Prosecutors, the CDHDF, and court officials handling the Dorantes case in Mexico did not respond to multiple interview requests.
The CDHDF recommendations carry no legal weight but mark the first time the public has had access to some of the details of the case against Dorantes, who in Mexican legalese is officially still considered "probably responsible" for killing Dehesa.
It appears there is little, if any, smoking gun evidence against Dorantes, though details aired by the rights commission suggested investigators had plenty of circumstantial evidence in the case.
One witness said he saw Dorantes leave his home the night of the killing, when he claimed to be at home sending e-mails.
Police said they did not find evidence that these e-mails had been sent on his computer. Authorities also claimed to disprove Dorantes' explanation of the source of finger-caused scratches found on the back of his neck shortly after the killing, according to case file excerpts.
Dorantes' defense team says it could successfully convince a Mexican judge to throw out the case against him. But Dorantes hopes a U.S. court will preclude ever having to face charges in Mexico.
Mattson.sean@gmail.com |
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