Bizarre events in Arredondo murder case in Mexico
Kidnappings. Torture. Allegations of trumped-up criminal charges against innocent people at the hands of law enforcement.
A whirlwind of activity in the case of Bakersfield businessman Jose Arredondo, murdered in July in Cabo San Lucas, has transpired in the last few weeks, and it may send the case in a totally different direction.
The bizarre turn of events has even caught the attention of a member of the Canadian Parliament, who is asking Mexican authorities to release their only suspect.
THE ACCUSED
The man charged with the murder of Arredondo — the prominent, highly visible Bakersfield-based owner of several California car dealerships — nervously took the witness stand at a recent court hearing. Clearing his throat, Roberto Gonzalez looked at the judge and spoke.
“I ask your honor for help to intercede on my behalf, because I’ve been threatened with death if I say what I’m about to testify,” said Gonzalez, according to a videotaped recording of the court hearing in Cabo San Lucas on Oct. 7 obtained by Telemundo Valle Central, the first time details about the case have been publicly revealed.
It was true, he said, that he had spent July 15 playing golf with Arredondo. After a long day, the pair went to a restaurant but it was closed. Gonzalez said Arredondo invited him to his condo for dinner; they ate and then Gonzalez went home. That was the last time he saw his friend and golf partner.
The next morning, Arredondo was found on his living room floor in a pool of blood. Nearly two weeks later, Gonzalez was arrested.
He has maintained his innocence. Further, he claims he was kidnapped and tortured for nine days by agents of the State Attorney General’s Office of Baja California Sur and coerced to confess to a murder he did not commit.
After refusing to tell his captors what they wanted to hear, his family was threatened, Gonzalez told the court in his videotaped testimony.
“They told me, ‘We’re going to go for your mother, your sister, your family, and torture them in front of you and see if you tell us who did it,’” said the 51-year-old, his voice cracking. “I just waited for my family. It was a very difficult time.”
Attorneys for Gonzalez claim that while their client was detained, other officers broke into his house. The defense projected several photographs on a wide screen purportedly showing Gonzalez’s ransacked house, including his bedroom, where agents allegedly stole money from a closet.
But agents supposedly took something more important: a pair of tennis shoes belonging to Gonzalez. Prosecutors assert the shoes have blood on them, blood that matches that of Arredondo. Further, prosecutors say, Arredondo’s blood was also found in Gonzalez’s car. Attorneys for Gonzalez counter that the blood on the shoes and in the car was planted by officers of the State Attorney General’s Office.
Gonzalez testified for more than an hour. Prosecutors never raised an objection or cross-examined to find inconsistencies, according to the videotaped court hearing.
OTHERS COME FORWARD
Gonzalez is not the only one making these accusations. Others unrelated to Gonzalez have come forward saying they, too, were subjected to similar tactics. Like Gonzalez, they claim they were intercepted on the street by a group of armed men wearing bulletproof vests and whisked away in a truck equipped with the flashing lights of a law enforcement vehicle.
One such individual, a friend of Arredondo’s, says he only knows Gonzalez by sight. In a videotaped deposition taken by Gonzalez’s attorney Jaime Tacher, “George” — he asked that his real name not be used because of fears for his safety — claims that on Aug. 1, he, his son and a cousin were kidnapped by a group of armed men and driven to a building on the outskirts of Cabo San Lucas. The three were separated and taken to different rooms.
“They kept asking about why ‘the golfer’ had killed Arredondo. They said I needed to tell them that I knew (Gonzalez) had done it,” George said in his videotaped testimony. “But I kept telling them I did not know anything about that.”
Within a short time, things turned ugly. “They held me down, put a plastic bag over my head and began hitting me. I couldn’t breathe and I yelled for them to let me go,” said George. “Then they said, ‘Are you going to talk now?’ And I said, ‘Yes, yes, I’ll talk!’” But after about six hours of beatings and intimidation, George said he refused to tell his captors what they wanted to hear. “Finally I told one of them, ‘If you’re going to kill me, please do it quickly.’”
While this was going on, George’s son was being interrogated in another room. The 19-year-old is a U.S. citizen who does not speak Spanish. Turns out he had gone to visit his father in Cabo San Lucas during his summer vacation and was at the wrong place at the wrong time when they were all whisked away. In a recent interview back on U.S. soil, the son, who asked that I not use his name, citing fear for his safety, said the ordeal was confusing and frightening.
“I was getting hit, I had a knife to my neck and I still wasn’t answering questions, so they realized I didn’t speak Spanish,” he said, adding he did not know anything about a murder or anyone who might have been arrested for it. After five or six hours of detainment, George, his son and his cousin were allowed to leave. With a warning.
“They said bad things would happen if we told anybody. ... Just leave and go home,” George’s son said. Though he’s back in the U.S., the son admits he still fears for his safety because his captors took down his personal information, including his Social Security and driver’s license numbers. He worries more for his father and stepmother, who still live in Baja California Sur.
WITNESS CHANGES STORY
But perhaps the strongest bit of new information that bolsters the case for the defense comes from a 17-year-old who is also a witness for the prosecution. The teen was 16 when he was working as a security guard at the Las Gardenias condominium complex where Arredondo lived. Testifying in the same court hearing as Gonzalez, the young man told the court he was held against his will, beaten and intimidated by agents of the State Attorney General’s Office and forced to sign papers.
“They told me, ‘Sign here!’ So I signed, signed and signed,” the teen said, according to his videotaped Oct. 7 testimony, which he gave via closed circuit from another room with his back to the camera so as not to be publicly identified. According to attorney Tacher, this is standard practice in Mexico for minors who testify in court. Tacher asked that the teen’s name not be used out of safety concerns.
Defense attorney Tacher gave the teen a copy of the documents he had signed and asked if he could read them. Among other things, the documents state that the teen saw a man who looked very similar to Gonzalez arrive at the complex the night of
July 15 sometime between 9 and 9:45 p.m., the evening before Arredondo’s body was discovered. Tacher questioned the young man about the accuracy of those documents.
“I never wrote that, I never said those things that are in there,” said the teen, speaking in a loud voice and punching almost every word for emphasis. He added he was threatened with jail and started to cry, afraid for himself and his family if he did not do what his captors wanted him to do.
TRUMPED-UP CHARGES?
The latest twist came Dec. 5. A woman who gave her name only as Casey said she was awakened at around 7:30 a.m. Dec. 5 by the sound of gunfire and men screaming. Looking out a window, the woman said, she saw her husband and four other men being hauled away by armed men wearing hoods and bulletproof vests.
“I yelled at them, asking where they were taking my husband. They told me to be quiet and go back inside,” she told attorney Tacher in an interview he videotaped at her home in Cabo San Lucas and then forwarded to Telemundo. Casey added that the men appeared to ransack the house before they left.
Turns out Casey is related to George, the man who claims he was kidnapped and tortured Aug. 1. The woman said she and her husband are relative newcomers to Cabo San Lucas and were staying at George’s house temporarily. Immediately after the armed men left her house, Casey said, she got a ride from a neighbor and went to look for George at the local gym where his wife works as a physical trainer. Casey was told by management George and his wife had just pulled up to the gym that morning when armed men pulled them out of their car and took them away.
Casey said she found her husband being held by the local police, but was not told what charges he and the others were facing. She was allowed to see him for a few minutes and said he told her that he had been tortured, but he did not go into details. He remains in custody and, Casey said, she does not know why he was arrested or when charges may be filed.
George and his wife, though, were turned over to authorities from the federal Attorney General’s Office. Their crime? The local cops stopped them for speeding through a school zone and noticed a gun cartridge in the back seat, according to attorney Tacher. Upon checking the trunk, the attorney said, the police supposedly found three guns — and having a gun in Mexico is a federal crime.
Tacher immediately filed a complaint with the National Commission for Human Rights denouncing the detentions. Tacher is convinced George and his wife are being held on trumped-up gun charges to keep them from testifying in Gonzalez’s defense.
CANADIAN PRESSURE
Gonzalez has a daughter in the Canadian city of Vancouver, British Columbia, who brought her father’s case to the attention of Elizabeth May, a member of Parliament and recent contender for prime minister.
“We were frantic and we reached out to her office for help,” Isabella Gonzalez Kaminski said in a phone interview. Her persistence paid off. May fired off a couple of letters to Daniel de la Rosa Anaya, the attorney general for Baja California Sur. Her letter dated Dec. 4 reads in part: “Mr. Gonzalez has now been incarcerated for almost six months and his three court hearings to date have shed light on the systemic corruption within the BCS State Police. Evidence of coercion, torture, and threats have been common themes underlying this hearing.”
Now there’s a straight-talking politician. May added: “I ask that local authorities in Mexico help to ensure the safe release and return of Mr. Gonzalez to his family.”
SILENCE FROM CABO SAN LUCAS
Perhaps May has had better luck than me in getting a response from de la Rosa Anaya about the alleged kidnappings, torture and forced signed statements. Repeated attempts to get a comment from the State Attorney General’s Office have gone nowhere. In fact, when I asked about the alleged Dec. 5 kidnappings, spokeswoman Marina Valtierra responded with this email: “I am unfamiliar with what you are referring to. I’m also letting you know that according to legal framework, we are prohibited from giving out information about any on-going investigation, except to the persons directly involved.”
Roberto Gonzalez is scheduled to go to trial at the end of January for the murder of Jose Arredondo. There may yet be more surprises.