Man seeks to avoid being deported
Lawyer aims to get plea in killing withdrawn
More than ten years ago, Marco Flores pleaded guilty to killing a man in East Boston who had sexually abused him for years after finding evidence the man had turned his attention to a young relative. “The flood broke,” his attorney said at the time.
In December, Flores completed his state prison sentence for voluntary manslaughter. Now, a lawyer has been appointed to review whether Flores can withdraw his guilty plea as he fights deportation to his native El Salvador while in federal custody in New
Hampshire, according to his lawyers.
The Committee for Public Counsel Services appointed
Barbara Munro upon Flores’s request, according to his immigration lawyer, and Munro said her goal is to “see if there’s a basis to reopen” the case. She said in an interview that she’s going through “thousands of pages” of documents to see if there is cause to withdraw Flores’ 2013 guilty plea to voluntary manslaughter.
Withdrawing the plea, which would have to be approved by a judge, would be a step to remove the grounds on which the federal authorities look to deport Flores, Munro said. Munro, who was appointed Jan. 22, according to court filings, said she is still working to determine whether there is cause to file a motion to withdraw it.
Flores admitted to strangling Jaime Galdamez in the 28-year-old man’s East Boston apartment in 2011 when Flores was 17. Flores lit the man’s body on fire before turning himself in to police two days later.
Flores was legally in the country with temporary protected status after he came to the United States at age 6, but the conviction put that status in jeopardy, his lawyers said. The case sparked a campaign calling for a halt to deportation proceedings and for Flores’s release, with an online petition with over 600 signatures.
On Monday afternoon, around 30 supporters rallied in East Boston’s Mav
erick Square. Family members, friends, and neighbors waved signs with messages including “Marco Flores is a victim not a criminal,” and “Eastie esta contigo!” — “Eastie is with you.”
His niece Karina Flores said Flores’ family is fighting “for him to get the opportunity to stay here.”
“There’s no denying what he did. It’s something he regrets,” she said in an interview at the rally. But she said all his family is in the United States, and this is where he can get support to heal.
His mother, Clalelia Diaz, held a sign reading “no mas abuso infantil” — no more childhood abuse. Through a family member interpreting, she said she wants Flores “to be able to get the help he needs.”
State Senator Lydia Edwards told the assembled demonstrators that “this is one of the saddest cases out there.” She said it’s clear Flores is “no threat to any of us.”
“We need to fight for him to stay here,” the East Boston Democrat said.
The timing for Flores’ deportation proceedings is unclear as he remains in federal custody in Dover, N.H., but his immigration attorney Schuyler Pisha of Greater Boston Legal Services said there will be a future hearing on the merits of the case before authorities make a decision.
Asked whether Suffolk District Attorney Kevin Hayden’s office would oppose such a motion, spokesperson James Borghesani said, “We can’t comment on a motion we haven’t seen yet and may never see.”
A spokesperson for US Immigration
& Customs Enforcement’s New England bureau declined to comment on the criminal and immigration cases.
In May 2011, Flores surrendered to police two days after he killed Galdamez.
He said he had killed Galdamez, a family friend, after he found a photo of a young relative in the man’s apartment, which made him snap. Galdamez had molested Flores for several years starting when Flores was 9, he told police.
In a video he made showing himself before and after the death, Flores said he was going to “kill a pervert.”
Flores gave Galdamez duct tape to put on his face and placed a dog chain around his neck, according to authorities. At one point, Flores appeared to be about to cut Galdamez’s neck, but Galdamez said: “Don’t do that. There would be too much blood.” He asked to be strangled instead, prosecutors said.
Flores set a fire in Galdamez’s apartment the next morning, but first he removed computers and a television. On the computers, according to authorities, investigators found child pornography and chatroom conversations in which Galdamez described his attraction to young boys and talked about Flores.
Though prosecutors agreed to a deal in which Flores would plead guilty to manslaughter, they said Flores’ actions were illegal “vigilante justice.”
Schuyler, Flores’ immigration attorney, said that deporting Flores to El Salvador would make him a target for gangs and the government there.
“In El Salvador people are being arbitrarily arrested,” he said.
At particular risk are young men with criminal records, he added.
David J. Bier of the libertarian-leaning Cato Institute said the time for factoring in mitigating circumstances was when Flores was prosecuted in state court.
He was convicted of a serious crime, Bier said, which means he “forfeited the ability to choose where in the world he lived.”
Boston immigration attorney Jeff Rubin said it’s “inhumane to initiate deportation proceedings against someone who came here as a minor.”
But, he said, “immigration laws do not have the flexibility often to consider individual circumstances.”