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Criminal probes tied to suspected teen hitman continue in U.S., Mexico

Edgar Lugo Jimenez, nicknamed "El Ponchis," had been wanted since October. He was arrested at an airport in central Morelos state as he tried to board a plane to Tijuana.


By Morgan Lee, UNION-TRIBUNE
Saturday, January 1, 2011 at 6 p.m.

The fallout from last month’s capture of a 14-year-old San Diego native accused of carrying out gruesome killings for a Mexican drug gang continues to unfold in the United States and in Mexico.

Five relatives of Edgar Jimenez Lugo, including his mother who lives in San Diego, have become the focus of criminal probes that range from common U.S. immigration violations to aiding a ruthless cartel leader based in central Mexico.

The search for a young assassin nicknamed “El Ponchis” was under way by October after the Mexican army took note of his appearance in videos of torture and mutilations posted on the Internet. Edgar was apprehended on Dec. 2 preparing to board a flight from central Mexico to Tijuana, intent on crossing into San Diego.

An intensive manhunt continues for drug cartel enforcer Julio “El Negro” Radilla, who allegedly recruited Edgar at age 11 and carried on a romantic relationship with one of his San Diego-born sisters.

In late December, dozens of soldiers following an anonymous tip stormed a business on the outskirts of Cuernavaca, a state capital popular with Mexican tourists and second-home owners, in search of Radilla but came up empty-handed, according to Mexican media reports. The army declined to comment on the raid but said it is actively pursuing Radilla.

Efforts to dismantle Radilla’s gang have ensnared not only Edgar but also a 20-year-old cousin, awaiting trial at a prison near Cuernavaca in the central Mexican state of Morelos, and two grown sisters, detained in Mexico City as prosecutors investigate their alleged ties to organized crime.

In late October, troops arrested Edgar’s cousin David José Mario Jimenez and five other suspected cartel members as they swept through an urban, working-class neighborhood outside Cuernavaca.

David’s parents said he had no gang ties and held down two jobs. Witnesses were scheduled to testify this week that he was led away from home at night without explanation after soldiers confirmed his relation to Edgar — and that he was not arrested at a gang hangout stocked with drugs and guns, as the army contends.

He is awaiting trial on drug, arms and organized-crime charges.

In San Diego, Edgar’s estranged mother and stepfather are scheduled to be in federal court this week for a preliminary hearing on charges of illegally re-entering the United States after being deported. Yolanda Jimenez Lugo and her husband appeared briefly in court on Dec. 23 dressed in khaki prisoner jumpsuits, listening through headphones to a Spanish-language interpreter as a federal judge postponed proceedings until January.

Edgar’s sisters Elizabeth and Lina-Ericka Jimenez Lugo were arrested along with their brother on Dec. 2. Mexico’s attorney general’s office has until this week to turn the case against the sisters over to a judge, extend its initial investigation or suspend the probe and release them. Prosecutors and public defenders assigned to the case declined to comment about the status of the investigation.

As an infant, Edgar left San Diego with five of his older siblings to live with their paternal grandmother in a suburb of Cuernavaca. The children had been taken from their mother and father, Yolanda and David Antonio Jimenez, by San Diego County Child Protective Services when Edgar tested positive for cocaine when he was born in 1996. His parents were convicted the next year on drug charges and deported to Mexico.

Four days after Edgar’s capture last month in Mexico, his mother was arrested in San Diego by Border Patrol agents, after years of living undetected in the United States and raising two daughters from a new marriage.

Yolanda and her current husband are being held in the Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown San Diego. Their elementary-school aged daughters, who are U.S. citizens, have continued to live in San Diego with a relative.

Edgar is being held at a youth detention center in central Mexico.

Thrust before journalists and cameras during his arrest, the slight, curly-haired youth confessed to beheading at least four people targeted as gang rivals. The confession was a shocking new development in the fight against drug cartels in Mexico, where the government estimates more than 30,000 people have been killed in drug-related violence over the past four years.

Morelos state prosecutors have until early February to present evidence in juvenile court that will decide whether Edgar goes to trial on charges of homicide, supporting organized crime and illegal weapons and drug possession.

He could face a maximum sentence of three years in juvenile detention, according to the presiding judge.


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