An illegal immigrant who fled to Mexico after killing his boss for drug money in 2005 was sentenced to 40 years in prison Monday in Howard County Circuit Court.
It took Howard police and prosecutors more than four years to find and extradite Joel Nunez Valles from a Mexican jail, where he was confined for an unknown crime. Prosecutor Susan Weinstein said Valles’ sentence, life in prison with all but 40 years suspended, was the result of a plea agreement because the main witnesses were his own family members, who were “reluctant” to testify.
According to police, Valles, a cocaine addict, killed Juan Miguel Gonzales, 51, of West Friendship, the owner of a landscaping company where Valles worked. Valles stabbed Gonzales 19 times in the face, neck and chest with a screwdriver after the owner refused to give him cash for drugs. Valles took a bus back to Mexico the next day, though it took two days before anyone discovered Gonzales’ body.
“What’s important to understand is that Mr. Valles didn’t just take one life. Mr. Valles took the lives of my family,” said Gonzales’ son Alexander Garza, 23, in a victim’s impact statement. “You took any chances of my siblings having an argument with my father,” he said, as well as Gonzales’ ability to see his children graduate from Centennial High School, or later from college.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/howard/bs-md-ho-valles-sentence-20100802,0,4111624.story?track=rss
I was told illegals from Mexico never use drugs and it is only an American problem is this a misprint illegal from Mexico Addicted to cocaine ?