By The new day
05 Oct 2023, 2:43 PM EDT
By Alex Figueroa Cancel
PUERTO RICO – The United States Department of Justice will not seek the death penalty against those accused of the murders of two trans women in Humacao, reported in 2020.
This was reported this Wednesday by the federal prosecutor’s office, through a motion presented before Judge Pedro Delgado.
“The United States of America hereby notifies the court and the defendants of its intention not to seek the death penalty against the defendants,” stated the motion, filed by federal prosecutor José Conteras.
Federal authorities filed charges against Sean Díaz de León and Juan Carlos Pagán Bonilla in May 2020 for the murders of Angelique Velázquez and Layla Peláez.
The charred bodies of the two victims were found inside a car under a bridge in Humacao, in April 2020.
The evidence in the case would include some admission that the motive for the crime included the fact that the victims were trans women, making it the first federal case to present hate crime allegations in Puerto Rico, which was followed by the case of assault against Alexa Negrón Luciano.
This was one of two cases remaining in the Federal Court’s electronic system classified as eligible for capital punishment.
The other case that had that classification was the accusation against several alleged members of a drug trafficking gang in June of this year. Of the total of 39 accused, six were exposed to the death penalty, including Gregory Lee Matías Gutiérrez, who is the son of Senator Gregorio Matías.
The federal prosecutor’s office reported, on September 7, that it will not seek the death penalty against those accused of murder during the commission of a drug trafficking crime.
The original note in El Nuevo Día: https://www.elnuevodia.com/noticias/tribunales/notas/no-buscaran-la-pena-de-muerte-por-asesinatos-de-dos-mujeres-trans-en- humacao/
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