On CBS’s 48 Hours program, Florida Law Enforcement Officer Tommy Ray boasts to a national audience how he paid off-duty Ecuadorian police officers $1 per hour to capture and deliver Nelson Serrano to him. He goes on to say that the American Embassy in Quito, Ecuador insisted that he and Assistant District attorney Paul Wallace go home without their suspect but he was “not going back without him”. He went from government office to government office looking for someone to help. And the kind of help he was looking for was DEA Agent Hudson and National Police Colonel Pastor Penaherrera who put him in touch with Police Chief, Victor Hugo Olmedo. Under oath and judge’s orders to name names, Ray reluctantly told a slightly different story where he paid Colonel Pastor $300 supposedly to hire these off duty officers. Consequently, Nelson Serrano, against all Ecuadorian, U.S., and International laws was held overnight in an airport dog kennel and delivered to Wallace and Ray the next morning, a Sunday, prior to 7 am to be transported to Florida on an American Airlines flight without passing through any normal immigration, security or airport procedures.

 

Chief of Police Victor Olmedo requested an arrest warrant on August 31st, 2002 at 5:10pm. However, the date that reads on the arrest documents is August 30th, 2002. How is it possible to arrest anyone without an arrest warrant?  How is it possible the warrant could be issued on the DAY AFTER the execution of the arrest?  The Attorney General responds by arguing this is due to a typing mistake with the dates?  Coincidentally, on August 31st at 5:15pm, the National Police Luis Moreno Guerrero reports to the National Director of Immigration that Mr. Serrano has already been arrested, this also shows the arrest occurred without a warrant, it shows the warrant was submitted at least 2 hours after the execution of the arrest.  Is this another typo?

After the arrest, they violated Mr. Serrano’s basic rights to a defense by keeping him incommunicado, he is unable to contact his attorney and family. Despite the fact that  Mr. Serrano can afford his  own attorney, and without his consent he is assigned a public defender, and in a matter of minutes is prosecuted, sentenced and later transported to the airport where he is kept overnight inside a dog cage to be deported the following day. All this happens at a speed worthy of better causes, nothing common to a legal process in Ecuador and in any country in the world, and to top it off, it all happens during the weekend.

All this process of illegal deportation, which is better considered as a kidnapping rather than a deportation, was presented to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and they responded on Nov. 2, 2005 by approving the information in this case for admissibility and gave the order to investigate if the Ecuadorian government officials enforced the Law of the Constitution whey they represented the defendant Mr. Serrano and if otherwise, will issue the right to sued.

See this report here:
http://www.cidh.oas.org/annualrep/2005sp/Ecuador191.03sp.htm

Now the ex-Mayor says some very interesting things:

He did not know that the process was being followed in Florida against Mr. Serrano, however in its ruling clearly indicates otherwise.

The detention and prosecution of Mr. Serrano were made in the same way it had already been done before against other foreigners. Living in Ecuador, when have we seen the detention of illegal aliens by Police mounting an operation with several armed officers, wearing hoods and protected with anti-bulletproof vests; which go after Mr. Serrano, that is, this is not a common practice of the operational process and revision of documents?

The ex-officer is going to have to give many explanations to the Ecuadorian government if the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights files in favor of Mr. Serrano.


               Detailed legal analysis by Dr. Edgar Teran