A state judge in Mexicali has approved a record 335-year sentence—the highest ever in Baja California—for a man convicted of kidnapping four migrants, one of whom died of gunshot wounds suffered as he tried to escape.

A statement from the Baja California Attorney General’s Office identified the man as Jesús Alonso N. He was also ordered to pay a fine of more than $200,000.

Sentenced separately was an unnamed accomplice who was a minor at the time of the crime.

The incident occurred in April 2015 in a residential area of the Baja California capital. The victims were hoping to be smuggled to the United States. According to one news report, they originally had contacted their supposed smugglers in Tijuana.


But the migrants, all men, never made it across. Instead, they were brought to a neighborhood in Mexicali known as Los Pinos, where armed captors held them for four days.

According to prosecutors, the victims were threatened and forced to call family members and ask them for money. The migrants were beaten so that relatives could hear and be pressured to make deposits, the statement said.

Fearing for their lives, the migrants decided to rise up, the statement said. On April 29, one of them made his move as Jesús Alonso N removed his handcuffs so that the migrant could eat.

This led to a scuffle that resulted in the shooting of one of the migrants, identified as Pedro Gómez Chávez, who died of his injuries. The three others were able to escape after another victim grabbed their captor’s weapon, the statement said.


Following the incident, police arrested Jesús Alonso N and his accomplice.

José María González, Baja California’s deputy attorney general for organized crime, said in the statement that the sentence approved earlier this month by a court in Mexicali not only was a record for the state, but the second highest in Mexico.

Mexico does not recognize the death penalty, and the maximum sentence for an an individual crime is 50 years. In this case, the subject has five working days to file an appeal, authorities said.


sandra.dibble@sduniontribune.com

@sandradibble