Mexican teen remains in custody
By Jane Beathard
Staff Writer
A Mexican teen arrested in mid-December on Interstate 71 for allegedly trafficking drugs remains in custody, pending results of a test on the contraband he carried.
On Wednesday, Madison County Juvenile Judge Glenn Hamilton continued the case against the defendant, 16, until early February, giving the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation (BCI) time to analyze contents of 704 foil-wrapped balls hidden in the teen’s 2003 Honda.
Lt. Eric Semler of the Madison County Sheriff’s investigative unit estimated the foil balls, each about one-fourth inch in diameter, contained heroin with a street value of $7,000 to $14,000.
Attorney Thomas Arrington, who was appointed to defend the youth, also asked Hamilton for more time to receive and evaluate evidence against his client.
“Columbus DEA is also involved,” assistant county prosecutor Rachel Price told Hamilton.
Arrington said the defendant, who was traveling alone, appears to have no family in Ohio. The teen’s closest relative in the United States lives in Wisconsin. He appears to speak little English.
Arrington said officials at the Central Ohio Juvenile Detention Facility in Marysville denied the teen permission to phone his mother in Mexico. The attorney asked Hamilton to allow a call, saying the mother is ill and has not spoken to her son in several months.
Price said the teen initially provided deputies no personal information and no phone numbers of family members south of the border. That apparently changed after he was jailed.
Hamilton ruled the boy could write a letter to his mother if local juvenile authorities will not permit an international call.
Semler worked with an interpreter in recent weeks to identify the youth, since Mexican birth and school records are sketchy. It appears the defendant is from the city of Tepic in the state of Nayarit in West Central Mexico. The area is a reported hotbed of the country’s illicit heroin trade.
Exactly how the teen got to Central Ohio remains a mystery.
He was stopped about 3:30 p.m. on Dec. 13 in the southbound lane of the freeway after deputies received a tip that a Hispanic male, previously involved in a Columbus drug deal, was driving toward Madison County.
Last week, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials declined to deport the boy to Mexico. It is now up to Hamilton to decide the 16-year-old’s future.
The 16 year-old’s delinquency charge is a first-degree felony. He is also classified as a “serious youthful offender,” based on the amount of drugs involved.
If convicted, he could be sentenced to the Ohio Department of Youth Services until age 21 or longer, then face deportation or incarceration in an adult prison.
