Judge to rule today in case of US citizens linked to drugs
A bizarre case, not least for the Dr. suspect’s name:
JUAREZ — Witnesses for the defense testified Tuesday that U.S. citizens Dr. Justus Lawrence Opot and Marisol Pérez were not trafficking drugs but were victims of someone planting narcotics on them.
Opot, 40, and Pérez, 33, face federal drug charges in Juárez stemming from a Jan. 12 detention. Police arrested them after the two turned over 110 pounds of marijuana they had found in Pérez’s car. Both Opot and Pérez say the drugs did not belong to them.
Opot’s attorney said all the witness accounts were consistent with his argument — that Opot and his co-worker Pérez are not drug traffickers.
[…]
The ordeal began a week ago.
Opot had been riding to work with Pérez because his car was with the mechanic. They both work at the El Paso Mental Health Mental Retardation clinic and commute every day from Juárez to El Paso.
Opot, a naturalized U.S. citizen born in Kenya, is a psychotherapist. Pérez is a medical records clerk.
Pérez picked up Opot about 6 a.m., and he put his briefcase in the trunk. Attorney Zamora said it was still dark, but Opot noticed there were two suitcases.
Opot asked Pérez whether she was going on vacation and told her about the bags in her trunk. She was surprised, Zamora said. Pérez said she would check the trunk as soon as they arrived at the kindergarten where she was to drop off her 5-year-old daughter.
At the school, she found the suitcases secured with a plastic strap. Pérez asked her daughter’s teacher for scissors. They cut the straps off, opened the suitcases and saw aluminum-covered packages placed inside plastic bags.
Pérez then told the school principal she needed to take her daughter with her.
“She looked completely pale, and I thought something bad had happened to her like she had been extorted or something,” Principal Sandra Loya said.
Both Opot and Pérez thought the packages looked suspicious. They decided the best thing to do was to go to the federal police and turn the packages over before opening them, they said.
[…]
I hope they are released.