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SC Supreme Court tosses out convictions in largest drug bust in Edgefield County history web posted May 27, 2009 COLUMBIA –The South Carolina Supreme Court tossed out the drug trafficking convictions and 25-year prison sentences for three illegal Mexican men who were arrested, tried, and convicted in Edgefield County. The 900 pounds of marijuana seized at the time of the arrest is the largest drug bust in Edgefield County history. Raphael Hernandez, Honorio Guerrero, and Alfredo Avila-Arjona have served seven years of their 25-year sentences since being arrested in 2002. Joe Savitz, their attorney, said the state spent nearly $630,000 of taxpayers’ money to incarcerate them. "That's what we pay to keep three innocent men in jail," said Savitz, chief appellate defender for the S.C. Commission on Indigent Defense. The S.C. Attorney General has 15 days to file a petition for a rehearing. "We believe the defendants are guilty," Mark Plowden, spokesman for the attorney general, is quoted as saying. The investigation began in 2002 at a border-crossing at World Mission Bridge in Laredo, Texas, when federal officials searching an 18-wheeler tractor-trailer found 900 pounds of marijuana bricks stashed inside 23 wooden fireplace mantles that were supposed to be delivered to Tienda DeLeon in Trenton, according to court records. The officials seized the drugs, switched the driver with an undercover agent, and put the tractor-trailer back on the road to complete its delivery. When the truck arrived at Tienda DeLeon in Trenton, the owner of the store Fredy DeLeon and two others who arrived in a Ford Thunderbird, unloaded several of the mantles. The three men then told the undercover agents to drive the rest of the shipment to Billy's Super Store, which is was about a quarter mile away. That's when Hernandez, Guerrero and Avila-Arjona entered the investigation. The Thunderbird drove away, and Guerrero appeared a short time later driving a Ryder moving truck, with Avila-Arjona and Hernandez riding along. The Thunderbird passenger told the undercover agents to follow them along a dirt road to another location. The tractor-trailer and the Ryder truck became stuck on the muddy road and agents decided it was time to call off the operation and moved in. The agents arrested Hernandez, Guerrero and Avila-Arjona. The driver of the Thunderbird sped away and was never captured. "My guys were just there and got swept up," said Savitz. "If they'd been hired to actually move furniture, they'd have done nothing differently," he added. "The only difference was the furniture happened to contain marijuana, lots of marijuana." DeLeon, the owner of Tienda DeLeon, was tried and convicted in 2004, a conviction that was upheld in April of 2005 along with Hernandez, Guerrero and Avila-Arjona, but DeLeon was not included in their appeal, according to court records. Tuesday's Supreme Court decision said there was no proof Hernandez, Guerrero and Avila-Arjona knew they were part of a drug deal. "The state failed to present evidence connecting (the three men) to the tractor-trailer or to Fredy DeLeon or evidence that (they) had knowledge of the contents of the tractor-trailer," wrote Chief Justice Jean Toal in Tuesday's decision. "Although (the three men's) actions may have been suspicious, mere suspicion is insufficient to support the verdict." Meanwhile, Hernandez, Guerrero and Avila-Arjona sit in the Lieber Correctional Institution in Ridgeville. Savitz is working with the Mexican Consulate to send them back to Mexico. Assistant Solicitor Ervin Maye, who originally tried the case and won the convictions in front of a jury, said Tuesday he was informed that two of the convictions could be in jeopardy of being overturned. Maye said he told the jury at the time of the trial, and they agreed, “You don’t just hire somebody to go pick up $3 million in drugs, they knew what they were there to get.” Mr. Maye said he doubts if he would retry the case due to the recent ruling. “We don’t have any more evidence now that we didn’t have then.” News of the ruling reverberated around the Edgefield County Courthouse Tuesday where General Sessions Court is being held this week. Many felt that a jury was the judges of the facts in a court case and they reached a guilty verdict, which should have been upheld. The Citizen News contributed to this report © Copyright 2009
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