Thread by @DavidBegnaud

BREAKING: Jesus Bonano Laureano, who’d been released from jail in Puerto Rico under habeas corpus has been found dead.
Police believe Bonano Laureano
was murdered at his home tonight.
He had been arrested & accused of murdering surfer Brian Ramos Torres.
elvocero.com/ley-y-orden/as…

Jesus Bonano Laureano was in jail awaiting trial but proceedings were delayed b/c of quarantine/pandemic, & then the judge got sick so the suspects attorney petitioned to have him released. The constitution states no one shall be held in jail more than 180 days without trial.

So the suspect was well within his rights to petition for release. I asked the attorney generals office couldn’t more have been done to move the proceeding along to where this didn’t happen. I asked whether they thought about starting over the preliminary hearing with a new judge

I was told that the prosecutors office felt that if they were to start all over again it could complicate the prosecution in terms of calling back witnesses and relying on their memory of what happened.

I was told the prosecutors office was confident that the preliminary hearing would result in the judge ruling that there was enough evidence to go to trial and they wanted to wait for the judge, who was ill, to come back and then continue the case.

There was a fear among the victims family that the suspect might harm someone else while out of jail, though he was being monitored through an ankle monitor. But no one I was speaking anticipated the suspect would end up dead at the hands of yet another alleged killer.

A police report states that Jesus Manuel Bonano Laureano was shot several times on the balcony of his home.

https://twitter.com/motinsitepegas/status/1401543302344761346