LOS ANGELES (AP) — A youth soccer coach has been charged in the death of a 13-year-old whose body was found on the side of a Southern California road.
Los Angeles County prosecutors said Monday that the boy was reported missing by his family March 30 after he boarded a train to visit the coach in Lancaster, north of Los Angeles. He wasn’t heard from again. His body was found several days later in Ventura County, northwest of Los Angeles.
“No parent should ever have to endure the unimaginable pain and sorrow of learning their child has been murdered,” Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman said in a statement. “Sexual predators … will be held accountable and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.”
Prosecutors said Mario Edgardo Garcia-Aquino was charged with one count of murder, with the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission or attempted commission of lewd acts with a child. The charges make him eligible for the death penalty.
Prosecutors said Garcia-Aquino is accused of killing the teen, Oscar Omar Hernandez, and then dumping his body along the roadside.
Garcia-Aquino faces a possible maximum sentence of death or life in prison without the possibility of parole. A decision on whether to seek the death penalty will be made at a later date, prosecutors said.
Prosecutors said Garcia-Aquino is accused in a separate case of sexually assaulting a 16-year-old male in Palmdale, north of Los Angeles, in February.
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Multiple media outlets reported that Garcia-Aquino entered the country illegally. The Department of Homeland Security and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement did not immediately respond to questions about his immigration status.
U.S. Attorney Bill Essayli in Los Angeles told NBC Los Angeles, “This was an avoidable crime and the result of failed border policies.”
“We cannot and will not tolerate illegal aliens who flout our nation’s immigration laws then prey on children. Federal law enforcement will continue to be very aggressive in locating, apprehending, and prosecuting criminal illegal aliens,” Essayli said.
