A highly respected prison administrator fell in love with a notorious cartel hitman and helped him escape from the same prison complex that Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzmán once escaped from, according to a Mexican official.
The 40-year-old woman, identified by authorities as Veronica “R” (her full last name was not publicly released due to due process), was seduced by New Jalisco Cartel assassin José Guadalupe Ávila Guevara, 33, and helped him get away. from Puente Grande Prison in El Salto, Jalisco on December 21, 2021, officials said.
Ávila Guevara has been in prison since 2014 after his arrest in connection with the July 7, 2013 murder of seven young people who were kidnapped, tortured and thrown into barrels filled with acid before their remains were found buried in Lagos de Moreno .
Veronica “R”, who has worked at the prison complex for 23 years, used her powers as court director and “out of love” forged a document to release Ávila Guevara from the capital’s prison, said José Antonio Pérez Juarez, director for the General Directorate of Prevention and Social Reintegration of the State of Jalisco .
Veronica “R.” was arrested on March 5 in Jalisco, Mexico for using her powers as judicial director of a prison to forge a document that allowed her incarcerated boyfriend, Jose Guadalupe Ávila Guevara, to escape from Puente Grande prison in El Salto , Jalisco. December 21, 2021
Jose Guadalupe Ávila Guevara has been held in the Puente Grande prison since 2014, the same one from which El Chapo once escaped.
Puente Grande prison authorities did not report Avila Guevara’s escape until February 3, when he failed to appear for a hearing before the supervising judge.
Later, his defense team presented the false release documents to Veronica “R.”, who was the only person with direct access to the document, and signed his lover’s early release.
“It is known that between a fugitive and [Veronica]they even talked about a marriage certificate,” Perez Juarez said.
Officials were unaware of Abil Guevara’s disappearance until Feb. 3, when a supervising judge demanded the killer’s appearance at a hearing in a maximum security prison on charges of aggravated kidnapping and unlawful kidnapping he faced in connection with the 2013 massacre.
The couple was detained in the city of Lagos de Moreno in the state of Jalisco on March 5.
Veronica “R”, who was also a professor of law at the University of Guadalajara, appeared in court on March 14 and was formally charged with prisoner evasion and document falsification. The judge also ordered her to be detained for six months pending trial.
“There was a unilateral criminal act, composed with all the aggravating circumstances of premeditation, treachery and profit,” Perez Juarez said.
José Guadalupe Ávila Guevara (left) and his girlfriend, warden Veronica “R”, were arrested March 5 in Lagos de Moreno, Mexico.
The sordid romance echoes the relationship of a prison instructor who helped two convicted murderers escape from the Clinton Correctional Facility in Clinton, New York, in 2015.
Authorities spent 22 days searching for Richard Matt, 48, and David Suat, 35, after their escape was aided by two prison workers, including Joyce Mitchell, 51, in a story that is true, that is stranger than fiction, which was made into the popular mini-series Dannemora Prison Break.
Mitchell, a tailor’s instructor, wrote love letters to Suth and had consensual sex with Matt in the tailor’s, as was later revealed in a report from the New York Inspector General.
She smuggled blades, chisels, and other tools into the prison and handed them over to the prison guard, who handed them over to two inmates.
As part of the escape plan, Mitchell was going to meet up with Sweet and Matt after their escape, but she chickened out and didn’t show up.
Mitchell was arrested and served five years in prison for financially supporting two men.
The manhunt ended when Matt was shot and killed by a US Customs and Border Protection agent near the Canadian border. Pot was wounded in the shootout and taken into custody.