Another Mexican National in U.S. Ilegally Admits Involvement in 2009 Murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent

Katie Pavlich | August 22, 2013 2:30 PM

In July 2009, U.S. Border Patrol Agent Robert Rosas, Jr. was ambushed by five Mexican nationals, three of which entered the United States illegally to assault Rosas through a hole in the border fence and then quickly fled back over the border.

Thursday, 28-year-old Marco Rodriguez-Perez entered into a plea agreement after being extradited to the United States from Mexico in October 2011. In the agreement, Rodriguez-Perez admitted to ambushing Agent Rosas while he was on-duty, in uniform and responding to a remote area near Campo, California. The goal was to rob Rosas of his night vision goggles and they killed Agent Rosas in the process. More from the FBI:

On July 23, 2009, Rodriguez-Perez and four others—Jose Juan Chacon-Morales, Jose Luis Ramirez-Dorantes, Christian Daniel Castro Alvarez, and Emilio Samyn Gonzales-Arenazas—traveled by car and foot to a remote area on the Mexican side of the U.S.-Mexico border near Campo, California. All five were carrying firearms and, once at the border, entered into an agreement to rob a U.S. Border Patrol agent of his night vision device.

As Agent Rosas, in uniform and performing his official duties, responded to the area, the defendant entered the U.S. with Castro-Alvarez and Gonzales-Arenazas through a hole in the border fence, while Chacon-Morales and Ramirez-Dorantes remained in Mexico and stood watch. After Agent Rosas exited his vehicle, the defendant, Castro-Alvarez, and Gonzales-Arenazas detained Agent Rosas at gunpoint.

Agent Rosas resisted, and during the ensuing struggle, the defendant, Castro-Alvarez, and Gonzales-Arenazas fired multiple shots at Agent Rosas, killing him. The three men “stole Agent Rosas’s bag, firearm, handcuffs, and night vision device, among other things...and fled back to Mexico,” the plea agreement said. They rejoined Chacon-Morales and Ramirez-Dorantes, and all five fled the area.

To date, three defendants besides Rodri´guez-Perez have pleaded guilty: Christian Daniel Castro-Alvarez was sentenced to 40 years of imprisonment; Emilio Samyn Gonzalez-Arenazas and Jose Ramirez-Dorantes are scheduled to be sentenced in November. Jose Juan Chacon-Morales remains a fugitive.

Rodriguez-Perez pleaded guilty before U.S. District Court Judge M. James Lorenz. Sentencing was set for November 14, 2013, at 2:00 p.m.