GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (AP) — A Mexican man convicted of murder in Colorado after being acquitted of the same crime in Mexico has been sentenced to life in prison.
Rafael “Shorty” Aguilar Garcia was sentenced Friday in Grand Junction in the 1989 killing of Charles Porter, a friend of his estranged wife.
The Daily Sentinel reports that the 67-year-old declined to address the court and kept his eyes fixed on the table in front of him for most of the hearing.
Garcia fled to Mexico before he could be arrested. He was put on trial with the help of Colorado prosecutors because of the Mexican government’s reluctance to extradite citizens charged with serious crimes in the United States.
Garcia re-married and had four children in Mexico. He was arrested last year after returning to Colorado.
