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Mejia-Velez v. U.S.

Despite Juvenile's Depravity 'Miller', 'Montgomery' Compel Life Sentence's Vacatur

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MEMORANDUM & ORDER

*1 On March 11, 1992, Manuel de Dios Unanue, a journalist and former editor of New York’s largest Spanish daily, was having a drink at a restaurant in Queens when he was shot twice in the head. United States v. Mejia-Velez, 855 F. Supp. 607 (E.D.N.Y. 1994). De Dios was murdered at the direction of the Cali cartel, an association of drug-dealing families based in Cali, Colombia. Because of his scathing exposés on the cartel, de Dios was singled out for execution by the head of one of the families, who issued a contract offering $50,000 for de Dios’s death.Ultimately, the assassination was assigned to Jose James Benitez and Elkin Farley Salazar. Although Benitez and Salazar were willing to conspire, the two sought a third man to pull the trigger. Salazar suggested (and Benitez agreed on) a seventeen-year-old acquaintance of Salazar’s, Wilson Alejandro Mejia-Velez. Benitez and Salazar enlisted Mejia because Mejia wanted to do criminal work and because he had boasted that he had already participated in homicides in Colombia.The day of the murder, the three men — Benitez, Salazar, and Mejia — were given the details of the hit, shown a photograph of de Dios, and taken to a restaurant in Queens called

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