On Saturday, the lawyer of Julio Cesar Chavez Jr., Ruben Fernando Benitez, clarified the situation of the boxer who was linked to a trial for arms trafficking and links with the Sinaloa Cartel.
After a virtual hearing, the boxer’s legal representative said that in the coming hours, Chavez Jr. will leave the Federal Center for Social Rehabilitation (Cefereso) number 11, located in Hermosillo, Sonora, where he remains imprisoned after being deported this week from the United States.
When will Julio Cesar Chavez Jr be released?
“Today he should be released immediately because this is what the judge determined because the prosecutor’s office did not justify that he should continue to be deprived of his liberty for his trial. They imposed very strict measures on him that he must comply with and we are going to ensure that this is the case. My client is interested in following this process and ending these conjectures and demonstrating that he is not guilty at all,” he said, clarifying that despite being an “immediate release”, because it was Saturday night, the administrative process will take a few hours for Julio Cesar to leave the prison.
Will Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. be able to leave Mexico?
Likewise, Fernando Benitez made it clear that although one of the measures is not to leave the country, if Julio Cesar needs to do so for “his sporting activities”, he could request permission to do so.
“Note that he does not have any restriction to establish his residence anywhere he wants as long as he does not leave Mexico, he can not leave the country without permission, since if he requests permission and justifies it as the reason for his sporting activity he could be granted.”
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.’s lawyer clarifies that the Federal Prosecutor’s Office has no evidence of the boxer’s accusations
On the other hand, Chavez Jr.’s lawyer explained that although the federal judge Enrique Hernandez Miranda linked his client to the process for arms trafficking and links to drug trafficking, the Attorney General’s Office did not present any evidence to support this accusation and only relied on “anecdotes.”
“It was a mild, concrete and very fair hearing. I have some appreciations, we have a very serious issue, but very serious, because we have a Federal Prosecutor’s Office that attributes participation in a very dangerous organization based on anecdotes of camaraderie, there is not a single expression that we have seen or has not been shown to us by the prosecutor. We have not seen any expression in which he participated, that he was part of a group or that he is subordinate. There is nothing present of that. We feel somehow that this does not give rise to be linked to a process or to continue investigating; however, this stage is only for that, to determine that, if it is impossible for this to be discarded, but if it is not impossible to continue investigating for three more months. This does not mean anything, at the end of those three months the prosecutor may realize that there are no elements to sustain a trial.”
If found guilty, how many years could Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. spend in jail?
However, Ruben Fernando Benitez stressed that if the boxer is found guilty, the sentence he could receive would be a stay of between four and eight years in prison.
“The maximum penalty he could potentially face, only if this goes to prosecution in three months and if he is convicted, is now only circumstantial, but if that were to happen, the penalty ranges from a minimum of four to a maximum of eight years.”
Julio Cesar Chavez Jr.’s defense did not request a virtual hearing
On the other hand, he clarified that neither his team nor Julio requested that the hearing on Saturday, August 23, be held virtually, as it was a decision of the director of the Cefereso where the boxer is being held.
“The director was the one who asked for the hearing to be held by videoconference, alleging security reasons, but did not specify which ones. I opposed it, I like to have my client at my side to have communication and discharge my obligation immediately because it is a legal principle, I filed a motion for revocation, but it is in process and in that the hearing was held so it will be without effect. We did not ask for it, of course not, we wanted Julio here with us and I even proposed that we go to the Cefereso to be with him.”
It will be until November 23 when Julio Cesar Chavez Jr. has his second hearing where the Prosecutor’s Office must present the evidence of its accusations. Everything will take place in Sonora, since the investigations indicate that the Nogales border was used to commit crimes.
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