[News] Support Maria Suarez!!

[News at freedomarchives.org]

Many of you may have seen the front page article in last Sunday's Chronicle 
about Maria Suarez, her history and the threat of deportation.  Today her 
hearing was continued until February 25th giving supporters more time to 
pressure the Governor to grant her a pardon.  If you haven't yet written or 
called, please do so today!  See contact information below.


 From :  Johanna Hoffmann <jdh_19 at sbcglobal.net>
Sent :  Wednesday, January 28, 2004 3:10 PM
To :  <news at freebatteredwomen.org>
Subject :  [FBW-News] Update on Maria Suarez and today's LA Times article

  |  |  | Inbox


There was a hearing today regarding the deportation of Maria Suarez, the 
case was continued until February 25th - Supporters are asking the Governor 
to grant Maria a full and complete pardon, such an action on his part will 
allow Maria to remain in the US, see Steve Lopez story (which appeared in 
today's LA Times for detail re: Maria's case)

Letters of asking the Governor for a full and complete pardon from 
individuals and organizations can be sent to the Governor at:
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, State Capitol, Sacramento, CA. 95814
or
Call 916-445-2841 ext. 4 or fax a letter to his office: 916-445-4633.
Sample letters may be found at www.freebatteredwomen.org 
<http://www.freebatteredwomen.org> .

--
Johanna D. Hoffmann
Coordinator
Free Battered Women
1540 Market Street, Suite 490
San Francisco, Ca 94102
Work: (415) 867-9963
Fax: (415) 552-3150
www.freebatteredwomen.org

 From :
MM <mujerista at bnet.org>

To :
"MM" <mujerista at bnet.org>

Subject :
Fw: Update on Maria Suarez and today's LA Times article

Sent :
Wednesday, January 28, 2004 1:05 PM

There was a hearing today regarding the deportation of Maria Suarez, the 
case was continued until February 25th - Supporters are asking the Governor 
to grant Maria a full and complete pardon, such an action on his part will 
allow Maria to remain in the US, see Steve Lopez story (which appeared in 
today's LA Times for detail re: Maria's case)

Letters of asking the Governor for a full and complete pardon from 
individuals and organiizations can be sent to the Governor at:
Governor Arnold Schwaraenegger, State Capitol, Sacramento, CA. 95814
or
Call 916-445-2841 ext. 4 or fax a letter to his office: 916-445-4633.
Sample letters may be found at www.freebatteredwomen.org.

--------------------
When Freedom Rings Hollow
--------------------

Steve Lopez

January 28 2004

Maria Suarez called me from a jail in San Pedro and said Tuesday she could 
see harbor boats through the window. After roughly two-thirds of her life 
in captivity, freedom was close enough to raise her hopes and break her 
heart at the same time.

Suarez, now 43, legally entered the United States from Mexico at the age of 
16, only to be raped and beaten as the teenage sex slave of a man 55 years 
her elder. She was convicted of killing the monster, despite her claims of 
innocence, and finally won her parole last month after battling for years.

Now she sits in another prison, awaiting a deportation hearing scheduled 
for today. Suarez is a permanent legal resident, but not a U.S. citizen, 
and immigration law says that, with an aggravated felony on her record, she 
is to be deported.

"Justice," Suarez said, "is so hard to understand."

The story begins in 1976, when Suarez came north, dreaming she would find a 
job good enough to provide for her parents back home. She met a woman who 
took her to Azusa, where a man named Anselmo Covarrubias was supposedly 
looking for a housekeeper.

"He was old, and the house was kind of weird and spooky," said Suarez, who 
wondered why Covarrubias and the woman went out back to chat. "I found out 
he had paid for me — $200 — and he told me I was his slave and I was never 
going to leave there."

Covarrubias, known to neighbors as a witch doctor with an eye for young 
female immigrants, bolted the extra locks he had on every door and window.

"I started thinking, 'What am I going to do?' " Suarez said.

There wasn't much she could do. A nightmare, now in its 27th year, had only 
just begun.

Covarrubias repeatedly raped and beat Suarez, knocking her unconscious on 
the floor of his bathroom that first day. In the days, weeks and months to 
follow, he used intimidation, deception and brute force to dominate her.

Suarez, petrified and psychologically broken, believed in his claims of 
extraordinary powers — claims he enforced over the next five years with 
threats to kill her, or her family, if she ever uttered a word about his 
deeds on the occasions he let her out of the house.

There is, alas, one piece of justice in this story, and it was delivered 
with a club.

A neighbor by the name of Rene Soto, 21, may have witnessed some of the 
abuse, and he may also have thought Covarrubias would try his black magic 
on Soto's wife. On Aug. 27, 1981, Soto warded off any such advance when he 
took a sturdy table leg and beat the living daylights out of Covarrubias.

But there was no freedom in it for Suarez. For her, it was the end of one 
prison term and the start of another. She admitted she had washed and 
hidden the murder weapon, and detectives believed she had helped plot the 
crime too, possibly to claim her tormentor's house for herself.

She swears those are lies.

At the time of her trial, there was no battered woman defense, and to 
further stack the deck against her, Suarez was represented by a hack 
attorney who had his own legal problems at the time and was later disbarred.

The result was predictable:

A conviction of first-degree murder; a sentence of 25 years to life.

"I felt cheated by life," Suarez told me. "I asked God, 'What did I do 
wrong?' "

Over the years, others asked the same question, including an unlikely set 
of characters. The inept lawyer admitted he'd let his client down, and even 
the foreman of the jury that convicted Suarez ended up on her side.

"I feel that the guilt of Maria Suarez has not been proven beyond a 
reasonable doubt," the juror later said, criticizing various aspects of the 
trial, including jury instructions.

The state Board of Prison Terms recommended her parole, noting that a 
doctor who specialized in battered woman's syndrome had reported Suarez 
suffered "an extreme level of 
 torture and control for the entire length 
of her five-year relationship with the victim."

"The victim's children," the prison board concluded, "his ex-wife, law 
enforcement officers and detectives involved in this case, and the jury 
foreman, were asked their opinion regarding the possibility of the inmate's 
release to parole. It is important to note that no one objected to her 
release."

Former L.A. County Sheriff's Department homicide detective Stanley White 
told me he still thinks Suarez goaded her neighbor into killing 
Covarrubias. But he too spoke in her defense.

"The bottom line is that she's paid for that murder in spades," said White, 
who thinks a good attorney would have knocked her charge down to 
second-degree murder or manslaughter.

Former Gov. Gray Davis, who often ignored the pleas of battered women 
serving time for murdering their abusers, rejected Suarez's parole in 2002. 
Last year, he reversed himself, but delayed the release date by a year.

After Davis was tossed out of office, the parole board tried again to turn 
Suarez loose, and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger didn't stand in the way.

Dec. 18 should have been a triumphant day for Suarez, who longs to visit 
the San Gabriel cemetery where her father lies, and to see her 85-year-old 
mother, who now lives in Duarte.

But despite the long-awaited release after serving 22 years, she was 
paroled into yet another jail, without so much as a single minute of freedom.

"It's worse here," Suarez said of the INS holding tank in San Pedro, 
describing a scene in which as many as 65 detainees share a single room.

Suarez said she was praying for a break, but the news on Tuesday brought 
her no cheer. Jessica Dominguez, her attorney, said a request to postpone 
today's deportation hearing had been rejected. That means her deportation 
could be ordered as early as today, which would give the attorney a month 
to appeal.

Dominguez is hoping Schwarzenegger will give her a full pardon, and a 
letter signed by 17 members of Congress and 28 state legislators was sent 
to his office Tuesday. Schwarzenegger's office didn't respond to my call.

As a last resort, U.S. Rep. Hilda Solis may introduce a bill allowing 
Suarez sanctuary.

Sure, Suarez said, she'll be free either way. But she hasn't set foot in 
Mexico since the 1970s, and she feels she has more than paid her debt. Her 
closest relatives are all in Los Angeles now and this is her home, even 
though she has been a prisoner — of one type or another — for all but two 
weeks of her 27 years in the United States.

"I'll kiss the ground," she said when I asked what she'd do if she were 
released in L.A. "I'll thank my father the Lord, hug my family, and go see 
my father's grave."



Steve Lopez writes Sunday, Wednesday and Friday. Reach him at 
steve.lopez at latimes.com
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