PRESS RELEASE 077
LAWYER TO STAND TRIAL FOR ILLEGAL ADOPTIONS
Guatemala, October 2, 2012. The Fourth Court of the First Instance for Criminal Matters ruled to send Raúl Ticún Urías to trial for his alleged participation in the illegal adoption of the child Angely Liseth Hernandez Rodriguez. Ticún Urías will be tried on charges of human trafficking, criminal association and the use of false documents.
At the initial hearing, the Public Prosecutor's Office (MP) presented the evidence that demonstrates the accused party's participation in facilitating the recruitment, harboring, reception and transportation of the child during the illegal adoption procedure of the adoptive parents. The lawyer and the adoptive family, however, were aware of the negative DNA result for the so-called mother and child.
The investigation determined that Ticún Urías, as the special judicial representative of US citizens Timothy James Monahan and Jennifer Lyn Vanhorn Monahan, facilitated and fostered the notarial adoption procedure of Angely Liseth Hernández Rodríguez in 2008 (falsely identified as Karen Abigail López García). Furthermore, as the representative, he appeared before the General Directorate of Migration to process the passport of the child so that she could be transported to the United States, where she currently resides.
In the proceedings, Judge Gisela Reynoso confirmed that the International Commission against Impunity in Guatemala (CICIG) could act as a definitive complementary prosecutor.
BACKGROUND FACTS
The child was taken on November 3, 2006 from the patio of her house, located in the municipality of San Miguel Petapa in the department of Guatemala City. She was then handed over so as to begin the Monahan family's adoption procedure with false documentation.