 |
| D.A. David Prater |
These are Some of the Men Responsible for the Brutal Death of an Infant
Thursday morning we all awoke to the story of the murder and corpse desecration of an infant, the child being the reason for an Amber Alert earlier in the week. Victor Minjarez was arrested and booked on the two counts of murder and desecrating a human corpse after he was found on Wednesday afternoon.
On February 23rd the mother of the 7 month old baby had filed a VPO, which led to the Amber Alert over a February 19th domestic disturbance at the 1500 block of Lake crest Drive. Minjarez had take the baby after attacking the woman, then sending messages stating that the mother would never see the child again. Minjarez gave an improbable story of a baby sleeping next to a heater next to a mattress, blisters on the child's face, and the baby passing away with him not knowing what to do. Minjarez then claimed he had wrapped the body in a blanket, placed inside two trash bags, and dumped the body in a trash can outside his home. Minjarez admitted that he didn't call the police or 911 because he was wanted by the police for a failure to appear in court case. A week later, after Minjarez's arrest the body was found in the same trash can.
 |
| Frmr Sheriff John Whetsel |
But this wasn't Minjarez's first brush with the law. Minjarez appears to have been a drug dealer who was arrested in January of 2009 for possession of drugs with the intent to distribute marijuana, cocaine trafficking, possessing mescaline for the intent of distributing, possession of drug paraphernalia, and trafficking in meth. Three others were similarly charged and all three resulted in guilty pleas or dismissed charges as the felonies were plead down to simple possession of marijuana to avoid the cost of a trial for the state.
All of the charges were either dismissed and or deferred. The four drug traffickers walked out of the court room on suspended misdemeanors. Minjarez accepted his plea deal in July of 2009, receiving a five year deferred sentence and orders to be assessed for drug or alcohol problems and to pay a few hundred dollars in fines immediately and another $900 or so fines to be paid later.
 |
| OK Cnty pub defender Bob Ravitz |
A few months later in February of 2010 Minjarez's deferred charges are accelerated as he has refused to pay his fines and fees after being warned via a mailed letter. On the 12th of February an arrest warrant is filed. In September of 2010 Minjarez hires a bondman to get him out of jail on a $2000 bond for failure to pay fines and the accelerate sentence which had been plead down from multiple felonies to a misdemeanor of possession weed.
By this time one of the four defendants had been regularly paying his fines. Another apparently finally was swept up on the original warrant and had plead out. But by January of 2011 Minjarez had once again failed to appear and a warrant was issued for his arrest. In May the bondsman has paid the cash bond which had been forfeited when Minjarez fled. But the bondsman got his man and a month later Minjarez found himself hiring another bondsman for a $4000 bond to get out of jail. But by September another arrest warrant is issued for Minjarez as he once again failed to appear for a court hearing. The bond is again forfeited, Minjarez is found and returned to jail in October of 2011
In late October Minjarez makes another plea deal to a five year deferred sentence and agrees to start paying $50.00 per month in fines . Minjarez must have paid a bit of money but not much because by September of 2012 another arrest warrant was issued.
The court system sees no more of Minjarez, no money paid on fines, income tax intercepts were uselessly filed, and Minjarez remained on the run for the next six years while almost certainly living right here in Oklahoma City. As he had pleaded guilty there was no bond and thus no bondsman to chase him down and the sheriff and D.A didn't consider him a priority.
 |
| Justice Reformer, Kriss Steele |
The mother of course was no angel either according to her court records. Arrested on various felonies and misdemeanors including concealing stolen property, assaulting a police officer, bodily fluids placed on a police officer, resisting arrest, multiple driving with a suspended license arrests, assault and battery, criminal probable cause (no action followed), public drunk /assaulting a police officer/ bodily fluids on a police officer which earned her five years suspended sentence with the 90 days served in the county jail, then charges on contraband (caught with meth while in jail) smuggled into a penal institution earning her another five years suspended sentence, Harrington was reported to be pregnant with the baby during her jail term last year and had worked as a stripper at the Red Dog Cafe in Oklahoma City.
This was a baby that didn't deserve to die by blunt force trauma or any other way. It was also a baby that shouldn't have been born had the mother been sentenced to prison for her previous crimes along with the father for his laundry list of drug trafficking crimes. Both ought to have been getting out of prison about now. And the blame for this death ought to be laid at the feet of Kris Steele for his soft on crime agenda, former Sheriff John Whetsel, and Oklahoma County D.A. David Prater for cutting plea deals that release violent and dangerous criminals back out on the street after a slap on the wrist.
