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Published
by the Corpus Christi Caller-Times. CLICK FOR NEWSPAPER DELIVERY
Thursday, April 4, 2002
Escolero gets 65 years in prison
By Guy Lawrence
Caller-Times
Man found guilty of kidnapping San Antonio archbishop, secretary
ROCKPORT - After deliberating for more than six hours Wednesday, a jury sentenced a Salvadoran man to 65 years in prison for the June 2000 kidnapping of San Antonio Archbishop Patrick Flores.
Nelson Antonio Escolero, 42, also was sentenced to a 25-year prison sentence, to run concurrently with the longer sentence, for the kidnapping of Myrtle Sanchez, the archbishop's secretary.
The seven-woman, five-man panel on March 27 found the 42-year-old Salvadoran guilty of two counts of aggravated kidnapping in the San Antonio incident.
During the punishment phase of the trial, the jury learned Escolero had been indicted recently for murder in Bexar County.
Witnesses came forward after Escolero was arrested for the hostage incident, prosecutors said.
Escolero was convicted of taking Flores and his secretary hostage at the Roman Catholic Chancery on June 28, 2000.
District Judge Bert Richardson presided over the case, which was moved to Rockport from San Antonio because of extensive publicity.
Defense attorneys argued Escolero was not guilty by reason of insanity.
They argued that Escolero was suffering from delusions when he took the hostages.
During closing arguments, Bexar County prosecutors said Escolero was acting out of rage and knew that taking the archbishop and his secretary hostage with a fake hand grenade was wrong. Bexar County Assistant District Attorney Kevin O'Connell said Escolero is a dangerous man.
His past troubles with the law indicated that he knew the difference between right and wrong, he said.
To have established insanity, Escolero's defense would have had to prove that, through some mental disease or defect, their client did not know his conduct was wrong.
Contact Guy Lawrence at _886-3792 or lawrenceg@caller.com
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