Jose Alvarez, Murder, New York 1999

Jose Alvarez, a 54-year-old man from the Dominican Republic, has been charged with the brutal 1999 murder of Jose Miguel Mendez in New York.

According to the allegations, Alvarez and his co-conspirators planned to rob and kill Mendez to obtain money to invest in a drug robbery in Puerto Rico. On the night of the robbery and murder, Alvarez and his co-conspirators ambushed Mendez inside an apartment in the Bronx, where they restrained him with duct tape, burned him, and questioned him.

Alvarez and one of his co-conspirators then took Mendez to a location in Upper Manhattan, where Mendez was shot in the head, resulting in his death.

Alvarez was previously arrested in the Dominican Republic and was extradited to the Southern District of New York last Friday. He was presented before U.S. Magistrate Judge Katharine H. Parker yesterday and detained.

The case is being handled by the Office’s Violent and Organized Crime Unit. Assistant United States Attorneys Sarah Krissoff and Michael Maimin are in charge of the prosecution.

Manhattan U.S. Attorney Geoffrey S. Berman praised the excellent work of the ATF, the New York City Police Department, and the Special Agents of the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York. Berman also thanked Dominican authorities, the Office of International Affairs of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and the United States Marshals Service for their assistance.

Alvarez faces one count of causing the death of another through the use of a firearm in connection with a crime of violence and a drug trafficking crime, and aiding and abetting the same, which carries a mandatory minimum sentence of five years in prison and maximum sentence of life in prison.

The charges contained in the Indictment are merely accusations, and the defendant is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty.

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