Tag: st. john the baptist sheriff’s office

Viusqui Perez-Espinosa sentenced, again, to life in prison for Kenner murder, dismemberment

A Jefferson Parish judge on Thursday (Feb. 9) sentenced Viusqui Perez-Espinosa to life in prison for murdering his rival in a Kenner love triangle before cutting up the body and dumping the parts in a St. John the Baptist Parish swamp.

Perez, 50, was convicted as charged last week of the second-degree murder of Ives Alexis Portales-Lara.  Portales was last seen alive on the evening of Jan. 11, 2016, in the Baylor Place apartment complex he shared with a woman and her ex-boyfriend, Perez.

Portales, who moved to the New Orleans area to be near his young daughter, was a native of Honduras and was 28.

Perez was convicted of the murder and of obstruction of justice in 2018. But the jury in that trial returned with a non-unanimous verdict on the murder count. Perez received a new trial for the murder, only, in 2020, after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Ramos vs. Louisiana that non-unanimous verdicts are unconstitutional.

The second jury seated to weigh the murder charge deliberated about four hours before returning with its unanimous guilty verdict on Jan. 31.

Perez and Portales were friends and coworkers whose commonality extended to a woman. Perez was sexually involved with her, but that relationship ended after she needed medical care that took her out of the United States briefly and he became involved with another woman.

Portales moved into the apartment with Perez’s ex, and that arrangement evolved into a sexual relationship. Perez, who temporarily moved back into the apartment, learned of the relationship and wanted to end it. On the morning of Jan. 11, 2016, Perez sexually assaulted the woman in the apartment after Portales departed to work. He returned to the apartment that evening and was never seen again.

The following month, a fisherman found the right arm in the Reserve Canal off Interstate 10, just west of LaPlace. The torso and leg parts were found by pipeline workers in the area the following week. The remaining body parts were never located.

DNA was used to confirm the parts were Portales’, leading to Perez’s indictment and convictions. At trial, he asserted self-defense.

Following the first trial, Judge Ellen Shirer Kovach of the 24th Judicial District Court sentenced Perez to the 40-year maximum for obstruction of justice, for his attempts to conceal the murder. The jury was unanimous on that charge, and his conviction remained intact. The life sentence she gave him in 2018 was overturned due to the Ramos decision.

On Thursday, Judge Kovach denied the defense’s motions for post-verdict judgment of acquittal and for a new trial. After hearing impact statements written by Portales’ family in Honduras, Judge Kovach sentenced Perez to the mandatory punishment of life in prison, without suspension of sentence, parole or probation, for killing Portales.

Judge Kovach ran the life sentence consecutive to the 40-year sentence she gave him in 2018 for obstruction of justice, and consecutive to the 6-month jail sentence she gave Perez last week in holding him in contempt for his lashing out at a prosecutor during her cross-examination.

Judge Kovach further denied a defense motion to reconsider the sentence, saying “the facts and circumstances of this case are particularly egregious.”

Assistant District Attorneys Kellie Rish and Richard Olivier prosecuted the case.

In ‘Ramos’ retrial, Kenner man convicted anew of murdering, dismembering rival in love triangle

A Jefferson Parish jury on Tuesday night (Jan. 31) found Viusqui Perez-Espinosa guilty of killing his rival for the affections of a woman in Kenner. After killing Ives Alexis Portales-Lara, Perez disarticulated the body and dumped the parts in a St. John the Baptist swamp in 2016.

Perez, 50, a native of Cuba and a former butcher, was convicted as charged of second-degree murder, jurors unanimously decided during almost four hours of deliberations.

This brings to two the number of times he’s been convicted of killing Portales, 28. A non-unanimous jury found him guilty in March 2018, and he was sentenced to mandatory life in prison.

However, in its April 2020 Ramos vs. Louisiana decision, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that non-unanimous jury verdicts are unconstitutional. As a result, Louisiana’s 5th Circuit Court of Appeal in September 2020 ordered that Perez would be retried for the second-degree murder.

Perez also was convicted in his 2018 trial of obstruction of justice for disposing Portales’ remains and cleaning the crime scene to cover up his crime. That jury was unanimous on that count. He is serving a 40-year sentence for that crime.

Perez and Portales were friends and co-workers who were romantically involved with the same woman, albeit at different times. Perez was first involved with the woman before their 18-month relationship ended in September 2016. Portales’ secret relationship with her began soon after he moved into the Baylor Place apartment with her.

Perez wanted to rekindle the relationship and wanted Portales out of the picture. Three days before the murder, Perez moved in with Portales and the woman. He offered Portales money to move out. Portales declined.

On the morning of Nov. 11, 2016, Perez sexually assaulted the woman after Portales left for work. Portales was last seen alive that afternoon when he returned to the apartment from his job.

The Kenner Police Department opened a missing persons investigation soon after. When questioned, Perez repeatedly denied knowing of Portales’ whereabouts. An officer noticed blood on the sofa, leading police to obtain a search warrant. Perez, meanwhile, was arrested on suspicion of raping the woman.

Using chemicals and a special light, Kenner police found evidence of a large amount of blood on the floor that had been recently cleaned. The police also found evidence of blood spatter on the walls, a plant and on the sofa, and on a jacket in the trunk of Perez’s car.

The Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office’s Crime Lab used DNA analysis to determine that the blood in the apartment and on the jacket belonged to Portales. Analysts accomplished this by matching his genetic material recovered from his personal items in the apartment to that of his daughter.

The investigation expanded to include the St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office in late December 2016, when dismembered human remains were discovered in the Reserve Canal off Interstate 10.

A Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office DNA analyst then confirmed the body parts belonged to Portales. Perez was then booked with his murder.

Police recovered numerous text messages Perez sent to others in which he used derogatory terms to describe Portales and his anger over his rival continuing to live in the apartment.

Testifying Tuesday, Perez denied sexually assaulting the woman. He told jurors that on the evening of Nov. 11, 2016, Portales attacked him with a knife. During the struggle that followed, Perez alleged, the knife cut Portales’ neck, and he bled to death.

Pressed by a prosecutor during cross-examination to describe what he did to the body, Perez cried and in Spanish called her a “torturer” and “a Nazi.” For that, Perez was held in contempt of court and was sentenced to six months in jail.

Although Perez described a violent struggle, a neighbor in the adjacent apartment described only hearing the vent hood motor whirring above Perez’s stovetop for several hours. The neighbor then noted the smell of bleach emanating from next door.

The jury returned with his guilty verdict just before 11 p.m., ending the 7-day-long trial. Judge Ellen Shirer Kovach of the 24th Judicial District Court is scheduled to sentence Perez on Feb. 9.

Assistant District Attorneys Kellie Rish and Richard Olivier prosecuted the case.

 

Kenner man sentenced to life plus 40 years in murder and dismemberment case

 

Convicted of killing his rival in a Kenner love triangle before dismembering the slain man’s body and discarding the parts in a River Parishes swamp, Viusqui J. Perez-Espinosa was sentenced Thursday (April 26) to spend the rest of his life in prison plus 40 years.

Perez, 45, a Cuban national whose work history included that of a butcher, was convicted as charged last month of the second-degree murder of Alexis Portales-Lara on Nov. 11, 2016. Portales was murdered in the Baylor Place apartment he shared with his lover, a woman who also is a Cuban national and who previously was romantically involved with Perez.

According to trial testimony, Perez hoped to rekindle the relationship, and Portales was in the way.

On the day after he killed Portales, Perez disarticulated the body, stuffed the remains in garbage bags and drove to St. John the Baptist Parish, where he dumped the bags into the swamp near the Reserve Canal off Interstate 10.

For his efforts to conceal his crime, Perez also was convicted as charged of obstruction of justice and was sentenced Thursday to the maximum 40 years in prison.

Portales, a Honduran national, moved to East Jefferson to be close to his young daughter, according to trial evidence.

Portales’ ex-wife provided a statement to the court in lieu of live impact testimony on Thursday, expressing the emotional and financial hardships she and their 5-year-old daughter suffer because of his death.

“With tears in her eyes, she tells me, ‘Mommy, I miss my daddy,’” the mother wrote.

Portales and Perez worked together for a scaffold company in Norco. Portales moved in with Perez’s ex-girlfriend in Kenner. She later allowed Perez to temporarily move in with them after his relationship with another woman ended, according to evidence presented to the jury.

Portales was last seen alive on the evening of Nov. 11, 2016. The Kenner Police Department initially investigated the matter as a missing person’s complaint and found blood in the Baylor Place apartment. That blood was later determined to be Portales’, according to evidence presented during the trial.

Then, on Dec. 29, 2016, a fisherman found a right arm in the Reserve Canal. The following month, pipeline workers who were dredging the canal found the legs and torso. The remains were determined to be Portales, whose head and left arm have not been located.

At trial, the jury heard testimony about Perez sexually assaulting his ex-girlfriend in the apartment after Portales went to work. Perez, who denies assaulting the woman, asserted he was defending himself from Portales’ attack. During the scuffle, Perez asserted in trial testimony, Portales stabbed himself in the neck and caused his own death.

Perez testified that the body was too heavy for him to move, so he cut it into pieces. His attorney told jurors that he panicked.

At the end of a six-day trial, a Jefferson Parish jury on March 26 convicted Perez as charged of second-degree murder and obstruction of justice.

After denying defense motions for a new trial and post-verdict judgment of acquittal on Thursday, Judge Ellen Shirer Kovach of the 24th Judicial District Court handed down the sentences, which she ran consecutively.

Judge Kovach noted, “I can think of no worse obstruction of justice than that which occurred in this case.”

Assistant District Attorneys Kellie Rish and Richard Olivier prosecuted the case.

 

 

Kenner man convicted of killing, dismembering rival in love triangle

Viusqui J. Perez-Espinosa was convicted Monday night (March 26) of murdering his ex-girlfriend’s new lover in Kenner before dismembering the body and dumping the parts in a St. John the Baptist Parish swamp.

Perez, 45, a Cuban national who had worked as a butcher, was convicted as charged of the second-degree murder of Ives Alexis Portales-Lara, 27. A Honduran immigrant who moved to East Jefferson to be near his young daughter, Portales was murdered Nov. 11, 2016, in the Baylor Place apartment he shared with Perez and the woman who was the third leg in their love triangle.

Perez also was convicted of obstruction of justice, for his efforts to conceal his crime. The day after he killed Portales, Perez disarticulated the body, packed the remains in garbage bags, stuffed them in his car’s trunk and drove to St. John the Baptist Parish, where he threw them off the Interstate 10 bridge over the swamps near the Reserve Canal, according to evidence presented during the trial.

“It was the most brutal possible way to die and be disposed of,” Assistant District Attorney Kellie Rish told jurors in opening statements.

“I’ve never seen a case when a victim is cut into pieces and thrown away like trash,” Assistant District Attorney Richard Olivier told jurors in closing argument.

According to evidence presented at trial, Perez and Portales were friends and co-workers at a scaffolding company who romanced the same woman. Perez was sexually involved with the woman for about 18 months before the relationship ended in September 2016. Portales moved in with her in her Baylor Place apartment, and a secret romantic relationship began.

Perez, who worked as a fisherman and boat captain in Cuba and as a butcher in Honduras before he migrated to the United States, pined for her affections and wanted Portales out of the picture, according to trial evidence.

With Portales’ blessing, his ex-girlfriend who also is a native of Cuba, allowed Perez to move in with them on Nov. 8, 2016, three days before the murder. Perez, aware of rumors of Portales’ relationship, offered his rival money to move into his own apartment.

On the morning of Nov. 11, 2016, after Portales left for work, Perez allegedly sexually assaulted his former girlfriend in her bed. Portales was last seen alive that evening.

The Kenner Police Department was notified, marking the start of a missing persons investigation. Officers responding to the complaint visited the Baylor Place apartment and noticed blood on the floor.

Using luminol, Kenner police later found blood on a wall, the ceiling and on furniture. Blood also was found in the trunk of Perez’s car. In the meantime, police booked Perez based on his ex-girlfriend’s assertion that he sexually assaulted her.

Later in November 2016, amid the missing persons investigation, the blood from the apartment was determined to belong to Portales, Dr. Marcela Zozaya, a forensic DNA analyst with the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office, testified. Dr. Zozaya likened the process to a paternity test, by matching the genetic material she extracted from the blood to that of Portales’ daughter.

On Dec. 29, 2016, a fisherman found a right arm in the Reserve Canal. On Jan. 12, 2017, pipeline workers dredging the canal found the legs and torso, according to the testimony. Portales’ head and left arm have not been found. The St. John the Baptist Parish Sheriff’s Office joined the investigation.

Through DNA analysis, Dr. Zozaya determined that the body parts belonged to Portales, she testified. Perez was then booked and subsequently charged with Portales’ murder.

Perez’s attorney asserted that Portales attacked Perez thinking that Perez sexually assaulted his girlfriend, an accusation that Perez denied. Testifying on Monday, Perez told jurors that Portales attacked him with a knife, and during the ensuing struggle, Portales cut his own throat and died as a result. The body was too heavy for him to carry to the trunk of his car, he testified. He refused to describe cutting up the body.

After a six-day trial during which more than 1,200 exhibits were presented by the state, the Jefferson Parish jury deliberated 2 ½ hours before delivering its verdicts. Judge Ellen Shirer Kovach of the 24th Judicial District Court is scheduled to sentence Perez to a mandatory life sentence in prison on April 26.

Assistant District Attorneys Kellie Rish and Richard Olivier prosecuted the case.