By The Star Staff
Pedro Amengual Gutiérrez and Imalay Arroyo Surita pleaded guilty earlier this week to assaulting several police officers and destroying public and private property in La Parguera in Lajas.
The guilty plea was registered Tuesday through a pre-agreed plea with the Public Prosecutor’s Office.
The defendants accepted charges of conspiracy, threat or attacks against officials of the justice system and justice itself. The prosecutor’s office reclassified the crime of using violence or intimidation against public authority to a charge of resistance or obstruction of public authority and eliminated the complaint of the use of a knife, while maintaining that one had been carried by one of the accused.
Judge Vilmary Rodríguez Pardo of the Mayagüez Court of First Instance scheduled the sentencing hearing for Sept. 10.
The criminal proceedings against the other defendants, Francheska Vélez Ramírez, Sheila Mejías Luciano, Juan Rodríguez González and Iona Fournier Gómez, will continue on Aug. 30, when a hearing will be held on the status of the case. According to the investigation by the island Police Bureau, on July 9 of last year, around 11 a.m., the demonstrators destroyed property at the residence of Irma Mercedes Llavona, breaking a window, water pipes and an electricity meter and dismantling a fence and a wooden pier. Police agents arrived at the scene and arrested the accused, some of whom resisted arrest and assaulted police officers.
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