Laura Hernandez
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Laura Hernandez (born ca. 1972) is a Puerto Rican woman who is a former television news reporter for Tele-Once. Nowadays, she is jailed in the Dominican Republic, accused of drug trafficking. Hernandez is also a former beauty queen.
Hernandez gained much fame in Puerto Rico during the middle and late 1990s as a news reporter. At the time, she was portrayed a lot on such gossip magazines as Vea and Teve Guia, publications which informed the general public about her way of living and other details about her life.
Late in 2002, she and her husband, Marcos Irizarri, were arrested by the Dominican police and charged with trafficking drugs to their country. Hernandez and Irizarri had been in the Caribbean country for nearly a week, touring through different cities and places. According to police reports, their every move had been monitored by police while there. They were arrested while eating at a restaurant. The police said they had found drugs in a private boat where the couple had been travelling.
Hernandez has had chronic stomach disease since she was a child, and her condition worsened the first weeks she was in jail, requiring hospitalization at a medical center outside jail. Her arrest and subsequent trial made the headlines all over Puerto Rico, El Nuevo Dia, El Vocero, and other newspapers giving it wide coverage. During that time also, she received frequent visits from family members and friends.
In June of 2003, Hernandez was sentenced to seven years in jail, and her husband to fifteen. On October 29 it was announced that Hernandez will face a new trial, which could lead to her regaining her freedom. The trial began on November 14.
On March 19, 2004, her defense team suffered a serious setback, when a motion to remove audiovisual evidence from her second trial was rejected by the court.
On December 14 of that year, rumors began to spread that she might get a medical release from jail, due to her stomach disease. Puerto Rican television gossiper Kobbo Santarrosa criticized the idea, arguing that her husband, Marcos, who has cancer, should be considered for release first.
On January of 2005, Hernandez was denied the medical release.
On March 15 of that year, however, and after the deaths in a jail riot of Edwin Adams Cotto and another friend of hers, it was announced that Dominican judges were considering awarding Hernandez an indult.
Also see
External link
- A poll (in Spanish) about whether she's innocent or guilty (http://vote.sparklit.com/poll.spark/681197)