I’m a Thief and an Addict but I Didn’t Kill Anyone

I’m many things, but I’m not a killer. I didn’t kill anyone. This is my story.

My name is Jaime Jezzuel Lopez. I was born in Uruapan, Michoacan, Mexico. I immigrated to the United States in 1999 when I was 17-years-old. I left my mother, older sister and younger brother, looking for a better future. My single mother worked every day, but the money she earned was not enough. We were poor.

My first job in the United States was gardening in an apartment complex. I later worked in maintenance. The satisfaction of being able to help my family was great. However, my education—school was always on my mind. I did not speak English, so I enrolled in an ESL night class in Santa Ana, California. On the first day of class our teacher asked every study why we wanted to learn English. My answer was, “Porque quiero ir a la universidad y terminar una carrera.” (“Because I want to go to the University and finish a career.”) With a smile on his face the teacher asked me, “Do you know how much it costs to go to college?”

In the fall of 2000 I began my first semester in Santiago Canyon College in Orange, California. Four years later, with the help of the Adult Education Program on campus, I earned my high school diploma. In the spring of 2006, I graduated from college with an associates degree in liberal arts. Six years in college while working full-time in a restaurant was not easy. My family was proud. I was proud and happy. Still, my dream was to become a journalist — a reporter for Univision News in Spanish. I applied to several universities. I got accepted to Cal. State Long Beach, where I enrolled with a major in broadcast journalism. Sponsors helped me pay for my first two classes, books, and parking permit. By then, my younger brother had come to the U.S. from Mexico. He started working hard and going to school. He soon graduated from El Madena High School and enrolled in Santiago Canyon College. My mother was no longer in debt. She and my sister were granted tourist visas and came to visit. My dreams were becoming a reality. These were my happiest days.

Driving without a license was always a fear. On August 28, 2006, I was ordered to pull over. Instead, I panicked, sped up, and ended up going the wrong direction. My car was taken, and I was arrested for reckless driving and driving without a driver’s license. My brother bailed my out of jail. The weight on my shoulders started to feel heavy.

It got even heavier when the secrets of my life were revealed to my family—that I am gay and was molested when I was eleven years old. My family was heartbroken. These truths were not easy to understand or accept. From feeling like a role model, I went to feeling like a disgrace.

I felt ashamed. I did not deal with rejection the right way. I stopped contact with my family and closest friends. I met a guy in a club who offered me a place to stay, and I moved in with him. I started smoking methamphetamine with him and became an addict. My life changed. I dropped out of school, quit my job, and my new circle of friends was all drug users. I started looking for love in all the wrong places—book stores, clubs, parks.

I met Trung P. online and started a relationship with him. He was smart and an expert in computers. He taught me credit card fraud. Trung and I stole mail from mailboxes and gym bags, along with wallets, cell phones, and car keys, from 24-hour fitness clubs. I became a thief. Trung became like a boss who would get violent when things did not go his way. I was lost and alone. I was a failure. Getting high was the only thing that would numb the emptiness I felt.

I went to a park in Santa Ana to buy crystal meth. There I met Ivan A. He was a dealer, and I became a regular customer. Ivan and I started hanging out. We went to clubs, out to eat, to the movies. We became friends. We had a lot in common: both gay, addicts, and in abusive relationships.

On June 4, 2007, Ivan showed up in the garage/studio where Trung and I lived in Garden Grove. Ivan woke me up to tell me he had gotten into a fight with his boyfriend when he came back from work. I saw bruises and cuts that Ivan claimed were from his boyfriend. He asked me if he could borrow my Jeep because his car, a two-door white Mustang, was too small. But my Jeep was in the shop getting the transmission rebuilt. Ivan asked me to go with him. I did not want to go. Ivan insisted and promised to pay me back for a computer and printer I had pawned to lend him money months before. I agreed to go with him.

Ivan drove to his apartment. When we arrived, he opened the door and I followed him inside. Ivan told me to stay in the living room; I sat down on the couch while he went to another room. The place was dark. Drawers were open and stuff was on the floor. I called to Ivan and asked him what was all the mess. He didn’t answer. I could hear him moving around, talking to himself, sometimes cursing. Ivan came out carrying two pieces of luggage and left them in the living room. I asked him where the bathroom was. He showed me to the bathroom. I took a piss and went back to the living room. I started freaking out about the place being a mess. I asked Ivan what time his boyfriend was coming back from work, and he yelled, “Don’t worry about it!”

I went to the kitchen, got a glass and some water from the sink, drank the water, and put the glass on the kitchen counter. Ivan came out with another piece of luggage. I told him let’s go. He said he was staying and told me to take the luggage to his car. I asked him for the money he owed me and told him I wasn’t coming back for him. He assured me he was going to pay me and gave me his car keys. Ivan stayed at the apartment.

I drove home, left the luggage in the Mustang, and went inside to sleep. Some time that afternoon, Ivan came to my place, asked me for his car keys, and left. Late that evening, he returned and gave me two plastic grocery bags containing about twelve pieces of jewelry. I was expecting cash. Ivan told me the jewelry was worth more than the $1,000 he owed me. He left and I never saw him again. The next day, Trung and I went to a Vietnamese mall in Westminster and sold some of the jewelry for cash.

On July 16, 2007, Trung and I got into an argument. The homeowner heard the altercation and told us he was calling the cops. Trung and I had laptops, memory cards, mail we had stolen, jewelry, and watches we had kept from gym bags we stole, as well as the jewelry we had left from what Ivan had paid me with. We put everything inside our backpacks because we did not want the police to find it. I hid the two backpacks behind a storage shed in the back yard.

The police arrived. We explained that it had just been a breakup fight. When the police checked our information, it showed an arrest warrant for my not showing up to court, and I was deported to Mexico. I stayed in Mexico for a while, and then returned illegally to the United States. Trung’s family opened their house to me to live in Westminster. Trung had tried to recover our backpacks, but the homeowner told him he gave the backpacks to the police the day after I had been arrested.

Trung and I went to the Garden Grove Police Department. Trung did the talking and asked about the backpacks. The officer explained that unclaimed property is sent to an auction company or given to charity.

Trung and I continued our criminal lifestyle: getting high, stealing, and doing fraud. On March 14, 2008, we were both arrested and sentenced to 365 days in county jail for several counts of burglary, grand theft, and fraudulent acquisitions.

A month before our release date, we were called for an interview. Investigators showed me pictures of an apartment and told me they had witnesses who saw me taking stuff out of there. I told the investigators about Ivan. I repeated three times, step by step, my every move: what I did, heard, and touched. I told them what I saw Ivan doing and what he touched.

Investigators brought three pages of several mug shots, and I recognized Ivan in one of them. They showed me a picture of a guy I remembered having seen in a flyer posted in a book store in Garden Grove. Then they showed me pictures of a crime scene with lots of blood—the kind of pictures you see on TV shows. The interview turned into repeated accusations that I had killed the owner of the apartment. I told the investigators I had never owned or shot a gun before. They told me the name of the guy I killed was Mr. Harry, that I beat him to death, and that I was going to spend the rest of my life in prison.

Trung and I served one year in county jail. Trung went home, and I was booked for a murder case with the death penalty. My first public defender visited me once to tell me the death penalty had been dropped.

Mr. Weinberg was the third public defender assigned to my case. He visited me often, and I had the opportunity to tell him what happened the day I went to that apartment. I could not tell Mr. Weinberg that Ivan killed anyone because I did not see him do it. But there is no doubt in my heart that Ivan killed Mr. Harry. I told that to Mr. Weinberg and asked him to help me. Mr. Weinberg worked on my case for more than two years. He found out that Ivan had gotten deported to Mexico, that he had been interviewed about the case, and that Ivan denied we were in the apartment that day. Mr. Weinberg worked with an investigator who found out Ivan’s white Mustang had been registered in the city of Fullerton for years, and that Ivan’s address was in the same city, about a mile away from Mr. Harry’s apartment.

I spent five years in county jail before I went to trial. I dressed up in a suit for my first day of trial—jury selection. That day, Mr. Weinberg abandoned me. He told me he was not going to be able to represent me due to a conflict of interest. A few months after I was called for my first day of trial, I met Mr. Jensen, my new attorney. The jury was selected, and I went back for trial the following four days. My new attorney told me he was following up on what he had discussed with my previous attorney.

It did not take me long to realize my new attorney was not interested in talking to me. The D.A. was well prepared for trial. Next to him sat the investigator who had interviewed me years before. Witness after witness took the stand. I would sometimes ask my attorney to question a witness to clarify something. My attorney would pick up his cell phone and text during trial.

A day before my last day of trial, my attorney asked me if I wanted to take the stand, assuring me I did not have to. I told him I would take the stand. Until that day, Ivan A. had not been mentioned in trial at all. I had to tell the story of what happened. I asked Mr. Jensen for a translator. My level of nervousness would be lower if I spoke in my native language. Mr. Jensen said I should have requested a translator before trial started. I asked Mr. Jensen if he could visit me that day so I could talk to him and tell him what happened the day I went to the apartment with Ivan. He said he would do so, but he did not show up.

The next day, I went to court. Mr. Jensen apologized for not being able to visit me. He then asked me, “What questions do you want me to ask you?” As I was about to take the stand, I raised my hand and asked to talk to the judge. The judge asked the jury to leave the court room for a moment. I explained to the judge my situation: My previous attorney, Mr. Weinberg, had been working on my case for years. He knew every little detail of my case. He was going to defend me. Mr. Jensen became my attorney a couple of months ago, and without having visited me once, he is about to question me on the stand. I told the judge I felt Mr. Jensen was not prepared, and asked him for someone else to represent me. My petition was denied.

I took the stand. In my desperation to explain everything, I was stopped by the judge several times, telling me I need to answer either “yes” or “no” only. I was unable to explain in full what happened. I was convicted of first degree murder with special circumstances and sentenced to life without the possibility of parole.

I have been in prison for twelve years. I have not lost hope that the truth will come to light. I know in front of me I have a powerful monster who does not see me, hear me, nor is interested in me. I have been serving my time with the most integrity possible, free of drugs and violence. I stay productive, working, writing, reading, exercising, and drawing. My faith in God, the love and support of my family and friends, and my innocence have kept me strong to survive this place. I have experienced difficult, embarrassing, and dangerous situations.

I have grown and matured. I understand now that my life changed dramatically when I started doing drugs, and my criminal lifestyle led me to this situation where I am implicated in this crime. I have spent the years remembering how I used to steal from people. Acknowledging the pain I caused on those I stole from has helped me bear my own pain. I told myself that I deserve to be here, and that worked for years.

I started watching a show on ABC called For Life. I watched the movies Brian Banks and Just Mercy. Those stories awoke something inside me — hope that somebody might care enough to look into my case and help me fight for justice—justice for Mr. Harry’s family and for me.

Jaime Jezzuel Lopez

#AK8423

3803-246

P.O. Box 3466

Corcoran, CA 93212