posted 06-10-2004 01:56 AM                       

quote:

---

How net finally closed on a loner in city full of drifters (Filed: 08/06/2004)

Suspect dodged justice in cheap student hostels until one man's curiosity and a crucial mistake led to his capture. David Millward reports from Miami.

The net finally closed around Francisco Arce Montes at lunchtime on March 11 2001 when he was arrested beside the pool at the Banana Bungalow hostel in Miami Beach. His undoing was Tommy Ontko, an immigration intelligence officer who prides himself in the simplest of job descriptions: "Tracking down the bad guys."

Mr Ontko, 55, a Vietnam veteran and member of the National Rifle Association, is based 1,376 miles from Miami, at Detroit airport. But it was his curiosity that launched the chain of events that led to Arce Montes's capture. Nearly two years earlier, a man travelling on a Spanish passport in the name of Javier Arce Montes had arrived at Miami airport. He did not declare his criminal convictions on his immigration form, his documents were in order and nothing came up on the officials' computer.

Arce Montes, who is also believed to have been carrying an Argentine passport, had chosen his destination well. With a large Hispanic population, Miami Beach posed no language problems, and he blended with the cosmopolitan mix of tourists, drifters and seasonal workers. He found lodgings at one of the many cheap hostels-cum-hotels that Miami has to offer. But his exact movements and how he supported himself are unclear. There is no evidence that he worked.

Court documents show that he had $600 (£353) on him when he was arrested, and he declared monthly expenses of $500 (£294). But between his arrival in America in 1999 to his arrest in March 2001 he was able to find the money for a series of flights to and from Latin America. Immigration records indicated that he took care not to overstay the 90-day limit, a condition of entering the country without a visa.

On May 9 1999, Arce Montes tried to check into the Tropics Hotel. His custom was declined, according to computer records. He moved to the Clay Hotel, a hostel a few hundred yards away. But a dispute arose over payment, police were called and he was thrown out.

"The first time I met this guy was when he was late paying his rent," said Axel Boorman, who worked on reception. "I looked him up in the computer and he used several different names." On May 29, the Spaniard boarded a flight to Bogota, Colombia. He returned to America using a passport under the name of Francisco Arce Montes on Aug 1.

In the early hours of Aug 16, he broke into the room that a 25-year-old French tourist was sharing with four other guests at the Banana Bungalow. She awoke to see a man masturbating. He fled before she could get help and she realised he had cut off her underwear with scissors. Later that day Arce Montes left Miami for Costa Rica. He returned on Sept 7, this time as Javier Arce Montes. On Oct 5, a female guest at the Clay Hotel complained about a man entering their rooms and making a nuisance of himself. Mr Boorman chased him out of the hotel and police were called.

"I told them this was the guy I kicked out a few months ago," said Mr Boorman. "The police put him up against their patrol car and searched him. They found a small pair of scissors and a flashlight." But police had little reason to appreciate the significance of what was in his pockets and he was released. A few days later Arce Montes thought it prudent to fly to Bogota.

He stayed away from America for more than a year, and is known to have visited Chile and Argentina. Arce Montes - or F Javier Arce Montes - returned on Feb 24 2001. Again he was allowed into the country even though he told immigration officials the name of a fictitious hotel.

He checked into the Banana Bungalow, where about 100 young tourists were staying. The accommodation was as austere as one would expect where guests paid a little over £10 a night for a shared room. Jordan Darian, 23, the barman, remembered Arce Montes as uncommunicative. "He was very quiet; he used to sit at the bar and watch TV. He never really talked to anyone and never seemed to have much money on him. He just drank water."

At 7am on Saturday March 10, five young women from Ireland, exhausted after a 600-mile trip from university in South Carolina, arrived at the Banana Bungalow. They went to bed in room 144, very late. One of the students, driven by the heat to do without blanket or duvet, fell asleep at 3.30am. The following morning she awoke to find a towel over her. The G-string and boxer shorts in which she had been sleeping had been cut with scissors.

About an hour earlier Arce Montes was seen straddling a girl in another room. Ximena Gonzales, 29, a Chilean tourist, said: "I walked in and saw him touching this girl who was sleeping. "I shouted at him, he started beating his head and saying, 'Sorry, sorry, sorry'. He was always hanging around. He was friendly but in a dirty way, kept looking at the girls."

The next day, Miss Gonzales noticed him standing by the pool. Having heard that another incident during the night was being investigated, she called police. When Arce Montes was arrested, he at first denied any knowledge of the incidents, then he said he might have been drunk.

Challenged about his behaviour, he replied: "Is it illegal to masturbate when she doesn't know anything?" At that point he was regarded as a minor criminal and Judge David Young, who was hearing the case, was on the point of granting him bail for a nominal amount.

But the wheels of American justice moved slowly, and he was still in custody when Mr Ontko picked up an English newspaper at Detroit airport. "They are a good source of intelligence," Mr Ontko said. "I glance at them a couple of times a week."

With a son the same age as Caroline Dickinson, he found special resonance in the story of her death, and read that the French authorities were appealing for more information about a prime suspect called Arce Montes. "I tapped his name into a couple of databases and very quickly retrieved somebody of the same name and roughly the same age," he said. One suspect, who had been arrested a few weeks previously for "lewd and lascivious conduct" in Miami, stood out.

The complicated nature of Spanish names made it difficult to match the suspects. Were they seeking a Francisco Montes, a Francisco Arce Montes or a Francisco Arce? Mr Ontko contacted Interpol in Lyons and then Ronald Frankel, the British Consul in Brittany, who liaised with the French police. "I said I needed an exact date of birth and he asked for a little time." Mr Ontko also called an old friend, Rich Hayward, a detective in Miami Dade.

Events moved fast as his hunch grew into something far more significant. Mr Ontko asked his friend for a photograph and finger prints of the man being held in Miami, and these arrived within 20 minutes. "I would bet my pay check he did more crimes like this in South America and other places he has been," Mr Hayward said.

"Criminals don't stop at town lines, state lines or even international borders. It seems that they all end up in Miami." Contact was made with the French police team as they travelled to Portsmouth for discussions with their English counterparts. There was a flurry of calls and faxes across America and the Atlantic.

By the time the French officers arrived in England, the information Mr Ontko had gleaned from Florida was awaiting them. Back in Miami, Arce Montes made a crucial mistake. He gave American immigration staff a false name. They obtained a detention order, which kept him in custody. A copy of DNA evidence derived from semen taken from Caroline's body was sent to Florida, and a team of French detectives crossed the Atlantic to gather more samples.

Audrey Frank-Ponte, who was prosecuting the case in Miami, realised she was not dealing with a minor pervert, but an international fugitive. The carefully choreographed finale took place in Court 4-3 of Miami's Richard Gerstein Justice Building.

Standing in court, Arce Montes was startled to hear the charges had been dropped. Judge Young told him he was free to leave the court. But at the same time US marshals advanced towards him. "His face was ashen; it was very dramatic," the judge recalled. Still in handcuffs, Arce Montes was taken by a police car to the airport, where French police officers were waiting for him.

In Miami, police, lawyers and immigration officials shared one sentiment, summed up by one of Judge Young's colleagues: "I hope he gets what is coming to him."

---

posted 06-10-2004 10:05 AM                    

quote: Nate Lehrke

---

Why does this seem to be happening more & more now? What screws are getting loose suggesting to these guys that you can do this?

---

Go watch Bowling for Columbine.

And it's not happening more and more, it's just being reported more. Nowadays, we have many more sources for information than we did just 10 years ago, and it's more instant. Unfortunatley, those who control these information outlets feel they need to saturate us with such "content." I guess people just get it in their minds that hundreds of murders happen every day, so what's just one more, right?

=TMP=