Jury Finds Santa Fé Teen-Ager Not Guilty of Murder

By GEOFF GRAMMER/The New Mexican

March 22, 2002, page A-1

A state district-court jury found 17-year-old Fred Mestas not guilty of second-degree murder late Thursday night in the knifing death of 19-year-old Jason Vasquez last summer.

However, the jury was unable to determine whether Mestas was guilty of tampering with evidence on June 13, when he stabbed Vasquez to death at the Cottonwood Village mobile-home park in south Santa Fe.

Mestas contended he was being attacked by several people and acted in self-defense when he stabbed Vasquez.

Mestas told the court this week he had armed himself with a 6-inch kitchen knife when he left a friend's house in the mobile-home park and headed for the home of a teen-ager named Vince Brito, where Mestas thought he might find his ex-girlfriend.

However, before he got to Brito's house, Vasquez reportedly stopped Mestas in the street of the mobile-home park. "I'm going to teach you a lesson," Mestas quoted Vasquez as saying. Mestas had been involved in a fight with a friend of Vasquez's earlier in the day.

Mestas claimed he was then attacked by several people and stabbed Vasquez in self-defense.

Defense attorney Stephen Aarons said Mestas had a choice when he stabbed Vasquez. "It was me (Mestas) or them," the attorney said.

Assistant District Attorney Barbara Romo called the stabbing a "cowardly act."

"It is easy to claim self-defense, and it's easy to come in here and sling mud at Jason Vasquez because he's not here," Romo said.

Mestas took the knife with him and went looking for trouble, according to Assistant District Attorney Kit Ayala. "What this case is not about is self-defense," Ayala said.

Much of the defense's argument was based on the allegation that the men who attacked Mestas were in a gang.

Romo said there was no evidence any of the people involved were affiliated with a gang and compared Aaron's allegation to a deceptive magic trick to take the jury's attention away from the real issue.

But Aarons said: "It's time for us all to pull our heads out of the sand about gangs."

Romo said Mestas indicated he told a Santa Fe corrections officer in January that he "felt guilty" about what happened.

"The defendant felt guilty because he knew he was guilty," Romo said.