Escapee's dad gets 10 years

[softheart]

June 7, 2003

By Kate Hunger, San Antonio Express-News

FLORESVILLE — A Wilson County jury sentenced Raul Rodriguez to 10 years in
prison Friday for providing a getaway car used by his son and six other
inmates in their escape from the Connally Unit near Kenedy.

((ph)Raul Rodriguez (right) is taken into custody after sentencing at the
Wilson County Courthouse in Floresville. He received two prison terms
Friday for helping his son and others escape prison. --- Karen L.
Shaw/Express-News)

The verdict capped a weeklong trial that began with Rodriguez's guilty
plea to charges of escape and providing implements of an escape to his
son, Michael Rodriguez, in the Dec. 13, 2000, prison break by convicted
murders, rapists and robbers that spurred a nationwide manhunt.

The jury gave Rodriguez 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine on the
escape charge and an additional five-year term and a $10,000 fine on the
other charge, but the prison terms will be served together.

District Attorney Lynn Ellison said the fines will be assessed in full,
but defense attorney Mark Stevens said he believes that, like the prison
time, they will be concurrent.

"We're just disappointed," Stevens said. "We thought we had a compelling
case for probation."

Rodriguez, who had been out on bond pending trial, was taken to the Wilson
County Jail, where he was expected to post a bond to regain his freedom
while his case is appealed.

"He made a mistake, ladies and gentleman, because he was blinded by his
love for his son," defense attorney Pat Hancock told jurors in his closing
arguments.

Rodriguez has maintained that he paid for a Suburban that his mistress and
friend dropped off near the prison because his son Michael told him he had
a sure-fire plan to start a new life. Rodriguez said he didn't know other
inmates would be along for the ride.

Both of Rodriguez's sons pleaded guilty in 1995 in the murder of Michael's
wife, Theresa Rodriguez.

He and three other of the inmates have since been sentenced to death in
the slaying of an Irving police officer gunned down during a robbery
carried out during the inmates' weeks on the run. They eventually were
captured in Colorado.

In their arguments to the jury, prosecutors rejected the sympathetic
portrait that Rodriguez's lawyers painted of the 64-year-old San Antonio
man's life, including a tough childhood, hearing and vision impairments,
and health problems.

"All of us have to work. All of us get old. All of us get sick. All of us
have good friends. All of us have good wives. But none of us have the
right to do what this man did to this community," said Assistant District
Attorney Herb Hancock, who is not related to Rodriguez's lawyer.

Ellison said Rodriguez helped his son escape not out of love, but to ease
his own guilt, and that he chose self-preservation over moral duty to go
to police with information about the escape before it led to robbery and
murder.

"You will not be taking him away from his family," Ellison said. "He took
himself away from them."

As he was led away, Rodriguez blew kisses to relatives, who declined
comment.

Nearby stood one of Theresa Rodriguez's sisters, Yolanda Dalmolin, who sat
through the trial and hoped for prison time.

Jurors deliberated for about four hours before returning their first
verdict, but District Judge Ron Carr sent them back to work after one of
the jurors said he did not agree with the decision. That verdict called
for 10 years in prison and a $10,000 fine on each charge. The jury
delivered its second and final verdict less than an hour later.

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Source : San Antonio Express-News