SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – A federal grand jury returned a two-count indictment charging Edgar Pabón Rivera and Axel Juarides Orozco with an armed carjacking of a couple in Luquillo, announced W. Stephen Muldrow, United States Attorney for the District of Puerto Rico. 

According to the Government’s allegations, on May 8, 2011, a couple was entering their Hyundai Sonata around 10 PM in Luquillo when two men approached them.  The men forced the couple out of the car at gunpoint.  Police agents responded quickly to the carjacking and pursued the Sonata, which fled.  Eventually, Pabón Rivera and Juarides Orozco stopped the car and exited the vehicle, with one of them brandishing a gun in the direction of the officers.  In the ensuing gunfire, both subjects were injured. 

Assistant U.S. Attorney Luis Valentin of the Violent Crimes and National Security Section is in charge of the prosecution of the case.  The Federal Bureau of Investigation is in charge of the investigation.  The case was worked in collaboration with Gabriel Redondo Miranda of the Puerto Rico Department of Justice and with the Bureau of Puerto Rico Police, who arrested the suspects.  If convicted, the defendants face a sentence of up to fifteen years in prison for the carjacking and a minimum of seven years in prison for the firearm offense.

An indictment is merely an allegation and all defendants are presumed innocent until proven guilty beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law.