A 25-year-old immigrant who posed as a minor to cross the border illegally has been sentenced to 60 years in prison for killing a father of four who took him in.
Yerry Noel Medina Ulloa of Honduras pleaded guilty Friday to the stabbing death of Francisco Javier Cuellar, 46, in Florida in 2021 — days after the Florida man took the illegal immigrant into his care.
“As we have seen time and time again, the federal government’s failure to secure our nation’s border has led to tragedy in a local community,” State Attorney Melissa Nelson said in a statement. said in
“This time, tragically, it was our community when an illegal alien murdered an innocent man. However, this 60-year sentence ensures that Medina Ulloa will never harm another law-abiding citizen.
Police said they found Medina Ulloa was staying at Cuyler’s Jacksonville home after border officials were tricked into believing he was 17.
The immigrant was caught at the southern border after traveling from Honduras, but was allowed to stay in the U.S. after giving agents a fake name and claiming he was seven years younger than he actually was. Federal policy mandates that unaccompanied minors be placed in shelters rather than turned away.
Cuellar then took Medina Ulloa to the Florida home he shared with his four children and gave her a job at the family store, although it is unclear why the citizen took Medina Ulloa into his home.
Border police didn’t uncover Medina Ulloa’s ruse until a week after she killed Cuellar, a man she said her mother treated her “like a son.”
Police caught the illegal immigrant after they found him wandering near a lake and found him covered in blood, with Cuellar’s body in his living room with a trail of blood.
Local police said the then 24-year-old was caught on camera hitting Cuellar “several times and repeatedly with a chair.”
Madina Ulloa called her mother in tears, repeatedly crying, “I killed him. I killed him.”
He called a friend to confess and texted that “he ‘killed Uncle Francisco.’
Cuellar’s daughter, Mary Carmen, then-18, told the Post she knew little about Medina Ulloa — but believed he was one of the controversial flights in which the Biden administration secretly resettled minor immigrants. was used for
“My dad told me one day he was going to the airport, and then this guy came out of nowhere and was at work the next day,” she explained. “I didn’t really ask questions.”
