Jorge Solano Moreta

Jorge Solano Moreta (born c. 1970), also commonly known as Wes Solano, is an admitted drug seller from Puerto Rico. He gained much fame (or infamy) during the early 1990s, when newspapers such as El Nuevo Dia and El Vocero documented his alleged gang activities.

Biography

Jorge Solano Moreta came into the Puerto Rican public's eye during the late 1980s and early 1990s, as many violent events took place in the Bayamon area. The newspapers commonly pointed Solano Moreta and his gang as the perpetrators of many criminal acts, and linked Solano Moreta with the Puerto Rican mafia. It was during that era that he became widely known as "Wes" by the general Puerto Rican public.

According to United States law records, Solano Moreta controlled drug trafficking at the Virgilio Dávila residential since 1992. This caused for a drug war between his allegued gang and other gangs of Puerto Rico's metropolitan area. From 1992 to 1995, Solano Moreta was featured on many articles on the crime section of Puerto Rico's newspapers.

Arrest and Trial

Solano Moreta was declared a fugitive in 1995. On June 7 of that year, he was surprised by law authorities while living in a friend's apartment and was promptly arrested.

Solano Moreta plead guilty to engaging in a continuing criminal enterprise on May 29, 1996. What ensued was a legal battle, however, because Solano Moreta alleged, among other things, that an agreement outside the bounds of his plea bargain had made him convinced to plead guilty of the charge, and also, that his legal counselour did not properly challenge some tapes of him alleguedly talking to other people, tapes which were used as evidence against Solano Moreta. Another of Solano Moreta's alleged associates, Luis Alicea Cardona, alias "Burbuja", was also convicted and fought his conviction, alleguing that the only evidence used against "Burbuja" were some beeper messages [http://www.law.emory.edu/1circuit/dec97/97-1139.01a.html] . "Burbuja"s conviction was upheld by the court.

Solano Moreta was sentenced to 45 years in prison on December 1997.

On July 1, 2005, he made the news pages in Puerto Rico again, when he asked judge Salvador Casellas for his sentence of 45 years to be either suspended or, at least, modified so he could leave jail at an earlier time.

ee also

List of Puerto Ricans

External links

* [http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=1st&navby=case&no=981091 findlaw.com's page on Solano Moreta's case]