{"database": "press", "table": "releases", "rows": [["https://barragan.house.gov/2022/12/30/la-times-l-a-county-public-defender-remains-jailed-in-venezuela-after-nearly-9-months/", "LA Times: L.A. County public defender remains jailed in Venezuela after nearly 9 months", "2022-12-30", "2022", "2022-12", "Democrat", "House", "CA", "Nanette Diaz Barrag\u00e1n", "B001300", "barragan.house.gov", "barragan", "https://barragan.house.gov/news", "scraper", "Los Angeles Times:\n\nCindy Carcamo\n\nPUBLISHED: December 30, 2022 at 2:12 PM PST\n\nWhen Eyvin Hernandez stopped calling while vacationing in Colombia in late March, his\n\nyounger brother thought the worst had happened.\n\nHernandez, a Los Angeles County deputy public defender, finally left a voice message on April\n\n4, saying he was detained in Venezuela but should be free in 45 days.\n\n\u201cThey don\u2019t have anything on me,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019m not a spy. I\u2019m not a terrorist.\u201d\n\nNearly nine months later, Hernandez and his brother, Henry Martinez, are still separated.\n\nHernandez, 44, is being held at a maximum-security military prison in Venezuela and has been\n\ncharged with criminal association and conspiracy, which can result in up to 16 years in prison.\n\nU.S. State Department officials have determined that Hernandez is being wrongfully detained \u2014\n\na classification that triggers enhanced government attention.\n\nOn Dec. 21, Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass, Rep. Nanette Diaz Barrag\u00e1n (D-San Pedro) and\n\nother congressional representatives sent a letter to President Biden, asking his administration to\n\nwork to secure Hernandez\u2019s freedom.\n\n\u201cExpeditious action is needed,\u201d the letter stated. \u201cThe judicial system in Venezuela is highly\n\ncompromised, and any trial against Mr. Hernandez is unlikely to produce a fair result.\u201d\n\nA few days before Hernandez was due to return to L.A., a friend asked him to accompany her to\n\nthe Colombia-Venezuela border, near the Colombian town of C\u00facuta, Martinez said.\n\nHernandez\u2019s family said he had had no intention of entering Venezuela.\n\nAt the border, Hernandez and his friend were intercepted by what reports have variously\n\ndescribed as a paramilitary group, a gang or official Venezuelan forces. Hernandez and his friend\n\nwere turned over to Venezuelan security forces and jailed. The friend is also still detained in\n\nVenezuela.\n\nThe Venezuelan government did not respond to requests for comment.\n\nThere has been an alarming increase in wrongful detentions of U.S. citizens in Venezuela and\n\nelsewhere around the globe in recent years, according to the James W. Foley Legacy Foundation,\n\nwhich tracks such cases and helps detainees\u2019 families.\n\nEarlier this month, basketball star Brittney Griner was released in a prisoner swap after nearly 10\n\nmonths of detention in Russia on charges that she was carrying a small amount of cannabis oil.\n\nIn October, Venezuela freed seven American prisoners in exchange for the release of two\n\nnephews of President Nicol\u00e1s Maduro\u2019s wife, who were serving time in U.S. prisons for drug\n\nSmuggling.\n\nHernandez\u2019s family and supporters question why he was not included in the exchange.\n\n\u201cWhen a U.S. citizen is detained overseas, the Department works to provide all appropriate\n\nassistance,\u201d U.S. State Department officials said in a statement to The Times.\n\nIn recent years, armed conflict has dramatically increased along the Colombia-Venezuela border.\n\nThe U.S. State Department classifies the region as a high-risk area where U.S. citizens are\n\nthreatened with detention under Maduro\u2019s authoritarian government.\n\nMartinez said he thinks the U.S. government has let his brother down, allowing him to languish\n\nin what he describes as a \u201cdungeon.\u201d\n\nIn phone calls to his family, Hernandez said he was in solitary confinement at one point. His cell\n\nhas no windows, and he is allowed to walk only in circles for 30 minutes in an outside area the\n\nsize of two vehicles. He is sleep-deprived because the lights in his cell are kept on all the time,\n\nand he subsists mostly on a diet of stale tortillas, he told them.\n\n\u201cThis place is meant to break you psychologically and spiritually,\u201d Hernandez said in a secretly\n\nrecorded jailhouse message in August. \u201cIf you don\u2019t get us out soon, then there might not be\n\nanyone left to save.\u201d\n\nHernandez was born in El Salvador in 1978, and his family fled with him to Los Angeles when\n\nhe was 3, just before the country\u2019s civil war. He grew up in South L.A. and attended UCLA,\n\nearning a degree in physics and math, then graduating from the law school in 2005.\n\nHernandez then joined the L.A. County public defender\u2019s office. His most recent assignment was\n\nhandling felony cases in downtown L.A., and he has trained and mentored many public\n\ndefenders, according to his family.\n\nWhen Hernandez seems especially down during their phone calls, Martinez tries to reassure him.\n\n\u201c\u2018It\u2019s not going to be forever, man,\u2019\u201d Martinez says he tells him. \u201c\u2018Stay strong. You\u2019re going to\n\nbe home soon.\u2019\u201d", 1, "2026-03-30T01:40:41Z", "2026-04-08T03:32:05Z"]], "columns": ["url", "title", "date", "year", "month", "party", "chamber", "state", "member_name", "bioguide_id", "domain", "scraper", "source", "date_source", "text", "has_text", "collected_at", "updated_at"], "primary_keys": ["url"], "primary_key_values": ["https://barragan.house.gov/2022/12/30/la-times-l-a-county-public-defender-remains-jailed-in-venezuela-after-nearly-9-months/"], "units": {}, "query_ms": 1.5689129941165447, "source": "dwillis/congress-press", "source_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press", "license": "MIT", "license_url": "https://github.com/dwillis/congress-press/blob/main/LICENSE"}