Edwin Adams Cotto
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Edwin Adams Cotto (1978 – March 7, 2005) was a Puerto Rican who became infamous in 2002, after he was accused alongside famous reporter Laura Hernandez of drug trafficking from Puerto Rico to the Dominican Republic.
[edit] Biography
Not much is known about Adams Cotto's life previous to being caught by the Dominican authorities. He was, apparently, a small drug dealer who was friends with Hernandez, her husband Marcos Irizarry, and five others. He was apparently also a drug user, as he was diagnosed with AIDS while in jail.
On late 2002, he joined Hernandez, Irizarry and others in a boat trip to the Dominican Republic. They were to stay there for about two weeks, allegedly to travel around the country and do some sightseeing as a group of tourists.
On the tenth day of their stay, however, their boat was raided by the Dominican police, which found drugs in their boat. Thinking that the group was there to do illegal drug business, the police quickly proceeded to arrest each member of the group. Adams Cotto was subsequently convicted and sentenced to spend seven years in jail.
Beginning in 2003, Adams Cotto, like the rest of his group of friends, began a series of appeals, trying to have his sentence reduced. He lost each of the appeals.
By 2004, Adams Cotto had been diagnosed both with AIDS and with cancer, with the latter disease possibly coming as a consequence of the former. Late in 2004, Adams Cotto was told by doctors that his cancer was terminal, and his lawyers rushed to have a new appeal, hoping that Dominican judges would give Adams Cotto a vote of clemency based on his health status, and indult him so that he could fly back to Puerto Rico and live his last days alongside his family, including a sister who kept constant telephone and mail communication with him. The appeal was, however, once again denied, as the judges said that "if we let him go, we'll have to do the same with the other convicted people in the Dominican Republic who are sick".
On March 7, 2005, a jail riot erupted in the Higuey jail where Cotto was imprisoned. He and Arod Levy III, another convict from his group of friends, burned to death during the ensuing fire that also killed more than 130 other people.
