Fugitive Gets Mexican Prison for Franklin NJ Auto Assault

PRESS RELEASE
August 19, 2011
For Immediate Release
Contact: Bernie Weisenfeld- PIO

Juan Bautista (DOB 3/17/81), formerly of Bridgeton, NJ has been sentenced to 6 ½ years in a Mexican prison for critically injuring a Franklin Township, Gloucester County NJ woman in a 2003 drunk driving collision in Franklinville and presenting a false driver’s license afterward, according to a California justice official who assisted in securing Bautista’s December 2010 arrest as a fugitive in Mexico.

A judge in the Mexican state of Puebla convicted and sentenced Bautista on July 4 to 2 1/2 years in prison for causing grave bodily injury to 21-year-old Christina Applegate in the crash on Sept., 16, 2003, said Special Agent Val Jiminez, of the California Attorney General’s Foreign Prosecution and Law Enforcement Unit. A four-year prison sentence was imposed for using a false public document and a $6,000 fine was assessed, Jiminez said. The sentences are to be served consecutively with no parole.

In determining the sentence for causing injury to Applegate, the judge “considered that the perpetrator did not plan to cause the accident,” Jiminez said.

Jiminez said the Mexican federal prosecutor is appealing the sentence for injuring Applegate, who has been in a coma since the crash. The prosecutor “feels it’s not enough time,” he said. Such appeals “are usually pretty favorable” but may take several months, Jiminez said. Bautista remains in custody without bail.


After his Gloucester County NJ indictment for aggravated assault and assault by auto, Bautista, an illegal alien from Mexico living in Bridgeton at the time of the crash, failed to appear at a court hearing on the charges on June 4, 2004. He had been released on $35,000 bail Sept. 24, 2003. A warrant was issued for his arrest. Efforts to locate Bautista in the South Jersey region were unsuccessful and the investigation into his whereabouts turned to Mexico.

Bautista’s arrest in Mexico Dec. 16, 2010 was the result of lengthy efforts by the Gloucester County Prosecutor’s Office fugitive unit, working with Agent Jiminez’ California office, which translated the entire GCPO criminal file on Bautista into Spanish and submitted it to Mexican authorities. The Mexican government issued a warrant for Bautista’s arrest on the Franklinville NJ case in September 2010.

At the urging of Applegate’s family and friends and the GCPO, the “America’s Most Wanted” television show broadcast a segment on Bautista in 2006. The report included a dramatization of Christina Applegate’s life. Recently married, she was an aspiring race car driver and was well-liked by co-workers at a WaWa convenience store in Franklinville.

The crash occurred within sight of Applegate’s workplace as she attempted to turn her Ford Mustang onto Swedesboro Road from Delsea Drive. Bautista was driving an SUV at a high rate of speed in the opposite direction on Delsea Drive and struck the Applegate vehicle. Two passengers in the Bautista vehicle were also injured and he was charged with separate assault by auto counts for them.

The prison sentence “is close to what Mr. Bautista would have received had he stood trial in New Jersey,” said Gloucester County Prosecutor Sean F. Dalton. “We are very appreciative of the California and Mexican authorities and certainly support the Mexican prosecutor’s effort to increase the sentence.”’

“I also want to give a special thanks to retired Sgt. Tim O’Brien of the GCPO fugitive unit for his efforts in making this prosecution possible, and to Assistant Prosecutor Laurie Cimino, who shepherded this case through our legal system and assisted in its preparation for transfer to Mexico.”