American jailed in Nicaragua faces test of endurance

SAN JUAN DEL SUR, Nicaragua — He was 27, living in an exotic country and dreaming of a bright future. Now, Eric Volz, a brash and ambitious American magazine editor, is serving a 30-year prison term for a heinous crime he says he didn't commit: the rape and murder of his ex-girlfriend.

To the natives of this picturesque Pacific Coast village, a budding magnet for tourists and retirees from the United States, there is no doubt that Volz is guilty.

He became so jealous over Doris Jimenez, they say, that he and at least one other man hogtied her in the tiny fashion store she ran, then raped and suffocated her.

But court documents, along with interviews with witnesses and lawyers, suggest Volz's conviction in February was heavily influenced by small-town passions and a desire for swift justice. Facing a relentless media campaign and protests against him organized by the victim's mother, Volz found himself in a Kafkaesque nightmare, his family and other supporters say. An alibi that might have led an American jury to acquit was disregarded.

"Why were the family and friends testifying that I was a jealous guy?" Volz said in a telephone interview from La Modelo prison outside Managua, the capital. "It was convenient for them. They wanted me to be convicted, but it's not true."

Eduardo Bertoni, executive director of the Washington-based Due Process of Law Foundation, a policy group that works to improve justice systems in Latin America, said the lack of judicial independence in Nicaragua "ends up affecting everything."

"When the judges are not professional, and political considerations lead to their appointments, well, you can await whatever decision," he said.

Everything on his side

On the surface, Volz seemed to have everything on his side. He had an experienced defense attorney, Ramon Rojas. He had an alibi, with 10 witnesses telling police they were with him at the time the crime occurred. And he had phone and instant-messaging records that put him at his Managua home, a 2 ½-hour drive from the scene of the crime, when Jimenez was killed.

But Jimenez's relatives and authorities said they saw his offer to pay for an autopsy and his bickering with police as signs of culpability.

The victim's mother, Mercedes Alvarado, railed against Volz, and a Managua newspaper, El Nuevo Diario, mounted an impassioned campaign against him. At one point, protesters tried to lynch him as he was being transferred from the courthouse.

In the end, Volz was found guilty after a three-day trial, along with a San Juan del Sur surfer, Julio Martin Chamorro, with whom Volz said he had only a passing acquaintance.

Upon hearing the news, readers of El Nuevo Diario celebrated.

"Kill that gringo," one reader wrote in a posting on the paper's Web site.

A fluent Spanish speaker, Volz had moved to this funky hamlet of seaside restaurants and Internet cafes in 2005. He surfed. He sold real estate for Century 21. And he dated Jimenez, a lithe, black-haired beauty who owned a small store called Sol Fashion.

Though the relationship ended amicably six months before Jimenez's death, Volz said the two remained close. He moved last year to Managua to start a magazine about ecology and sustainable development.

Then on Nov. 21, Jimenez was slain in her store, between 11 a.m. and noon. Volz said he was alerted by one of Jimenez's friends about 2:45 p.m. and that he then rented a car and drove to San Juan del Sur. Two days later, after serving as a pallbearer at Jimenez's funeral, he was arrested.

Later, Jimenez's relatives told police and reporters that they had never trusted Volz and that he had an obsession with her that hinted at darker motives.

"She told me one day she couldn't put up with him anymore," said her sister, Genoveva Arias, 31. "I said, 'Why don't you break up?' She said, 'I've tried. He doesn't listen.' "

"She loved me a lot"

The nature of the relationship he had with Jimenez became a major point of contention in court, where Volz's manner — considered by Nicaraguans to be brusque, even disrespectful — cost him points with Judge Ivette Toruno.

When he spoke to the court about Jimenez — against the judge's advice — he sounded casual and cold. "She loved me a lot," Volz told the judge. "She had fallen for me more than I had fallen for her."

The defense, meanwhile, failed to deflect prosecution evidence. The prosecution showed a photograph of scratch marks on Volz's back; Volz said they were caused by the weight of Jimenez's coffin. Toruno scoffed.

"Carrying a coffin would never — but never — leave those scratch marks on anyone," Toruno said in court.

The prosecution also showed that, once Volz became a suspect, an employee of his tried to urge a Hertz worker to sign an affidavit saying someone at the company had seen him when delivering the rental car to his house. But no one had. The defense later said Volz's employee had acted on her own. They said Volz was inside the house and signed the rental contract, but never saw a Hertz worker.

"They are doubts they gave us, doubts that, coupled with the evidence, gave us the certainty we took the right people to justice," said Isolda Ibarra, the prosecutor.

But Rojas, the defense attorney, said the judge overlooked stronger defense evidence.

The judge heard testimony from Ricardo Castillo, an established journalist in Managua, who said he was with Volz from about noon until 2 p.m. that day.

"Ricardo Castillo is not credible," she said.

Toruno permitted only two additional defense witnesses to testify. Others, including a gardener, a maid, employees of Volz's magazine and a couple of visitors, were not needed, she said, explaining that their testimony would be redundant.

Rojas introduced cellphone and time-stamped instant-messaging records that he said proved Volz could not have been even close to the crime scene at the time of Jimenez's killing. Toruno said someone else could have been using the cellphone.

There was no physical evidence tying Volz, or anyone else, to the scene of the crime.

"The fact that there is no hair, nor semen, nor saliva, nor fingerprints from Eric Volz or the other young man does not signify they weren't there," Ibarra said.

Volz is hoping that a three-judge tribunal in Granada will rule favorably on his appeal, a decision that could be made this month.

But for now, he spends his days in La Modelo, answering notes sent by friends, telling them he tries to remain upbeat.

"I am in prison, but the prison is not in me," he said. "I have learned that I can endure."