New Mayor in Mexico Officially Died 3 Years Ago

Allegedly faked death to avoid gang rape charges
By Ruth Brown,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 12, 2013 5:47 PM CDT
New Mayor in Mexico Officially Died 3 Years Ago
Lenin Carballido poses for a portrait during his campaign in Oaxaca, Mexico.   (AP Photo/Luis Alberto Hernandez)

A zombie mayor would make for one hell of a headline (not to mention a movie), but the newly elected leader of a small town in Mexico isn't dead in real life—just on paper. According to Mexican newspaper Reforma, Lenin Carballido faked his own death in 2010 due to police charges for allegedly participating in a gang rape, the AP and Washington Post report. He successfully obtained an official coroner’s certificate, and the charges were dropped. Carballido then resurrected himself this year to run for local government in San Agustin Amatengo, Oaxaca.

The Oaxaca state prosecutors' office says the statute of limitations has not run out on the crime he was originally charged with, and it plans to revive the case and arrest him. "The state attorney general's office will investigate and bring charges, even if the suspect is recognized by electoral authorities as a municipal authority," it says, per the AP. Carballido's party, the Democratic Revolutionary Party, says it wasn't aware their candidate was legally dead. "He fooled the prosecutors' office, he fooled the office of records, he fooled electoral officials," says the PRD's state leader. "If all this is true, he cannot take office as mayor." (More Oaxaca stories.)

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