(The following story by Ryan Lillis appeared on the Sacramento Bee website on August 22.)
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — He told local police that his name is Carlos Martínez Morales, born Aug. 25, 1977.
In a federal indictment, he is listed as José Eduardo Moran-Marques, born Aug. 12, 1976.
Either way, the Salvadoran son of a clothing salesman says he had nothing to do with the massive March fire that destroyed a railroad trestle in Sacramento.
The man who was indicted last week on charges of lying about his name and where he was at the time of the March 15 blaze that gutted a Union Pacific Railroad trestle along the American River Parkway told The Bee in a jailhouse interview Tuesday he is afraid he is being jailed “for no reason.” He says his name is José Eduardo Moran-Marques, that he was born in Chalatenango, El Salvador, on Aug. 25, 1977, and that he has been deported from the United States three times.
Moran-Marques, who said he lived in the parkway, also said he had never been arrested in Sacramento before May. The Bee reported Tuesday that he had been, citing court and jail records. Sheriff’s officials confirmed those arrests as late as Tuesday afternoon but later backtracked.
Sacramento Sheriff’s Sgt. Tim Curran said that when Moran-Marques was booked into Sacramento County jail on May 14 he gave his name as Carlos Martínez Morales. Based on that information, authorities believed he was the same man with the same name and birth date who had been arrested four other times in Sacramento dating back to 2003, Curran said.
However, a subsequent examination of Moran-Marques’ fingerprints — and further examination of his criminal file on Tuesday — showed he had never been arrested here, Curran said. The state Department of Justice confirmed Moran-Marques and the man who had been arrested four times here on drunken driving and drug possession charges are two different people.
In a written statement, Moran-Marques’ attorney, Dina L. Santos, reiterated the report of her client’s criminal background was “incorrect.”
“Furthermore,” the statement continued, “(Moran-Marques) is not charged with burning down the railroad trestle; he is charged only with providing false information to law enforcement officers, charges we look forward to challenging in court.”
A source close to the investigation, who does not wish to be identified because he is not authorized to speak publicly on the subject, told The Bee that Moran-Marques told other homeless people he set the fire to get back at police and park rangers who had harassed transients in the parkway.
In the Tuesday jailhouse interview, conducted in Spanish, Moran-Marques said that he never told anyone he set the blaze and that he told police to “bring the people who accused me of this.”
“I never told anyone anything like this,” Moran-Marques told The Bee. “I told them, ‘Bring those people here and let’s see if it’s true.’ They kept telling me to tell the truth. I haven’t been sentenced. Where is the law? No court has accused me of that. They have left me here like I am nothing.”
During the 45-minute interview, Moran-Marques wore an orange jail-issued jumpsuit. His beard was neatly trimmed, and his fingers shook many times throughout interview as he rubbed his forehead.
Not much has been said publicly about the investigation, which authorities said they were treating as an arson. U.S. Attorney McGregor Scott said the Justice Department “has a long-standing policy of not commenting on active investigations until charges are brought.”
“This investigation is being treated no different than any other investigation,” Scott said. “It makes it infinitely more difficult to conduct an investigation if there is information out there in the public realm. Under those circumstances, it is hard to verify witness statements because some people, consciously or subconsciously, tend to tailor their statements to the publicity.”
Moran-Marques, who told The Bee he lived along the parkway for a couple of months before the fire, was arrested as a vagrant earlier this year and then rearrested by federal authorities in May on a charge of coming back into the United States illegally after being deported in 2003. Authorities said Moran-Marques was arrested to keep him in the country while the investigation continued.
The immigration charge was resolved on Thursday when a federal judge sentenced Moran-Marques to time served, making him eligible for deportation. That same day, a federal grand jury indicted him on three counts of making false statements.
Moran-Marques is accused of lying to federal agents in a May 15 interview that he was “in the area of 47th Avenue in Sacramento” when the trestle fire broke out.
Another charge states that Moran-Marques lied when he said he was near Folsom Lake at the time of the blaze.
On Tuesday, Moran-Marques told The Bee he was eating at Loaves & Fishes, a downtown Sacramento center that provides food and services to the homeless, on the afternoon of the fire. He said he saw the smoke as he was leaving.
“A lot of people saw the fire,” Moran-Marques said. “It was a huge fire.”
Moran-Marques is also accused in the indictment of lying about his name. In the jailhouse interview, Moran-Marques told The Bee he gave police the name Carlos Martínez Morales when he was arrested. He said “he just imagined” the name.
Moran-Marques said he was deported three times — most recently in 2003 — and that he was arrested on a minor drug charge while living in Oregon several years ago.
He said he first came to the United States in 1996, crossing the border into Texas. Making his way to San Antonio, he was eventually arrested and deported, he said.
Moran-Marques returned to the United States in 2001 and was arrested by immigration agents in New Mexico. Two years later he went to Portland, where he was again arrested and deported.
Moran-Marques said he first came to Sacramento in 2005 to work as a gardener. He did not provide the name of the man he worked for, but said he was employed for about seven months, cutting lawns.
Moran-Marques said he would also get day jobs by hanging out on 47th Avenue.
After renting a trailer on Northgate Boulevard, Moran-Marques said he eventually moved to the parkway “because I saw there were a lot of people sleeping there.”