Illegal immigrant who posed as minor while crossing border charged with murder in Florida
November 4, 2021 5:00am
Authorities found Yery Noel Medina Ulloa’s real identity about a week after he was apprehended. Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office
A 24-year-old Honduran immigrant who’s charged with murder in the brutal stabbing death of a Florida man had crossed the US border illegally months earlier while posing as an unaccompanied minor, an investigation by The Post found.
Yery Noel Medina Ulloa was busted Oct. 7 in Jacksonville when he was found covered in blood after allegedly killing Francisco Javier Cuellar, 46, a father of four who had taken in the immigrant who told authorities he was 17.
Police said they followed a trail of blood back to the victim’s home and arrested Ulloa, placing him in a juvenile detention facility.
It wasn’t until Oct. 13 that authorities learned his real identity — and his true age.
Ulloa, who turned 24 on Friday, had duped border authorities in Texas several months earlier by claiming he was a teenager named Reynel Alexander Hernandez — and even told his mom about the ruse.
“When he entered [the US] he told me, ‘Mommy, I didn’t go in with my name,’” his mother, Wendy Florencia Ulloa, told the Spanish-language Univision network. “‘I went in with the name of another person because right there at the shelter they helped me.”
In keeping with President Joe Biden’s border policy on unaccompanied minors crossing the US border, Ulloa wasn’t turned away but instead placed in a shelter.
He was then given a “Notice to Appear” and released, officials told The Post.
Eventually, Cuellar took Ulloa to his Jacksonville home.
“‘Mommy, he is my uncle Frank,’” his mother said he told her on the phone. Ulloa and Cuellar are not related, despite Ulloa’s use of the moniker. “‘I live with him. But don’t worry. He treats me like a son.’”
It is unclear how Ulloa ended up in Florida after being detained in Texas — nor whether he was transported by way of the Biden administration’s secret flights to resettle underage immigrants, revealed in an exclusive expose by The Post last month.
Routes for the flights included from Texas to Jacksonville, the report noted.
Officials at Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Border Patrol and Office of Refugee Resettlement did not immediately respond to inquiries about how Ulloa wound up in Florida.
Immigrants from the southern border getting off a World Atlantic Airlines airplane and boarding charter buses at Westchester County Airport in White Plains, NY on Oct. 15, 2021.
An ICE spokesman confirmed that Ulloa was detained on Oct. 13, but that the agency was not involved.
Cuellar’s daughter, Marycarman, 18, said she knew little about the man now charged with her father’s caught-on-video slaying — but believes he was on one of the flights.
“My dad told me one day he was going to the airport, and then this guy came out of nowhere and was at work the next day,” she told The Post. “I didn’t really ask questions.”
Ulloa nonetheless moved in with Cuellar, who put him to work at the family business, the La Raza Mexican Store, she said.
President Biden reinstated the “catch and release” policy earlier in 2021.
“My dad seemed like he was doing a favor for somebody because where [Ulloa] came from they are super poor,” she said in a phone interview.
“We feel that someone asked my dad to do it,” she said. “My dad was really compassionate like that, he would help someone who needed it.”
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is already suing the Biden administration over its “catch and release” policy — and sources confirmed Tuesday that his office is also investigating if Ulloa arrived in Jacksonville on one of the clandestine flights.
“This horrific crime is the latest example of how unfettered illegal migration costs Floridians’ lives,” DeSantis’ office told The Post.
“If not for the Biden Administration’s unlawful ‘catch and release’ policy, Mr. Cuellar would still be alive today.
“Governor DeSantis is committed to doing everything in his power to keep Floridians safe. But as long as the Biden Administration persists in refusing to enforce our country’s immigration laws, Americans are at needless risk.
Under the “catch and release” policy, CPD can only hold illegal aliens trying to cross the border for 72 hours.
“How many more lives will be lost before the Biden Administration decides to uphold the law?”
Ulloa had been found wandering near a lake covered in blood, a trail of blood leading to Cuellar’s body in his living room, the arrest warrant showed.
Home security cameras showed him “stabbing the victim numerous times and repeatedly hitting him with a chair,” the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office warrant said.
He called a friend to confess and even texted “that he had ‘killed Uncle Francisco,’” the warrant said.
Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis is suing the Biden administration.
Joe Cavaretta/South Florida Sun-Sentinel via AP
According to his mother, she was told that after his arrest, “he cried and told them, ‘I killed him. I killed him.’”
Ulloa is charged with second-degree murder and is scheduled to be arraigned on Thursday.
