Prosecutors say they are not going to let Berto Ordaz get away with murder.
The Philadelphia man who drove his girlfriend's corpse to Miami was slapped with new criminal charges designed to keep him behind bars in the Sunshine State while prosecutors quarrel over murder charges.
Florida prosecutors have now hit him with charges of tampering with evidence and soliciting the disposal of a dead body. The charges carry up to five years in jail.
If Ordaz should beat those charges, he will be seized by the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, which will lock the Cuban immigrant in federal prison.
``The real goal here is to focus on keeping him in custody and figure out the best way to keep him accountable,'' said Florida State Attorney Katherine Fernandez-Rundle. ``We are determined that we are not going to let this guy go free.''
Murder charges against Ordaz, 43, were dropped last month because Miami prosecutors said they didn't have enough evidence to prove where Ordaz killed Victoria Martinez in January.
The couple set out from North Philadelphia during the blizzard.
Ordaz, a welfare recipient, was held for several weeks in a Dade County jail. Two weeks ago, when a Miami prosecutor skipped a court hearing, he was nearly freed. Finally, he was seized for violating probation on a Florida Keys traffic offense and transferred to an unusual petting zoo jail in the Keys, where he can frolic with Vietnamese pot-bellied pigs, learn animal husbandry and await a March 13 hearing.
Miami police believe Ordaz shot his 32-year-old girlfriend in the head in North Philadelphia, propped her body in the front seat of his minivan and headed south. Martinez, of Orianna Street near Bristol, was found in the van, parked in a Miami suburb, on Jan. 13. She was dressed in winter clothes and had a bullet hole in her head.
Despite the new charges, Philadelphia District Attorney Lynne Abraham continues to seethe. She said Fernandez-Rundle is shirking her job by not charging Ordaz with murder.
Abraham said Miami authorities have all the evidence, including the body, the van, and witnesses who told detectives that Ordaz drove to a Miami suburb looking for help getting rid of the body.
``She's stubborn and doesn't want to do the right thing,'' Abraham said of Fernandez-Rundle. ``Somebody will have to prosecute this man and most likely it will be this office. We will bring him to justice.''
As Ordaz sits in jail, his attorney Brian McDonald, said prosecutors are ``trying to make things up to keep him in jail''.
``Someone should just make a decision and do it,'' the defense lawyer said. `This isn't fair to Berto.''
