Arizona Mom Yanira Maldonado Freed From Mexican Jail
The Arizona mother detained in Mexico for more than a week on drug charges has been released and returned to the U.S. after a video showed she boarded a bus with no packages that could have contained 12 pounds of marijuana, as police had alleged.
Yanira Maldonado, 42, walked out of the jail late Thursday night local time, and thanked well-wishers and Mexican officials. Maldonado told one jail official in Spanish, "Thank you for everything and the quality of person you are."
"Is this it?" Maldonado asked officials moments after being released. "Thank you. God bless you," she added before leaving.
Maldonado met with reporters briefly and said, "Many thanks to everyone, especially my God who let me go free, my family, my children, who with their help, I was able to survive this test," she said.
Maldonado was met with a hug from her husband Gary, who brought her to a waiting car. The couple hugged again in the car before leaving. Maldonado was taken to Nogales, Ariz., where she spoke to reporters about her ordeal.
"I love Mexico. My family is still there. So Mexico... it's not Mexico's fault. It's a few people who you know did this to me," she said.
Hours before her release, court officials reviewed surveillance footage that showed Maldonado and her husband boarding a bus in Mexico on May 22. Maldonado was carrying a black, medium-sized purse and two bottles of water. Her husband was carrying blankets. Maldonado was detained by authorities after Mexican soldiers said they discovered 12 pounds of marijuana under her bus at a check point in Hermosillo, Mexico.
The surveillance video, which has not been released to the public, was reviewed by ABC News Thursday.
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The family's lawyer in Nogales, Mexico, told reporters the surveillance video showed she did not bring 12 pounds of marijuana onto the bus.
"The evidence was very clear that she never [had] contact with the drug," Jose Francisco Benitez Paz said minutes after Maldonado was released.
Earlier this week, Mexican officials provided local media with photos that they said were of the packages Maldonado was accused of smuggling. Each was about 5 inches high and 20 inches wide. Maldonado's lawyer said the packets of drugs were attached to the seat bottoms with metal hooks, calling that a task that would have been impossible for a passenger boarding normally to do.
The soldiers who detained Maldonado did not appear in court to make their case against her. The judge presiding over the case was expected to make a decision about Maldonado's fate later today, but the family received word late Thursday night that she would be released early.
Maldonado maintained her innocence throughout her detainment and her family believes she was framed. Maldonado was being held at a jail in Nogales while authorities decided her fate.
"I was in shock. I'm like this is not real. This is not happening. I don't know. I thought maybe this was a set-up or a joke or something. I was just waiting for it to end but I realized that it's real, that I'm being detained," Maldonado told ABC News affiliate KNXV-TV Wednesday in a jail-house interview.
At the check point, the soldiers who accused her of trafficking drugs took her into custody. Her husband was released after initially being suspected of smuggling.
Maldonado said a Mexican official told her she had to plead guilty despite her insistence that she was innocent.
"She's like, 'I'm here to help. I'm here to put criminals behind bars,' and I thought, "Thank God. I'm innocent.' So, I thought that she was here to help me and she didn't," Maldonado said Wednesday.
The family said an attorney in Mexico told them they could bribe the judge. Gary Maldonado frantically had family wire him $5,000 for the bribe. He says, although the money was offered, it was not accepted.
Yanira Maldonado, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Mexico, is a mother of seven and a devout Mormon.
ABC News' Jesus Ayala, Maria Villalobos and Gio Benitez contributed to this report.
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