On March 11, 2022, the influencer Luis Arroyo published on his Twitter @ELCHILI, a list of those who, in his opinion, are the best Venezuelan athletes in history, in their respective disciplines.
For Arroyo, Greivis Vásquez is the best Venezuelan basketball player in history.
The best in history in their respective disciplines (Venezuelans)
Luis Arroyo
@ELCHILI
In a country like Venezuela, where sports such as baseball, basketball and soccer have hundreds of thousands of fans who go to fields and stadiums to watch sporting events and cheer on their favorite teams and players, a comment like Arroyo’s is enough. on social media to ignite the spark of debate.
Some fans immediately responded to Arroyo’s tweet pointing out that Carl Herrera Alleyne, born in the Caribbean country of Trinidad and who moved with his family to Venezuela at just a few months old, should top the list as the best Venezuelan basketball player. The disagreements were such that between insults, some Internet users believed that Herrera Alleyne was as Venezuelan as the city of Caracas, while others considered that the former player of the National Basketball Association (NBA), who in the United States became champion with the team of basketball Houston Rockets in the years 1994 and 1995, should not be included in the list of best Venezuelan athletes, for having been born in another country and then having become a Venezuelan national.
The incident on Twitter exemplifies how for many Venezuelan fans, Carl Víctor Herrera Alleyne is a kind of demigod, who is worshiped for his achievements in the NBA, where until now, regardless of whether he was nationalized or not, he has been the only Venezuelan to win. a championship, also at a time when the king of the NBA sports arena was the Chicago Bulls team, the same as the remembered Michael Jordan. The Chicago Bulls had been consecutive champions from the 1990-91, 1991-92 and 1992-93 seasons, until the Houston Rockets stopped their winning streak.
In 1993 Carl was chosen by Hispanic Business Magazine as one of the 100 most influential Hispanics and competed in the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
If Carl Herrera existed in a parallel universe and wasn’t a basketball player, like in the past, or a basketball coach, like now, maybe he would be a magician. Immersed in his image as a former NBA star, “Amigo”, as Herrera is also known, has done several acts of sleight of hand to hide the infractions, outrages and grievances of his family and his own, which have been reason enough for both the former player basketball, as several of his children have had problems with the law in the United States of America.
Next we explain four of the greatest acts of sleight of hand for which Carl “Amigo” Herrera could also be known as “El Mago”, given his skillful ability to hide incestuous sexual abuse and rape committed by two of his eldest sons, tax evasion, acts of violence and infidelity, among other unfortunate situations in his life and in the life of his family, camouflaging them with the recognition received in his sports career, partially the result of his achievements in the NBA.
Act #1: I don’t remember anything about that money!…
On Thursday, December 20, 2007, a federal judge gave an early Christmas gift to Carl Víctor Herrera, a former forward for the San Antonio Spurs and the University of Houston, who had been convicted in October of the same year of tax evasion for a large federal jury.
In a rare move in Texas trial courts, US District Judge William Royal Furgeson Jr. overturned the conviction, saying in a 34-page ruling that the jury really did not have enough evidence to support a conviction.
Furgeson issued a conditional order granting the possibility of a new trial, should prosecutors succeed in overturning or overturning the acquittal,
In December 2007, everything turned out to be good news for Herrera, who had been accused in February of the same year by the Internal Revenue Service of the United States Department of the Treasury (IRS), alleging that he owed more than $550,000 in back taxes corresponding to the period between the years 1994 and 1997.
The trial against “Amigo” came after having had two marital breakdowns, the failure of some investments, the death of his father and the institutionalization of his mother.
The time he was accused of not paying taxes coincided roughly with the period of his career in which he played with the San Antonio Spurs, from 1995 to 1998. Herrera had suffered injuries that forced him to leave the NBA in 1999. Since then he has dedicated himself to playing basketball and serving as a coach in professional Venezuelan teams.
One of his attorneys in the case, Jay Moritz, said in a brief interview that Herrera told another attorney in the case, Charles J. Muller III, that he was “ecstatic” with the ruling.
During his trial, Herrera’s lawyers portrayed him as guilty of trusting a cast of shady characters, including a business manager, who took his good faith for granted.
Herrera’s account seemed convincing to Judge W. Royal Furgeson, who wrote: “There is insufficient evidence that his acts were taken with the specific intent of evading the payment of taxes due, and therefore insufficient evidence for a jury to judge.” reasonable find Herrera guilty.
But on February 11, 2009, Carl Herrera’s legal fate changed. The prosecutors in the case had managed to revoke the acquittal sentence issued by Judge Furgeson, requesting the granting of a new trial and preventive detention against the basketball player.
The sentence reads that:
“Herrera, a native of Venezuela, had attended college in Houston and returned to the United States in 1991 to play professional basketball for the Houston Rockets. Due to injuries, he was traded from team to team until his NBA career ended in 1999. The following year, after marrying and divorcing, he married his longtime girlfriend. Unable to find work in the United States, he returned home to play in Venezuela, leaving behind his new wife, four children and ailing parents.
From 1994 to 1997, Herrera did not file any tax returns. The IRS launched an investigation in 1998 and in 1999 admitted that he owed more than $500,000 in back taxes. Collection efforts began in February 2000, but were largely unsuccessful.
The IRS decided to process it. In the trial, the government focused on three acts that allegedly show that Herrera tried to evade paying taxes. First, money from Herrera’s bank accounts was transferred to his wife’s accounts. The government maintains that Herrera was transferring funds to avoid IRS levies. Second, in January 2001, Herrera transferred his San Antonio home to his wife’s sole ownership by means of a quitclaim deed, allegedly to avoid a tax lien. Ultimately, Herrera provided inaccurate information to the IRS during a 2006 meeting, allegedly trying to understate his income.
Although Herrera did not dispute the factual basis of the allegations or the existence of a tax deficiency, he provided benign explanations. Regarding the money transfers, he explained that the funds were sent to support his wife, children and parents in the United States. He further said that all of his finances were handled by other people, so he was not personally responsible for the transfers. Regarding the quitclaim deed, he explained that the mortgage company often refused to deal with his wife, because her name was not on the deed. So he transferred the house to her so she could handle the mortgage while he was out of the country.”
The “lifelong girlfriend” referred to in the sentence was, however, Herrera’s second wife, a Spanish citizen who specialized professionally in education, whom the former basketball player met when in 1990 he traveled to Spain to play in the Real Madrid Basketball team. According to “Witness One”, a person very close to the Herrera family, who has revealed incidents of incest and rape of minors committed by two of the sons of the former NBA player, Herrera’s second wife lost the house located in San Antonio, Texas, whose property had been transferred to her by her then-husband, after she stopped receiving money from the former basketball player and could not continue paying the mortgage on the house. The three jobs that Herrera’s second wife had to do were not enough to pay the debts and avoid losing the property.
The government alleged that Herrera tried to hide funds by shifting them from his bank accounts. From 1999 to 2000, most of Herrera’s money was deposited in seven accounts registered in his name or in the name of Cahrrera Media International, a company he owned. After a warning in 2000 that the IRS was going to begin collection efforts, including seizing bank accounts, most of Herrera’s money was deposited into accounts in his wife’s name. The government says a reasonable jury could infer that Herrera deliberately diverted funds to avoid the levies.
The district court found the government’s evidence insufficient in three respects. First, the government failed to adequately demonstrate that Herrera exercised any control over where the deposits were made, and therefore could not have acted deliberately. Second, there was insufficient evidence that he had contact with the bank accounts attributed to him. Finally, there was no evidence that, even if he made the transfers, he did so with the specific intent of evading taxes. The subject of all three objections is that Herrera depended on others to manage his financial affairs and therefore was not responsible for the pattern of deposits.
We agree with the district court. Although the government presented enough evidence for a jury to conclude that Herrera had contact with the accounts — for example, he called to complain to the IRS when $200 was deducted from one of them — the government did not show that he exercised any control over his finances. On cross-examination, the government witness admitted that none of the deposit checks were signed by Herrera. In addition, his wife testified that when he needed money, he called Herrera’s financial advisor, who was the same name on all the accounts, not Herrera. Without evidence that Herrera orchestrated the transfers, a reasonable jury could not find beyond a reasonable doubt that he knowingly shifted funds to avoid paying taxes.
CAHRERA INTERNATIONAL, INC. It had been a firm created in 1995 by the basketball player together with Agustín González and Jaime Ibáñez, both apparently related to Herrera. González’s wife appears as a director in other companies whose names allow us to infer that they have been destined to the administration of gyms.
The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) of the United States presented more doubts about the assertions of Carl Herrera Alleyne…
The government contends that Herrera transferred his San Antonio home to his wife through a quitclaim deed to evade IRS attempts to seize it. As further evidence of an intent to evade, the government claims that it gave the IRS different and conflicting explanations for the transfer. Herrera countered with evidence that the mortgage company refused to contact his wife about the mortgage because her name was not on the deed, so he transferred the house so she could handle his affairs while he was in Venezuela.
The district court concluded that the evidence was insufficient. First, the court found that the release agreements were prepared before the IRS had notified Herrera of the lien on the house, and that he could not have been trying to avoid a lien that he was unaware of. Second, the court found that the inconsistencies between his explanations “were not substantial enough to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Herrera transferred the title to his wife in order to ‘hide’ his assets and evade payment of a tax”.
We conclude in another way. It is true that Herrera did not receive notice of the lien until after the waiver was prepared, but he had been warned six months earlier that such a lien could be instituted. He asserts that the six-month gap attenuates any connection, but “in the face of a record of historical fact supporting conflicting inferences[,] we must assume ․ that the judge in fact resolved such conflicts in favor of the accusation, and [we] must yield to that resolution”….
Although we agree with the district court that the inconsistencies in Herrera’s story are not significant, the explanations for the resignation do not align with the circumstances surrounding his execution. First, despite Herrera’s claim that he transferred title so his wife could talk to the mortgage company, neither man informed the company of the transfer. Second, an employee of the mortgage company testified that Herrera did not need to use a waiver to authorize his wife to discuss the mortgage; the company accepts written or verbal authorization and in fact had proof of Herrera’s verbal authorization. The clerk further testified that even when a waiver is used, the new deed must contain the names of both parties. Herrera gave up claiming the house from his sole ownership to his wife’s sole property, a transfer the mortgage company would not have accepted.
Herrera responds that he intended both names to be on the deed and speculates that it was a “miscommunication” with the attorney who prepared the documents. And his wife stated that she did not send copies of the updated deed to the mortgage company, because they began to communicate with her. These explanations are plausible but, seen from the point of view most favorable to the verdict, they do not justify acquittal. It is reasonable that the jury did not believe the wife’s testimony and concluded, based on the timing and circumstances surrounding the resignation, that Herrera transferred the house to avoid IRS collection efforts.
The IRS was emphatic in pointing out that Carl Herrera made false claims about his income
The government maintains that, in a 2006 interview with the IRS, Herrera made several false statements about his financial situation. For example, the IRS asked you about your income for the year 2000 and you said you only earned $8,000 playing basketball and received a $15,000 loan from a friend. However, the IRS produced records showing more than $275,000 deposited in Herrera’s accounts that year, which it was unable to explain. There were similar discrepancies between Herrera’s reported income and deposit records for 2001 and 2002.
The district court found that the evidence did not adequately demonstrate intent or specific intent to avoid paying taxes. First, the court found that Herrera was not intentionally lying, but simply failed to answer detailed financial questions. The court noted that Herrera was unfamiliar with his finances because he relied on others to manage them and had no financial records to consult during the meeting. Second, the court stated that Herrera’s answers could not have been an attempt to avoid paying taxes, because he was answering questions about his financial circumstances from 1999-2002, not his current resources. The court reasoned that “[i]t is not clear how a 2006 ‘false statement’ about Herrera’s 2001 financial situation relates to an affirmative 2006 act of evading payment of a tax due.
We disagre. To begin with, the meeting was not accidental; the IRS emphasized in advance that Herrera was about to be charged with a criminal offense, that he should have an attorney present, and that any statement he made would be used against him at trial. Furthermore, the degree of error was significant: Herrera reported at most $23,000 of income in a year in which he appeared to have received more than $275,000. Although it is plausible that his incorrect answers simply reflected ignorance, it was the jury’s prerogative to weigh the evidence and decide otherwise. Additionally, the jury could have reasonably inferred that Herrera lied about his prior income to dissuade the IRS from continuing collection efforts.
In short, the evidence presented at trial was sufficient to convict Herrera on the basis of two of the three affirmative acts alleged by the government. Therefore, the district court was wrong to order an acquittal, because the jury could have reasonably concluded that Herrera transferred his home to avoid an IRS lien and/or lied to IRS agents about prior income to dissuade them from continuing. with collection efforts.
The district court was within its discretion to conditionally grant a new trial. Although the evidence is sufficient to support a conviction, the court cautiously re-weighed it and found that it strongly prevailed against the guilty verdict. In doing so, “the court sits as a thirteenth member of the jury”…
Therefore, we REVERSE the acquittal…
Below is the decision revoking Herrera’s acquittal.
Sentencia en 2009 ordenó nu… by Presents 360
Guilty plea and sentence
After more than a decade of arguing his alleged innocence and denying the facts of which he was accused, on Wednesday, March 9, 2011, Carl Herrera Alleyne finally admitted his guilt.
Herrera pleaded guilty to a federal misdemeanor and was sentenced to one year of probation, ending years of wrangling over his tax case.
Carl Herrera, then 44, quietly told US District Judge W. Royal Furgeson that he was glad to put the matter behind him.
Herrera’s lawyers claimed that he had been eking out a living in his native Venezuela and, most recently, coaching a team in Mexico. Herrera told the judge that he was residing in Houston.
One of his attorneys, Charles Muller III, said Herrera’s tax problems stemmed from his days with the Houston Rockets, when the team won back-to-back championships in the 1990s.
“The Rockets failed to withhold sufficient amounts to cover all of their tax liabilities,” Muller said, adding that there were other issues compounding the situation.
Act nº 2: Do not doubt his innocence!…
In 2014, during an interview for a Venezuelan media outlet, Carl Herrera was outraged about the racism and insults he was being subjected to in Venezuela during the basketball games he attended then as coach of the Guayana Giants team. The former NBA player noted…
“Many values have been lost. That hurts me because I’m from here, from Venezuela. I was born in Trinidad, but that has nothing to do with it. My way of speaking is from here, my atmosphere, my music, everything is from here and that’s how I feel. Whatever they do they won’t be able to take it away from me because my sensations are natural and I know what I feel. I only ask for respect.”
The interviewer asked: How do you think your parents raised you?
Respect ahead. When my mom said something, that was it and I stayed quiet. If there was a meeting of older people and I arrived, I had to ask permission, I couldn’t stay to listen to what they were talking about, my mom looked at me and I had to go. To go play I had to ask permission. You always had to treat the older ones like you and the ladies always went first. That was the kind of upbringing they gave me. I’m not perfect but I’m not going to disrespect anyone.
The interviewer then asked: Have you tried to instill that in your children?
Always. Right now there is the situation of my son Jonathan (he is wanted by Interpol due to charges of sexual assault). He made a mistake, we all make mistakes as young people. I’m not going to justify anything, but my son didn’t hurt anyone.
Previously, the now basketball coach had demonstrated to condemn the attempted arrest of his son, on May 12, 2014, by the Venezuelan police in the city of Puerto Ordaz, in southern Venezuela, after a game of basketball in which Carl Herrera Alleyne had participated as coach of the Gigantes de Guayana team and where the second of Herrera’s sons, named Johnatan Víctor Herrera Medina, was being sought by the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), at the request of a Texas court.
“My son is not a criminal as many people have wanted to make him see. I’m not here to apologize to my son, but I can say that kids make mistakes. This was not a malicious bug. This happened a couple of years ago. He fell in love with a young woman in the United States. Who has not fallen in love with a person older or younger than one? What happened may not have happened, but my son is not a criminal. The police forces acted in a bad way.
But the “respect” that Carl Herrera claimed to have instilled in his children does not seem to have been learned by them. The “mistake” made by Johnatan Víctor Herrera Medina, was, being of legal age, having sexually abused a girl between 2009 and 2011. The girl was barely 12 years old when the abuse began.
The arrest of the suspect, on May 12, 2014, was frustrated by the quick action of his father and it was not until July 15 of the same year, more than two months after the incident at the Hermanas González gym in Puerto Ordaz. , that Johnatan Herrera Medina was arrested when he voluntarily presented himself at the INTERPOL office in the city of Puerto Ordaz, specifically at the Ports and Airports Division, International Police Directorate, under international red alert notification No. A -3747/5-2012, according to arrest warrants Nos. 1328791 and 1328792 dated December 1st, 2011, issued by the 176th District Court of Harris County, Houston, Texas, the content of which red alert indicates:
«HERRERA JOHNATAN VICTOR.. Requesting country: UNITED STATES. File number: 2013/307783. Publication date May 28, 2012…1. IDENTIFICATION DATA. Surname: HERRERA…Name: JOHNATAN VICTOR…Date and place of birth: October 8, 1990 in MADRID (SPAIN) Gender: Male. Nationality: Venezuelan (verified), Spanish (verified)…Surname and first name of the father: HERRERA Carl. Mother’s maiden name and name: UNKNOWN Maritza…Languages spoken: Spanish and English. Places or countries where he could move: Herrera could be residing at the following address: Calle 16, Sector 2, Number 979, El Progreso neighborhood, Guanare/Portuguesa, Venezuela 6124. On October 13, 2011, Herrera left Houston/Texas (United United States) in the direction of Caracas (Venezuela) for which he used the Venezuelan passport number 044278847. The countries he frequents are Spain, the United States (Houston/Texas) and Venezuela…Description: 185cm Weight: 75 kg Hair: Brown Eyes: Brown Complexion: Thin…2. LEGAL DATA…statement of facts: Houston/Harris County/Texas (United States): Between June 25, 2009 and July 1, 2011 Johnatan Víctor Herrera had sexual relations on multiple occasions with a girl who was 12 years old when these relations began. Each time they were in the girl’s bedroom and there was always vaginal penetration. Herrera lived in the victim’s mother’s house since she was 5 or 6 years old. On October 13, 2011, HERRERA left the United States…on October 17, 2011, after a medical examination of the girl, a report was sent to Texas child protection services. On December 1, 2011, the 176th District Court of Harris County issued arrest warrants…FUGI WANTED FOR CRIMINAL PROSECUTION. ARREST ORDER OR JUDICIAL RESOLUTION 1 classification of crime: Aggravated sexual assault on a minor References of the provisions of criminal legislation that punish the crime: Article 22.021 of the Texas Penal Code. Maximum applicable penalty: 99 years of deprivation of I.O. of arrest or equivalent judicial resolution: N° 1328791, issued on December 1, 2011 by the judicial authorities of Harris County/Houston/ Texas (United States)… ARREST ORDER OR JUDICIAL RESOLUTION 2 Classification of the crime: Sexual assault on a under 17 years old. References of the provisions of criminal legislation that suppress the crime: Section 22.011 of the Texas Penal Code. Maximum applicable penalty: 20 years in prison. Limitation or expiration date of the arrest warrant: None. Arrest warrant or equivalent judicial resolution: No. 1328792, issued on December 1, 2011 by the judicial authorities of the COUNTY OF HARRIS/HOUSTON/TEXAS (UNITED STATES)…MEASURES TO BE TAKEN IF THIS PERSON IS LOCATED. LOCATE AND DETAIN WITH A VIEW TO EXTRADITION. The country that has requested the publication of this Red Notice gives guarantees that extradition will be requested upon arrest of the person, in accordance with the applicable national legislation and with the relevant bilateral and multilateral treaties. PREVENTIVE DETENTION For the country that has requested the publication of this Red Notice, this should be considered as an official request for preventive detention.
In a strange turn of events, on March 19, 2015, the TSJ, the highest court of justice in Venezuela, through a presentation by the presiding magistrate of the Venezuelan judicial body, Maikel Moreno Pérez, decreed the unrestricted release of Johnatan Víctor Herrera Medina.
The measure was justified by the fact that the Embassy of the United States in Caracas did not present a formal extradition request against Herrera Medina.
A person, an exceptional witness, very close to the Herrera family, who did not want his name mentioned for this story, for fear of retaliation that his family could suffer, recounts unpublished events that occurred in the Herrera home in Texas.
“Witness One”, as we have called that person from now on, reveals that for many years he preferred not to tell the story, because he thought that no one would believe him, given the former NBA player’s status as a sports star. But, now with much more value, “Witness One” ensures that the former basketball player continues to defend the innocence of his two eldest sons, despite the atrocities committed by them.
Carl Alex Herrera Medina (whom we will call “Alex”) and Johnatan Víctor Herrera Medina, were the product of Carl Herrera Alleyne’s marriage to his first wife, Maritza Isabel Medina, a woman from the central-western state of Portuguesa in Venezuela. The older children of Carl Herrera Alleyne lived with their sisters Shaya and Sarah, and their father’s second wife, at the family’s residence in Texas, where the situation became unbearable. “Witness One” assures that the fact that the former basketball player is defending his children is “disgusting” and it is time to tell the truth, since “Amigo” has known for years that his two oldest children have been child abusers.
“Witness One” personally knows the girl abused by Johnatan Herrera. But she was not the only one sexually abused, she assures that Johnatan and her brother, Alex Herrera, also abused her sister Shaya Herrera throughout her childhood, which is why today Shaya suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder and is treated by therapists.
According to “Witness One”, “Amigo” was informed about the abuse suffered by his daughter Shaya, but in another act of sleight of hand and as the basketball player did for more than a decade denying having evaded taxes in the United States, he again denied what happened with his daughter. On this occasion, he preferred to continue defending his sons Alex and Johnatan and distance himself from his daughter.
“Witness One” points out that Johnatan and Alex are also suspected of having abused other girls, but that the brothers’ father has preferred to look the other way because, in his opinion, the former basketball player “is not the hero that everyone thinks he is” .
“Witness One” continues, pointing out that around 2005, when Shaya was approximately 12 years old, the Herreras’ daughter tried to talk to a relative about the behavior of her older brothers, but Shaya’s relative said: “Oh, that’s happened to me before too, sometimes it just happens.”
The incestuous abuse suffered by Shaya began in Houston, in the Sugar Creek neighborhood, in the home that the family knew as “La Casa Grande”, after “Amigo” played with the Houston Rockets (1991-1995). From there the family moved to San Antonio, Texas, where his father would play for the San Antonio Spurs. In San Antonio the abuses by Alex continued.
The first time Johnatan’s inappropriate behaviors began to manifest was when Johnatan and Shaya went to play at their neighborhood best friend’s house and there were other children there. Johnatan turned off the lights in a large closet, where he was playing with his sister and other boys, and started touching Shaya in front of the others. Other children who were there told their parents what happened and the mother of one of them had a conversation with Shaya’s mother, who preferred not to believe the story. Then nothing happened and the abuse by both of them continued until Shaya was in the sixth grade of elementary school. At that time, one day the police surrounded the Herrera house. The house had been robbed and vandalized by one of Alex’s high school friends. The trigger for the event was that Alex, who by then must have been about 18 years old, had taken off his clothes and waited naked in the bed of his father’s second wife. When Shaya’s mother arrived, she horrified she kicked him out of the house and Alex, out of revenge, sent a friend to rob and trash the house.
The second wife of “Amigo” tried to tell the basketball player but he did not believe her.
The former NBA player moved to Venezuela to attend professional commitments, while his children and his second wife remained in Texas. Shaya and her mother moved to a family friend’s house and only then did the older brothers stop abusing the athlete’s daughter, although the Herrera girls continued to see Johnatan.
After the separation of Carl and his second wife, Alex and Johnatan moved in with another friend of the Herrera family. There Alex began to abuse the eldest daughter of the family who had received them at home. The abused girl was under 16 years old. Alex ended up stealing from the girl’s mother, who reported him and had him taken to prison.
Fraudulent Check
Carl Alex Herrera Medina, the eldest son of Carl Herrera Alleyne, was just a child when in 1990 he arrived in Spain hand in hand with his father to accompany the basketball player in his start as a Real Madrid Basketball player for the 1990-91 season.
But of that smiling child only the memory remains. Court documents from Bexar County in Texas indicate that Carl Alex Herrera Medina was prosecuted between 2005 and 2007 for having forged another person’s signature to cash a bank check. Carl Alex Herrera was found guilty, accepting the charges under the “no contest” modality, which would allow him to get rid of a civil lawsuit for the crime committed.
Caso Contra Carl Alex Herre… by Presents 360
The revelations of “Witness One” allow us to assume that the person whose signature Alex forged was the mother of the young woman whom Carl Alex Herrera sexually abused, older sister of the girl abused by Johnatan, Alex’s brother. Both young women are daughters of the family that offered a home to the two eldest sons of basketball player Carl Herrera when they lost the house where they lived with their sisters and their father’s second wife in San Antonio, Texas.
After the incident with his brother Alex, Johnatan began to have a relationship with the youngest daughter of the family that had offered them their home, and this began when she was at least 12 years old.
The family of the abused girl denounced Johnatan and according to “Witness One” presumes; Thanks to his father’s contacts, Johnatan managed to flee the United States to Venezuela.
It was not only Shaya, but also other young girls who were victims of lewd groping who to date have not spoken about what happened. Alex would throw Shaya into a bathtub when they entered her room and touch her inappropriately and lewdly rub against her, while almost no one in the family noticed, according to “Witness One” has pointed out.
Years have passed and nobody has done anything against Johnatan and Alex. Meanwhile, the Herrera family in Texas was destroyed and Shaya, Sarah and their mother ended up drifting apart.
In 2014 Carl was shot during an assault on the El Cimarrón K restaurant on the island of Margarita, in Venezuela. The basketball player, then 48 years old, was injured by two criminals who shot him while he was having lunch. The assailants stripped him of some of his belongings. It was there that his son Alex tried to contact his sisters through Facebook. But one of them threatened to call the police, recalling the abuse he had committed and the destruction of the family home. Alex, however, acted as if he knew nothing about it.
Herrera, then 48 years old, was shot in the arm and lodged in the lung, he was later taken to the El Valle Medical Center, where he was treated by doctors.
“Witness One” presumes that Alex is free and living illegally in the United States. Regarding Johnatan, he assumes that he is in Venezuela, from where he cannot leave, given the INTERPOL order against him.
«Witness One» thinks that «Amigo» only prefers to talk about himself and defend his sons over anything else. The basketball coach still denies the sexual abuse committed by his children or that his daughter Shaya was a victim of her own older brothers. He assures that “Friend” only cares about his legacy in basketball, because he has not been there when his children have needed him. He stopped paying child support. When their daughter Shaya was a teenager, Herrera’s second wife had to take up to three jobs to try to pay the household bills, but even then, they couldn’t make ends meet.
Shaya was hospitalized at the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston due to unknown fevers, which doctors suspected could be cancer. But Carl’s daughter never received a visit from her father, and “Amigo” didn’t help pay the medical bills either.
About “Friend”, “Witness One” assures: “Everyone thinks he is an incredible guy, but he has never been there for his family and due to his absence and negligence horrible things have happened that he simply acts as if nothing had happened to protect his sporting legacy… To this day, the only thing that matters to him is his games and his training. And his wife supports him because he is a gold digger who literally broke up a family…” “Witness One” only hopes that the truth about “Amigo” and his “monstrous children” will be known.
“Witness One” assures that he has decided to tell everything that happened in the Herrera home so that child molesters, such as Alex and Johnatan, do not continue freely around the world hurting innocent girls. He thinks that people should listen to the victims and know how painful it can be for them, since it is something that can affect them throughout their lives, being something that despite the years, the victims can take wherever they go, waiting for some day to be freed from that hell that they have had to live.
But as if it were not enough to have two children who have had problems with the law in the United States, probably the product of situations lived in family residences, another member of the family was also arrested in 2019 in Texas, accused of assault against a law enforcement officer. After all, “Friend” does not seem to have instilled much respect in his children, despite what he assured in that remembered interview in which the basketball player did another of his acts, by hiding the truth. Perhaps, remembering that his eldest son has Venezuelan nationality and the second of them has Spanish and Venezuelan nationalities, “Amigo” was right in that interview when he said that “Venezuelans have lost their values.”
Act #3: It was him or me!…
On Thursday, March 29, 2012, violence overshadowed a sporting event in Venezuela. It happened at the Valencia Forum, a multipurpose sports complex, when after a match between Trotamundos de Carabobo and Gigantes de Guayana, the coach of the giants, as the Guayana team is known, Carl Herrera, attacked the father of the local player (Trotamundos de Carabobo), Héctor “Pepito” Romero.
After such an event, Romero decided to file a complaint with the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations Corps (Cicpc) in Las Acacias, city of Valencia, Carabobo state, against Herrera.
“This cannot go under the table. It is not the first time that Carl has been involved in acts of violence. Nothing my father could have said to him justifies such aggression. My dad is an elderly person, he is 58 years old, this could have been worse,” basketball player “Pepito” Romero told Venezuelan media in 2012.
With just a few seconds left in the match between the Globetrotters and the Giants, the game was stopped after Guiana point guard Paul Stoll allegedly provoked the fans with some gestures. Fans threw things on the field and Herrera ordered his players into his dressing room.
At that moment, Romero’s father came to the court to tell Herrera not to be a “coward”, to call his squad “to finish the game”, because there were only five seconds left.
The previously explained was described by both “Pepito” Romero and Carl Herrera. At that moment Herrera did not react and the meeting could be finished.
After several minutes of the end of the game, Herrera and Romero, who was not on the field due to a right heel injury, met to talk cordially, according to the versions of the two involved.
Herrera told Romero to talk to his father, because he had not liked being called a coward. So far there were no major problems.
“After a while I talked to my dad and told him to apologize to Carl for what he had said. My dad went but then I see that everything is beaten. Carl had hit him without saying a word”, said the power forward.
The attack occurred near the corridor of the old Valencia Forum press office, but “Pepito” was in the parking lot, he said.
Herrera, always accustomed to justifying his actions and those of his children, did not hide that there was an attack, but explained that it was a reaction trying to defend himself because he thought he was going to be beaten.
“I was leaving the gym, I was heading towards the team bus but in the corridor before leaving, I meet the father of ‘Pepito’ (who is also called Héctor). We were talking for several minutes. I gave him explanations that I didn’t have to give them to him, he insisted and I told him I didn’t want to talk anymore, he kept going, he was coming forward, I tried to push him away, he continued loud and I reacted because I thought he was going to hit me, “he explained.
“You have to use logic, if a person comes with the intention of apologizing why should I attack him, I am not a person to hurt anyone but if they mess with me or with my environment, I can react and what happened happened”, he added.
The impasse also affected the Venezuelan national team, since Herrera was called to be one of the technical assistants and Romero was one of the key pieces of the team.
“If Carl is there, I’m not going to the national team, I say it from now on. The least I want right now is to have to share something with him,” Romero sentenced in 2012.
Attempts were made to contact Héctor “Pepito” Romero for further comment on the incident with Carl Herrera, but no response was received.
The remembered act of aggression against the father of “Pepito” Romero 2012 made some fans question the presence of Carl Herrera as technical director of the Venezuelan national basketball team.
At the end of this Olympic cycle… we have to start the renewal of our team firmly… there are several players who should not continue, and there are new figures who have excelled in the Super League… who should enter… and Carl Herrera should be the DT.. I say.
– The Undisputed (@ elindisputable1) July 3, 2021
Carl Herrera’s off-field actions with Pepito Romero’s father and others for me a resounding NO!
– Luis Pacheco (@LuisPac47077557) July 3, 2021
But it was not the first time that Carl Herrera was involved in events of this type.
In the past, when he was a player, in a game in the Venezuelan National League, he deliberately hit Richard Lugo in the face that took the center out of action for several days.
In 2011, already as a strategist for the Gigantes de Guayana team, he also had a strong argument in a match with the referee Reynaldo Mercedes and almost came to blows. That cost him the Coach of the Year award.
While Herrera was playing in the NBA for the Houston Rockets, he was also the subject of violent incidents. In the book “Loose Balls: Easy Money, Hard Fouls, Cheap Laughs, and True Love in the NBA” published in 2002 by Jayson Williams, An episode that happened in 1995 is remembered in which Carl Herrera was hit on the head with a dumbbell by his teammate, Vernon Maxwell. In the book it is reported:
They don’t call him Mad Max for nothing.
One guy I’d like to be in the trenches with me is Vernon Maxwell. Absolutely one of the toughest guys in the league. Pure heart, and having absolutely no idea that there are certain things you can’t do in this world. That’s what makes it so dangerous. Vernon didn’t take anything from anyone. He once got into it with Carl Herrera on the Rockets, when they were teammates, and they decided they would meet in the weight room and fight. So Carl gets there first, and while he’s waiting for Vernon, he’s doing some bicep curls. Vernon walks in a minute later, sees Carl doing curls. Vernon grabs a ten pound dumbbell, walks up behind Carl and, bong, throws it at Carl and hits him in the back of the head. End of the fight. Vernon would say things to your face, throw a dumbbell at you. Hell, he even fought Hakeem (Olajuwon) a couple of times, Vernon was a guy other NBA players didn’t want to mess with.
Other versions of the story say that Vernon Maxwell pulled a gun from his car in 1995 after a fight with teammate Carl Herrera. In any case, the reason for Maxwell’s anger towards Herrera and the reasons that led him to make such decisions are not known. The only thing known so far is that the Houston Rockets decided to dispense with the services of both Maxwell and Herrera the same year as the fight, after becoming champions. In the case of Herrera, it was argued that it was due to his injuries, but it has not been specified whether the conflict with his teammate was also decisive. About Maxwell, it must be said that in addition to his violent behavior towards both fans and teammates during his NBA basketball career, he has a history of having been arrested for possession of marijuana. It could be said that once again, Carl “The Magician” has tried to hide the truth behind the acts of violence in which he has been involved.
Act #4: Now you see her, now you don’t!…
Other great acts of sleight of hand in the history of Carl Herrera have been in his married life. On December 24, 1986, Herrera arrived in Texas to enroll in Jacksonville College, after the birth in Venezuela of his son Carl Alex Herrera on March 18, 1985. In a poor neighborhood of Guanare, Portuguesa state, “Amigo” had left to his first wife, Carl Alex’s mother, Maritza Isabel Medina. In 1990, when Herrera Alleyne agreed to play for Real Madrid Basketball, he moved to Spain with his eldest son and his wife Maritza Medina. That same year the second son of the Herrera-Medina couple, Johnatan Víctor Herrera, would be born, today requested by INTERPOL after an imprescriptible sexual assault against an underage girl.
But suddenly, “Amigo” separated from Maritza Medina and began a new relationship with a Spanish citizen, who today in Texas is dedicated to promoting the love of young students for science, technology and mathematics. Their new romance would lead to a wedding a decade later. In 1993 Shaya Herrera was born, the first of the basketball player’s daughters with his second wife. A few years later, while the family lived in San Antonio, Texas, Sarah would be born, the fourth of all Carl’s children, in chronological order.
“Amigo” never believed his second wife’s account of what happened in the mid-2000s, when Alex waited naked for his sisters’ mother and was kicked out of the family home by her. It was for this reason that Alex sent a friend from high school to vandalize the property.
In the same decade, meanwhile, Carl Herrera’s first wife demanded from the basketball player, through judicial channels, the payment of the amount of two hundred thousand US dollars, after the divorce of both on May 31, 2000. Maritza Medina, who later she would change her name to Maritza Isabel La Cruz, she also demanded the payment of eighty million bolívares, which Herrera was forced to pay due to separation of bodies and property. Ironically, the claim coincides with the time when Carl Herrera was being investigated in Texas for tax evasion and when the basketball player had already transferred his house in San Antonio, Texas, to his second wife, as well as money.
Carl Herrera – Divorcio de … by Presents 360
But the legal battles in Venezuela with his first wife had not ended, nor with the IRS in the United States, when a new woman had already appeared in the life of “Amigo”. Herrera had been playing in Venezuela for the Guaiqueríes de Margarita team between 2002 and 2004. It was there, on Margarita, an island in northern Venezuela, that he met Egla Betsabé García Meléndez, a woman twelve years his junior.
Herrera’s second wife, four years his junior, remained in Texas and was unaware of her husband’s infidelity until much later. Once again, Herrera decided to divorce to marry for the third time. On this occasion the wedding was celebrated in Venezuela, on the island of Margarita, in the month of June 2007. A social review by the journalist Aixa Falótico published on July 13, 2007 in the Diario La Hora stated then:
But the legal battles in Venezuela with his first wife had not ended, nor with the IRS in the United States, when a new woman had already appeared in the life of “Amigo”. Herrera had been playing in Venezuela for the Guaiqueríes de Margarita team between 2002 and 2004. It was there, on Margarita, an island in northern Venezuela, that he met Egla Betsabé García Meléndez, a woman twelve years his junior.
Next Monday the 16th, our friends and newlyweds: CARL HERRERA ALLEN AND BETSABE GARCÍA MELENDEZ, who very happily joined their lives in an ecclesiastical marriage last Saturday, June 30, at the church of the CHRIST OF THE GOOD JOURNEY OF PAMPATAR and then toast and celebrate at Casa Boulton in the same town…
Their closest family and friends offered them a treat at the house of their brothers-in-law: Isabel López de García (Ninia) and Francisco José García (Chico) in the Costa Azul urbanization to say goodbye and wish them all the happiness in the world to this happy and beloved couple. who will soon be back in our country where Carl will fulfill part of his agenda within the professional series of Venezuelan Basketball…CONGRATULATIONS!!!
Later, Egla Betsabé García Meléndez began to be called Betsa García-Herrera. Since then, Egla Betsabé García (Betsa García-Herrera) has accompanied Carl at different times in his life, such as in tributes received in Texas for Herrera’s career in the NBA and in other events in the United States. He has also been with him when the coach was shot in 2014 or when on Tuesday, June 2, 2015, Herrera was received at the Miraflores Palace in Caracas, seat of the Venezuelan presidency, by the then Minister of the Office of the Presidency and Monitoring of Government Management, Carmen Meléndez, appointed by Nicolás Maduro in order to join the Movement for Peace and Life Foundation, a movement that sought to pacify poor neighborhoods in Venezuela. It was in some way a contradiction for someone who a few years earlier had been involved in incidents of violence on the playing fields of Venezuela and against whom a complaint had been filed with the police for assault, a complaint that nothing else was known about.
For his part, Carl Herrera expressed his gratitude to Nicolás Maduro and Minister Meléndez for “allowing him to be part of the transformation of the new man and woman”: “I wanted to come to thank everything that was done for me (…) God gives you the opportunity to contribute and that is why I came to join this movement, because I know that with my figure and that of many other athletes we are going to help a lot”.
Minister Meléndez toured the Miraflores Palace facilities with Herrera, pointing out the historical significance of those spaces.
The basketball player thus thanked all the support received from the Government of Nicolás Maduro when he was shot in 2014, a support that allowed those responsible to be quickly identified and apprehended.
Alexander Vargas, then deputy minister for sports promotion for peace and life, and Herrera’s representative, Ángel Hernández, were also present at the meeting.
Again, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of a hat, Herrera managed to switch from wife to wife, until his third marriage.
Many stories about the basketball player are still woven on social networks, where they say, for example, that he was supposedly selling tourist promotions on the island of Margarita and that he was outraged at potential customers who refused to buy them. They also assure that in Portuguesa, a state where the family lived years of poverty, a court that had been baptized with the name of the basketball player was supposedly renamed with another name. The Carl Herrera Allen Coliseum, a multipurpose gym located in the city of Guanare, is located in the same state.
While some fans define him as a humble man, for others the Trinidadian-Venezuelan is a “pesetero” (greedy). And you, what do you think of “The Magician”?
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