The alleged California murder of a missing 13-year-old soccer player by his illegal immigrant coach was “an avoidable crime and the result of failed border policies,” a U.S. attorney told Fox News.
Mario Edgardo Garcia-Aquino, 43, allegedly killed his player, Oscar “Omar” Hernandez, in Lancaster on March 28, according to Los Angeles County District Attorney Nathan Hochman. Multiple law enforcement sources told Fox News on Tuesday that Garcia-Aquino is an illegal immigrant from El Salvador.
“This was an avoidable crime and the result of failed border policies,” said U.S. Attorney for the Central District of California Bill Essayli. “We cannot and will not tolerate illegal aliens who flout our nation’s immigration laws then prey on children. Federal law enforcement will continue to be very aggressive in locating, apprehending, and prosecuting criminal illegal aliens.”
Garcia-Aquino illegally entered the U.S. as a “gotaway” at an unknown time and location, and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has had no previous encounters with him, a senior ICE source also told Fox News this week. ICE has since filed a detainer on him with the Los Angeles County jail.
CALIFORNIA YOUTH SOCCER COACH CHARGED WITH MURDERING MISSING 13-YEAR-OLD BOY IS IN US ILLEGALLY: SOURCES
“Thirteen-year-old Oscar ‘Omar’ Hernandez was an innocent child who was exploited and killed by this depraved illegal alien who should have never been in this country,” added Homeland Security spokesperson Tricia McLaughlin. “Under President Trump and Secretary Noem’s leadership, child predators, pedophiles and murderers will be hunted down and removed from America’s communities.”
Hochman said earlier this week that on the day of Hernandez’s alleged murder, he “went up to Lancaster to see Mr. Garcia-Aquino.
“Two days later he was reported missing. And on April 2, 2025 last week, his body was found in Oxnard off a road near Leo Carillo State Beach,” Hochman added at a news conference.
His office said Garcia-Aquino is charged with “one count of murder with the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission or attempted commission of lewd acts with a child, making him eligible for the death penalty.” Additionally, Garcia-Aquino faces a possible maximum sentence of life in prison without parole.
The Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office separately charged Garcia-Aquino on Monday with one felony count of assault with the intent to commit a sexual offense, following his alleged sexual assault of a 16-year-old boy in Palmdale in February 2024.
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Garcia-Aquino was then charged on Tuesday with the alleged sexual assault of a 14-year-old boy in December 2022.
In an interview Wednesday on “Fox & Friends,” Hochman said, “when we got the first allegation in 2022… the DA’s office gets that in about August of 2023.”
“We do what we do in all cases. We analyze the evidence, and we have to not only move swiftly, but we have to win these cases beyond a reasonable doubt in court to a jury, a unanimous jury of 12. So we want to make sure we get it right. So we send it back for further investigation to build out the case. And some of these cases go quickly and some don’t. This one did not,” he continued. “So the allegation for 2022 took actually until the murder allegation came forward most recently, before we were able to develop the final bit of evidence to charge him with the 2022 arrest and sexual assault of a minor.”
“Under my administration, sexual violence cases are a high, high priority. And we are making sure that any type of allegations like this come in, there is maximum cooperation from the beginning, so we hopefully don’t have a tragedy like this where we take a person like Mr. Garcia-Aquino out of the picture before he kills someone,” Hochman added.
Los Angeles County Sheriff Robert Luna said Garcia-Aquino “was a youth travel soccer coach with the Hurricane Valley Boys Soccer Club in the Sylmar area working with different age divisions” and “he had no reported criminal history.”
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