Expand complaint against rancher accused of killing Mexican

PHOENIX (AP) — The murder complaint against an Arizona rancher suspected of killing a Mexican on his property was amended Tuesday to include two counts of aggravated assault against two other people.

The lawsuit’s filing with the Santa Cruz County Court of Justice in Nogales, Ariz., is the first public mention of the possibility that other people were injured in the Jan. 30 incident. The updated complaint only included the initials of the other two people attacked and did not state their nationality.

The new charges come on the eve of a preliminary hearing for rancher George Alan Kelly, who faces first-degree murder charges for shooting Gabriel Cuen Butimea, who lived south of the border in Nogales, Australia. Mexico. Court records show that Cuen Butimea has been convicted of illegal entry and deported to Mexico on several occasions, most recently in 2016.

Kelly, 73, is due to be arraigned at 9 a.m. local time Wednesday in Santa Cruz court.

His attorney, Brenna Larkin, said Kelly did not shoot or kill the man, but admits he fired warning shots earlier in the day at smugglers carrying AK-47s and backpacks that he had found on his property.

“He doesn’t think any of his warning shots could have hit the person or caused the death,” Larkin said in a filing this month. “All shots fired by Mr. Kelly on the date of the incident were in self-defence and justified.”

Kelly’s ranch is located outside of Nogales, Arizona in the Kino Springs area.

The Mexican consulate in Nogales has not publicly commented on the case.

The incident has sparked strong emotions less than six months after a prison guard and his brother were arrested in the shooting that killed an immigrant and injured another in West Texas.

Michael and Mark Sheppard, both 60, have been charged with manslaughter in the September shooting in El Paso County.

Authorities say the twin brothers stopped their truck near a town about 40 kilometers from the border and fired on a group of migrants who were looking for water on the road. A migrant was killed and a woman was shot in the stomach.

GoFundMe campaigns to pay for Kelly’s legal defense have been canceled due to the seriousness of the case and the money has been returned to donors, the platform said in a statement last week.

“GoFundMe’s Terms of Service explicitly prohibit campaigns that raise funds to cover the legal defense of anyone officially charged with an alleged violent crime,” he said.

GiveSendGo, which describes itself as a Christian fundraising platform, has run at least four fundraising campaigns for Kelly’s legal defense, including one that raised more than $300,000 on Tuesday.