2 days ago
Colombian fugitive living 30 years in Mass. deported after deadly secret uncovered
This story is a collaboration with our news partner, El Planeta. You can read the Spanish version here.
Carlos Alberto Rendon had lived with a dark secret in Somerville and then Belmont for nearly 30 years when his past caught up with him.
Born in Colombia, he crossed the border with Mexico in 1995 and traveled to the Boston area. He got married in 1998, and the couple had a son. He then established legal permanent residency.
It was when he applied to become a U.S. citizen in 2020 that his violent past and his real name, William Hernando Usma Acosta, were revealed.
He was convicted in absentia in Colombia for the 1994 shooting that killed his ex-wife and injured his daughter. The revelation led to his arrest by U.S. immigration officials in 2022.
Last month, Acosta was finally deported to Colombia, just nine days before the statute of limitations for his prison sentence was set to expire.
He had been held in an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) detention facility in Massachusetts since his arrest more than three years ago. His capture and deportation closed a long chapter of evading justice, thanks to coordinated efforts between U.S. and Colombian agencies.
Usma Acosta initially fled Colombia after he was accused of the fatal shooting, which shocked his hometown of La Estrella, a small municipality near Medellín.
On the night of June 19, 1994, during a dispute with his ex-wife, Laura Rosa Agudelo, he shot and killed her and severely injured one of their daughters after a party, according to official reports from Colombian investigators.
'Usma left the party but warned he would return,' according to court documents in Colombia. 'Agudelo, meanwhile, continued drinking and was seen crying, saying she couldn't take it anymore.'
'Around 2:30 a.m., she left the party with her daughter and niece,' according to the documents. 'As they walked home, an auto stopped abruptly in front of them. Usma was at the wheel.'
'Agudelo recognized him and reportedly asked, 'What do you want?' He responded with insults and then opened fire,' the documents state. 'Agudelo died at the scene; one of the girls was seriously wounded.'
After illegally crossing the southern U.S. border in 1995, Usma reinvented himself as Rendón, using fraudulent documents. He settled in Belmont and lived quietly under this alias for years, working various jobs, including snow shoveling during harsh New England winters.
In Colombia, On Nov. 14, 1996, the Seventh Circuit Penal Court of Medellín sentenced Usma Acosta to 45 years in prison on the charges of aggravated murder, aggravated attempted murder, and illegal possession of a firearm, according to an ICE press statement on April 13, 2022. He was also sentenced to 10 years for the accessory charge of Restricted Citizen's Rights.
His sentence was later reduced to 28 years and six months based on new sentencing guidelines. And the 10-year sentence was not reduced, according to ICE. An international arrest warrant for Usma Acosta was issued.
In 2020, he applied for U.S. citizenship using a fraudulent Colombian birth certificate. During the fingerprinting process, federal authorities matched his prints with those in Colombian police records, confirming that Rendón and Usma were the same person.
He was arrested on April 13, 2022, in Belmont by agents from ICE and the FBI's Boston Violent Crimes Task Force, acting on a Red Notice issued by the International Criminal Police Organization (Interpol).
Usma was deported to Colombia in May. Upon arrival at Bogotá's El Dorado International Airport, he was taken into custody by Colombian authorities, including Interpol and the national police's criminal investigation unit.
'I've never seen a case quite like this,' Colonel Gonzalo Andrés Córdoba, head of Colombia's Interpol bureau, told El Planeta. 'We're talking about someone who remained a fugitive for nearly three decades and came very close to seeing his crimes go unpunished.'
Córdoba credited the successful arrest and deportation to sustained collaboration between Colombian police and U.S. agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, ICE, and the FBI. 'Constant communication allowed us to verify the full identity of this individual,' he said.
Now 64, Usma Acosta is serving a 28.5-year sentence at La Picota Prison in Bogotá for aggravated homicide, attempted aggravated homicide, and illegal possession of a firearm, nearly the same length of time he spent evading justice abroad.
Anne Brennan from MassLive contributed to this report.
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