Miami Herald reporting wins big in national, state journalism contests
The winning coverage included an investigation into the botched inquiry of a Biscayne Bay boat crash that led to the Florida Legislature changing boater safety laws. Coverage of a South Florida attorney who used a legal loopholes to manipulate condo auctions also won an award and led to a proposed change to the law.
Here is the list of the Herald's recent awards, honors and recognitions:
National Headliner Awards
The National Headliner Awards is one of the oldest and largest annual journalism contests.
Local news beat coverage or continuing story in top 20 media market:
▪ First place: Brittany Wallman and Ben Wieder for 'Rigged.'
▪ Second place: Grethel Aguila, David Goodhue and Susan Merriam for 'Wrecked Justice.'
Investigative reporting in top 20 media market:
▪ Third Place: Miami Herald Staff for Criminal Injustice, which explored how Miami-Dade's legal system failed victims in several controversial cases.
This package included:
— 'Key Biscayne's Dark Secret' by Ana Claudia Chacin and Clara-Sophia Daly, which focused on how Miami-Dade's State Attorney's Office dismissed sexual abuse allegations against a popular gymnastics coach in Key Biscayne. Police investigated and arrested Oscar Olea weeks after the Miami Herald reported that former students alleged he sexually abused them.
— 'Deal with the Devil' by Sarah Blaskey and Brittany Wallman detailed how Miami murderer William 'Little Bill' Brown was given a sweetheart plea deal of 25 years in prison and immunity from prosecution for one of Miami's worst mass shootings. In return, Brown served as an informant for years, digging up information on other inmates for prosecutors.
— Dr. Feelgood by Julie K. Brown showed how a Miami Beach doctor accused of sex trafficking a teenage girl evaded serious charges. The State Attorney's Office dropped charges against Dr. Jeffrey Kamlet after the girl was found dead.
— 'Wrecked Justice' by Grethel Aguila, David Goodhue and Susan Merriam. The Herald's dissection of the 2022 boat crash that killed 17-year-old Luciana 'Lucy' Fernandez and critically injured Katerina 'Katy' Puig led to prominent real estate broker George Pino, the boat's captain, to be charged with misdemeanors, and later, a felony. Pino has pleaded not guilty.
2024 Associated Press Sports Editors contest
The 2024 Associated Press Sports Editors contest, judged by sports editors and journalists from across the nation, recognized work that was published in 2024.
First place in the investigative category: 'Key Biscayne's Dark Secret,' by Ana Claudia Chacin and Clara-Sophia Daly
2024 Best in Business Awards
The 2024 Best in Business Awards by the Society for Advancing Business Editing and Writing honors excellence in business journalism from 2024.
First place in real estate coverage for medium market: 'Rigged' by Brittany Wallman and Ben Wieder
Investigative Reporters and Editors
Finalist, Tom Renner Award, which recognizes outstanding crime reporting: Julie K. Brown
Finalist, Print/Online investigations: 'Wrecked Justice' by David Goodhue, Grethel Aguila and Susan Merriam
Livingston Awards
Finalists: Ana Claudia Chacin and Clara-Sophia Daly. Winners will be announced June 10 at an in-person awards ceremony in New York City hosted by Audie Cornish, Livingston Awards national judge and host of 'CNN This Morning with Audie Cornish.' The Livingston Awards honor the best reporting and storytelling by journalists under 35.
Taylor Family Award for Fairness in Journalism, Neiman Foundation
Finalist: 'Guilty of Grief' by Carol Marbin Miller, Linda Robertson and Camellia Burris with the help of visual journalist Jose Iglesias and data/visual journalist Susan Merriam.
The annual Taylor Family Award is meant to encourage fairness in news coverage by American journalists and news organizations.
Sidney Awards
'Guilty of Grief' by Carol Marbin Miller, Linda Robertson and Camellia Burris was awarded the Sidney Award in December, sponsored by the Sidney Hillman Foundation, a monthly award for outstanding investigative journalism that exposes social and economic injustices.
The series relied on hours of police bodycam footage, thousands of court documents, interviews and other records to tell the saga of Gamaly Hollis and her son Richard Hollis, a 21-year-old with a history of psychiatric problems. He was later shot dead by Miami-Dade police officer Jaime Pino during a confrontation in the Hollis' Kendale Lakes apartment. His mom, Gamaly Hollis, was jailed for nearly a year after protesting on Facebook against Pino. The State Attorney's Office offered Hollis a plea deal instead of additional jail time a week after the Herald's series was published.
National Association of Black Journalists 2025 Salute to Excellence Awards
Finalist for a feature story in a newsroom with a staff of 51-100: 'These Black Veterans Served In Multiple Wars. Now They Meet Daily At A Miami Mcdonald's' by Michael Butler and photojournalist Carl Juste.
NABJ's awards recognizes journalism that 'best covers the Black experience or addresses issues affecting the worldwide Black community.'
2025 Florida Society of News Editors Journalism Contest
The annual Florida Society of News Editors journalism contest recognizes works across Florida's news industry.
Investigative Reporting, First Place — Guilty of Grief: Carol Marbin Miller, Linda Robertson, Camellia Burris, Jose Iglesias, Susan Merriam, Pierre Taylor, Carolina Zamora. Also contributing to the series were Alie Skowronski, Andres Viglucci, and McClatchy Creative Director Sohail Al-Jamea and Visual Journalist Rachel Handley.
Community Leadership, First place — Guilty of Grief.
Enterprise writing, First place — Guilty of Grief.
Multimedia, First Place — Wrecked Justice: David Goodhue, Grethel Aguila, Susan Merriam, Pedro Portal, Carl Juste, Sohail Al-Jamea, Kevin Scott.
Spanish beat writing, First place: Sonia Osorio.
Spanish sports writing, First place: Jorge Ebro.
Sports columns, First place: Greg Cote.
Sports photography, First Place — 'Georgia fan selfies with Miami coach after team's defeat': Al Diaz.
Investigative Reporting, Second Place: — Juvenile Crime, Adult Time: Shirsho Dasgupta. The series found that teens who were tried in court as adults were often given higher sentences on average for felony crimes than older, adult offenders.
Spot News Photography, Second place — 'Fire at the Temple Court Apartments': Carl Juste.
Spanish feature writing, Second place: Sarah Moreno.
Spot News Photography, Third place — 'Aftermath of Hurricane Milton': Pedro Portal.
Breaking News, Third Place — 'The Cuffing of Tyreek Hill:' by Grethel Aguila, David J. Neal, David Goodhue, Doug Hanks, Devoun Cetoute, Charles Rabin, Isaiah Smalls, Camellia Burris, Barry Jackson, Al Diaz.
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Miami Herald
an hour ago
- Miami Herald
When did Trump and Epstein friendship end? President's answers raise questions
President Donald Trump's varying explanations about his fallout with Jeffrey Epstein have raised more questions than answers as he struggles to move on from his days of partying in Palm Beach with the late financier. A variety of reasons have been given as to why the two men stopped being friends: Epstein 'stole' his female employees, a real estate deal went bad, and Epstein was inappropriate with a daughter of a member of Mar-a-Lago. The conflicting accounts have led to a closer examination of his and Epstein's relationship, leading to questions about the timeline of their friendship, what the president knew about Epstein's dealings with young girls and if there is more to the story. Their friendship is thought to have started in South Florida in 1990, when Epstein bought a property two miles north of Mar-a-Lago, Trump's private Palm Beach Club. Read the Miami Herald's Perversion of Justice The date of their breakup remains a question mark. For years, Trump put the date as 2004, saying he and Epstein fell out over a South Florida property that both men coveted. Trump outbid Epstein for the Palm Beach mansion known as the House of Friendship, paying $41.35 million. The competitive business process brought an end to their dealings, according to Trump. But last week he shocked the family of one of Epstein's victims when he gave a new reason he ended the relationship - because Epstein 'stole' female employees working at Mar-a-Lago's spa, including the late Virginia Giuffre. 'People were taken out of the spa, hired by him,' he told reporters. Giuffre, who died by suicide this past April at age 41, told the story differently. According to court papers, she said she was approached by Ghislaine Maxwell - not Epstein - when she was working in the women's locker room of Trump's resort. And the year that happened: 2000. However, some reports put the friendship ending as late as 2007 when Trump barred Epstein from Mar-a-Lago after the financier behaved inappropriately toward a club member's teenage daughter. A Mar-a-Lago member told the Miami Herald that, in October 2007, Trump had 'kicked Epstein out after Epstein harassed the daughter of a member.' McClatchy reached out to the White House for comment and did not immediately receive a response. It was Trump's specific comments about Giuffre, the most well-known of the Epstein accusers, that brought about the new scrutiny, including when he said he warned Epstein not to poach the young women from his club. 'People would come and complain, 'this guy is taking people from the spa.' I didn't know that,' Trump told reporters late last week. 'And then when I heard about it, I told him, I said, 'Listen, we don't want you taking our people, whether it was spa or not spa.' I don't want him taking people. And he was fine. And then not too long after that, he did it again and I said, 'Out of here,'' he added. Giuffre's family pushed back at Trump's statement that Epstein 'stole' Virginia and questioned what else he knows. 'She wasn't stolen, she was preyed upon at his property, at President Trump's property,' Sky Roberts, Giuffre's brother, told CNN on Thursday evening. Read More: Ghislaine Maxwell moved from Florida to minimum security prison in Texas He added that the president's comments raise questions about 'how much he knew during that time.' The president denied, however, that he knew Epstein was abusing young women. 'No, I don't know really why, but I said, if he's taken anybody from Mar-a-Lago, he's hiring or whatever he's doing, I didn't like it. And we threw him out,' he told reporters on Thursday. Giuffre said she met Maxwell in 2000, when she was 16 and working at Trump's Palm Beach club. Maxwell saw her reading a book on massage therapy and offered her a masseuse job with Epstein. Two years later, in 2002, Giuffre was able to escape Epstein's sex trafficking ring when he sent her to Thailand. She met a man there she married 10 days later and moved to his home in Australia to start a family. The same year Giuffre got away, Trump raved about Epstein to New York magazine, which wrote a profile of the financier. Trump, in what are now infamous quotes, called Epstein a 'terrific guy' who likes women 'on the younger side.' 'I've known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy,' he said at the time. 'He's a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it -- Jeffrey enjoys his social life.' Additionally, in 2003, Trump took part in a gift album for Epstein's 50th birthday, according to the Wall Street Journal. Trump denies participating. Trump gave another number in 2019, when Epstein was arrested on federal charges tied to sex trafficking. The president, who was in his first term at the time, said he hadn't spoken with Epstein in 15 years. 'I knew him like everybody in Palm Beach knew him. I mean, people in Palm Beach knew him. He was a fixture in Palm Beach,' Trump said in the Oval Office. 'I had a falling out with him a long time ago. I don't think I've spoken to him for 15 years. I wasn't a fan. I was not, yeah, a long time ago, I'd say maybe 15 years. I was not a fan of his, that I can tell you. I was not a fan of his.'
Miami Herald
20 hours ago
- Miami Herald
‘Scared to die': Venezuelan who was held in megaprison files complaint against U.S.
He once dreamed of being recognized for his work — but instead, the U.S. sent him to a mega-prison in El Salvador. Branded a gang member and a terrorist, he spent four months behind bars. Now, after his release and return to Venezuela, he's determined to clear his name. Neiyerver Adrian Leon Rengel was one of more than 250 Venezuelans detained in the United States who was transferred in March to the Salvadoran maximum-security prison known as CECOT, the Spanish initials for Terrorism Confinement Center. 'I was very scared,' Leon Rengel, 27, told the Miami Herald, describing how guards would frequently insult them, calling them trash, scumbags and worse, and often told them they would never leave the prison. 'Even more so when a Salvadoran officer told me I was going to die there or spend 90 years in prison. While I was in CECOT, I never saw a lawyer or a judge. They wouldn't even let me make a phone call.' Read more: 'I have nightmares': Venezuelans imprisoned in El Salvador relive terror after return home The League of United Latin American Citizens, LULAC, a Washington-based civil-rights organization, has filed an administrative complaint with the Department of Homeland Security on his behalf, alleging Leon Rengel was deported without reason or due process. The complaint also details the abuses Leon Rengel said he endured at CECOT. 'He was beaten in his chest and stomach by guards, who used fists and batons to inflict pain,' the complaint says. 'On one occasion, he was taken to an area of the prison without cameras, where guards routinely brought detainees to assault them without leaving a video record. There, [Leon] Rengel was viciously beaten.' Leon Rengel told the Herald the Venezuelan detainees were kept in a separate module from Salvadoran detainees that housed 32 cells. He said he was placed in one of the cells with 19 other men, though some detainees were held in cells with fewer people, he said. He said he and his countrymen were 'beaten badly' if they complained about prison conditions. He recounted sleeping on bare metal bunks, stacked four levels high, without bedding or pillows. The two toilets in his cell were entirely open, offering no privacy, he added. He said the only time they were given mattresses and sheets was when authorities came to visit. 'Once the photos were taken and the authorities left, the guards would come and take away the mattresses and blankets,' he recalled. During the 125 days the Venezuelans were held at CECOT, they were not allowed outside once, he said: 'We never saw sunlight.' At one point, during a prison riot, he said, inmates were placed in an area called La Isla, the island, 'to beat us with batons. He described the island as a dark, small punishment room with a circular vent and two cross-shaped bars. The space was meant for two people, Leon Rengel said, but guards crammed in more detainees. 'They brought in several prisoners to beat us. We went more than 24 hours without water or light.' After the beatings, he said, they were taken to get medical care, but a doctor falsified the records, claiming their injuries were from playing soccer, something he says never happened. 'We hardly ever left the cells.' The complaint filed on Leon Rengel's behalf by LULAC in partnership with the Democracy Defenders Fund seeks $1.3 million in damages for violations of his civil rights. 'They gave him a document in English stating he could either be deported to Venezuela or appear before a judge,' said Juan Proaño, CEO of LULAC. 'Leon Rengel chose to see a judge — but he was never given that opportunity. Homeland Security failed to follow due process.' The complaint is the first step before litigation. Homeland Security has six months to respond. If they fail to do so, a lawsuit will be filed in Washington, D.C., Proaño said. Over the past four months, as both Venezuelan and Salvadoran detainees have been held at CECOT, El Salvador's President Nayib Bukele has denied any allegations of torture inside the mega-prison. Responding to reports of abuse, he said, 'Apparently, anything a criminal claims is accepted as truth by the mainstream media and the crumbling Western judiciary.' When Leon Rengel emigrated to the U.S. in 2023, his goal was simple: to become a well-known barber and showcase his art. But in the heightened immigration crackdown during the Trump administration, he was labeled a member of the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua, largely because of his tattoos. He was arrested on March 13, his birthday, in the parking garage of his apartment in Irving, Texas, where he was living with his girlfriend. At the time, he was on a video call with his 6-year-old daughter, Isabella, who lives in Caracas, he said. Four Drug Enforcement Administration patrol cars surrounded him and arrested him, he said, although the agency has never clarified its role. 'They asked me to lift up my shirt, and when they saw my tattoos they accused me of being member of Tren de Aragua. But they never showed any evidence of a connection to the gang,' he said. 'They just laughed while wishing me happy birthday.' U.S. immigration agents have been targeting Venezuelan men based on tattoo images like animals, basketballs or reggaeton lyrics, even in the absence of any criminal record. Experts have said Tren de Aragua doesn't typically use tattoos as gang markers, and relying on them as indicators of gang ties risks serious miscarriages of justice. READ MORE: 'Crime of tattooing': Why experts say body ink is no way to ID Venezuelan gang members 'When I entered the U.S., nobody questioned me about my tattoos or anything related to a gang. It wasn't until after 2024 that I first heard officers mentioning tattoos and the gang,' Leon Rengel said. Records show that Leon Rengel entered the U.S. on June 12, 2023, through the Paso del Norte port of entry on the Mexico-Texas border after a prescheduled appointment on CBP One, a digital portal created by the Biden administration designed to manage the flow of migrants at the southern border. When he was arrested in March, Leon Rengel had been living in the U.S. for 21 months, with a pending Temporary Protected Status application, and was scheduled to appear before an immigration judge on April 4, 2028. He had one arrest in the U.S., in November 2024, for possession of drug paraphernalia — a non-jailable misdemeanor under Texas law. He was a passenger in a vehicle that was pulled over. According to Irving city records, he later pleaded guilty to possession of marijuana and was fined $492. He received no jail time or probation. In a statement issued in April — at a time Leon Rengel's family had no knowledge of his whereabouts — and repeated again in July, Homeland Security spokeswoman Tricia McLaughlin said he had 'entered our country illegally in 2023 from Venezuela and is an associate of Tren de Aragua.' But DHS did not provide any documentation to support the claim or explain why Leon Rengel was sent to El Salvador— especially given that the U.S. and Venezuela have been cooperating in the deportation of Venezuelan nationals directly back to their home country. For weeks after his detention in Texas his family had no idea where he was. He hadn't been returned to Venezuela, where his mother, Sandra Rengel, and three of his four siblings live, nor was his name in the Immigration and Customs Enforcement detainee locator system or even on CECOT records obtained by media outlets. His relatives only learned of his whereabouts on April 23 through media reports, 39 days after he was deported to El Salvador. READ MORE: Weeks after disappearance, DHS confirms Venezuelan man was deported to El Salvador 'The most difficult part was for my mother and daughter, who didn't know where I was — whether I was alive or dead,' Leon Rengel said. 'My daughter suffered a lot. She prayed every day to see me again.' After his detenton in Irving he was briefly held at the Bluebonnet Detention Facility in Anson, Texas and later transferred to the East Hidalgo Detention Center, a privately run facility used by ICE in La Villa, Texas. Two days later he was deported to El Salvador. Leon Rengel said he and dozens of other Venezuelan detainees were told they were being deported to Venezuela. ICE agents 'never told us we were going to El Salvador,' he said. 'They said we were being sent to Venezuela and even made us lower the airplane window shades. The surprise came when we landed in San Salvador.' On July 18, the United States and Venezuela carried out a wide-ranging prisoner swap. As part of the agreement, 252 Venezuelans who had been deported from the U.S. and held in El Salvador's maximum-security prison were exchanged for dozens of political prisoners and 10 Americans imprisoned in Venezuela — including a Venezuelan-American who had been convicted of committing a triple murder in Spain. Leon Rengel said his only goal in filing the complaint is to clear his name. 'It's unfair they detained us without any evidence of wrongdoing. I have no criminal record in Venezuela or Colombia. All I want is for them to be held accountable for the harm the government did to me.' More than 75 other Venezuelan men that were held in CECOT are preparing similar claims, some of which involve allegations of head trauma, sexual violence and other forms of abuse, according to Proaño, the LULAC executive. 'This claim is too important to ignore,' Proaño said. 'If the Department of Homeland Security can deport Venezuelans without due process, they can do it to anyone — migrants of other nationalities, even U.S. citizens who are mistakenly identified. What's to stop them from sending people to third countries they're not even from?' He added: 'We can't let that become the norm. They need to be held accountable — and that means financial consequences.' Proaño said if the U.S. government is forded to pay '$1 million to each of the 250 people wrongfully deported to El Salvador, that's $250 million. That's a small amount compared to the billions already being spent to deport Latinos. It's the only way they'll learn.' Leon Rengel was born in 1998 — the same year Hugo Chávez rose to power, marking the beginning of Venezuela's unraveling. Growing up in a poor neighborhood of Caracas, his generation faced blackouts, food shortages and the crumbling of institutions. Before moving to the U.S., he spent six years in Colombia with his partner and daughter, maintaining a clean record, according to Colombian authorities. Inspired by friends who had successfully built new lives in America, he decided to emigrate. Now, he regrets that choice. 'If everything changes in the U.S., I'd go back just to visit — to see places I've always dreamed of,' he said. 'But I wouldn't try to build a life there again. This government is destroying the future of many Hispanics, especially Venezuelans.'
Miami Herald
21 hours ago
- Miami Herald
‘I have nightmares': Venezuelans imprisoned in El Salvador relive terror after return home
Mervin Yamarte, a young Venezuelan detained for more than four months in the Salvadoran mega-prison known as CECOT after his deportation from the United States, said even though he's now back in his home in Maracaibo, he is still afraid. And he still wakes up every morning at 3:30 a.m. — the same time he was awakened by guards in the maximum security facility. 'I haven't been able to sleep as I should. It's taken me a while to adapt. But I'm happy,' he told the Miami Herald at his home in the neighborhood of Los Pescadores in western Venezuela. Yamarte and three of his friends from that impoverished community – Edwuar Hernández, 23, Andy Perozo, 30, and Ringo Rincón, 39 – were deported to El Salvador on the night of March 15, accused by the U.S. of having links to the dangerous Venezuelan criminal gang Tren De Aragua. It is an accusation that they and their families have vehemently denied. 'I don't go out, because I'm afraid of being singled out' on the streets of his community as a criminal, Yamarte said. In March, the Trump administration sent 252 Venezuelans to a maximum-security prison in El Salvador, using a 1798 law known as the Alien Enemies Act. Yamarte, who worked in a tortilla factory while living in Texas, was included in the first group of 238 Venezuelans to arrive at the Salvadoran prison. 'We are not criminals. We are dignified people. I never had problems with the law, neither here nor in the United States,' he told the Herald after his return home to Los Pescadores, where he was greeted with balloons, celebrations, tears and hugs. Yamarte was arrested on March 13 inside his apartment in Dallas along with Hernández, Perozo and Rincón, three childhood friends. Local police and Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers went to the apartment looking for Perozo, who had a deportation order after missing his appointment with an immigration judge after entering through the Mexican border without documentation in 2023. The four men said they were arrested because the agents mistakenly profiled them as members of the violent Tren de Aragua gang because of their tattoos. Other friends and relatives with whom they lived and who did not have tattoos were not arrested, they said. All of them thought that they would face some form of legal process in the U.S., or at worst be deported back to Venezuela. The reality turned out to be worse: On March 15 they were flown to CECOT, the Salvadoran megaprison that has been the subject of international accusations of human-rights abuses. The four men, released and sent home on as part of a deal between the U.S. and the Venezuelan government, said they had suffered physical and psychological torture inside CECOT. Yamarte called it 'hell.' Rincón said the 'terror' has left 'marks' on their bodies and psyches. A softball and soccer player, Yamarte said he is still sore in his shoulders, especially at night, from the times CECOT guards lifted him by both arms while he was handcuffed behind his back. He said lost several toenails after officers stood on his feet while during searches. His ankles still sport dark shadows from tight cuffs. Perozo, who has five children, said he was beaten daily for a week at CECOT and a gun was fired near his left ear during a riot 15 days after his imprisonment. 'Every time they took me to the doctor, they didn't treat me, they beat me,' he told reporters minutes after receiving hugs from his parents. Perozo has not left his neighborhood since he arrived. 'I have nightmares and I can't sleep. I dream that I'm still there,' he said, adding he has as an urgent request for anyone who can help him adapt to life back in Venezuela: 'We need psychological help.' President Nayib Bukele of El Salvador has consistently denied that abuses and human rights violations have occurred inside CECOT. Maduro accused Bukele of 'kidnapping and torturing' the group of Venezuelans inside CECOT and called them 'hostages'. The Venezuelan political leader also echoed the claims that many of them received 'beatings' and ate 'rotten food'. Referring to a new investigation about it from Venezuelan justice system, he said: 'There will be justice'. This week, a special report from a group of outlets and journalists that included ProPublica quoted Natalia Molano, a spokesperson for the U.S. State Department, who said that United States is not responsible for the conditions of the Venezuelans' detention in El Salvador. She added that 'the United States is not involved in the conversation' about abuses inside CECOT denounced by the former prisoners. During the months that the four men from Los Pescadores were imprisoned in El Salvador, friends and family held several protests, traveled to Caracas to meet with Venezuelan leader Nicolás Maduro and participated in prayer vigils Their mothers, wives, neighbors and teammates described the four Pescadores men as young workers with no criminal records in Venezuela or the United States, and who decided to emigrate to the U.S. to earn money to send back to their families in Maracaibo. 'I suffered a lot. We were very said,' said Wilfredo Perezo, Andy Perezo's father, crying as he remembers the 127 days of the imprisonment of his son and his friends in CECOT until their arrival home, where the group was received by the national government as heroes. Returning to his family, especially his 6-year-old daughter, his wife Yainelis and his mother Mercedes, has been 'extraordinary,' said Yamarte, who sports tattoos on his arms and one on his hand, the number 99, his favorite, he said, and which he wore on the shirts of his soccer teams every weekend. 'I want to clear my name. I didn't deserve this,' he told the Herald. Yamarte said he still doesn't have a job. He would like to get one that allows to finish the house his family began renovating in Los Pescadores, near his mother's home, thanks to the money he sent from Texas. His mother was the first among the men's parents to recognize one of the four from videos of their transfer to CECOT. In one of the images, Yamarte was seen being shaved and in despair. Mercedes said she screamed with joy on July 18 when she saw on television her son get off the first of two planes that flew from El Salvador with the 252 Venezuelans on board. During her son's time in prison, she said she consoled herself with prayers and playing the song that he dedicated to her a few days before his arrest and deportation, 'Es mi madre' — She's my mother, by Colombian singer Jhonny Rivera: 'She doesn't abandon me. She is the one who suffers if I suffer, she is the one who cries when I cry, she protects me and is my shield.' Ringo Rincón lives a few houses away from the homes of the Yamartes and the Hernández Herreras. He was arrested in the Dallas apartment shortly returning home after finishing his shift making deliveries. He said he was surprised to see so many police officers inside his residence and his friends handcuffed face down in the living room. One of the first questions he was asked was if he had any tattoos. They asked him to remove his shirt and show them. He has several on both arms and on his chest, and a large one of a watch on his left shoulder. Rincón says the biggest scars on his body were left by blows from CECOT guards, whom he says beat him 'without compassion.' 'The abuse came every day,' he said. Rincón smiled when he spoke of his children, being reunited with his mother and his favorite food, chicken and rice, which he has eaten no less than three times since his return home. Yarelis Herrera, mother of Edwuar Hernández Herrera, decorated her home colored balloons and a giant poster with photos of her smiling son when he returned home. That day, he was greeted with lunch and cold beer. Christian music and the song Volver a casa — Returning Home — by Venezuelan singer Cáceres, played in the background. Edwuar Herrera, the youngest of the men from Los Pescadores deported to CECOT, described his days back in his hometown as calming and happy. He said that, like his friends who were imprisoned with him, he is 'trying to clear' his mind of what happened in El Salvador, playing sports, spending time with family and watching movies. 'Being able to have time again with my daughter and my mother is priceless,' he said. He tries to 'not to think about it so much,' he said about his time in the Salvadoran prison, although he hopes that the U.S. justice system will 'cleanse' the reputations of the 252 Venezuelans send to CECOT. He said he never had access to a judge or a lawyer, either in the U.S or El Salvador. He added he was beaten badly by the prison guards and was hit by four rubber bullets during a riot. The U.S. government, he said, 'threw us out as alleged terrorists. We don't deserve any of that.'
