Boy hitman's mother pleads not guilty to immigration charge

(Reuters) - The mother of a 14-year-old hitman who confessed to severing heads for a brutal Mexican drug cartel pleaded not guilty on Thursday to a charge that she was in the United States illegally, according to news reports.

Yolanda Jimenez Lugo, 43, and her husband, Gabriel Aguirre Manuel, 46, pleaded not guilty to charges in federal court in San Diego, the San Diego Union-Tribune newspaper reported.

The couple, both Mexican citizens, were arrested last month by federal agents outside their home in the city.

They were charged with illegally reentering the United States following previous deportation.

Jimenez Lugo's U.S.-born son, Edgar Jimenez, 14, was arrested in the central Mexican city of Cuernavaca in early December as he boarded a flight bound for the border city of Tijuana, south of San Diego, with two of his sisters.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE7056EY20110106?feedType=RSS&feedName=domesticNews