Verdict due in Honduras case tied to Angie Peña's disappearance

A Honduran court is set to deliver its verdict Monday in the sex-trafficking case built around the 2022 disappearance of Angie Peña, with the ruling scheduled for 1:30 p.m. local time (19:30 GMT). Four men are on trial. Two U.S. citizens, Harold Green and William James Murdock, face human trafficking charges, while a third American, Gary Lee Johnston, and Honduran Gustavo Trejo are accused of criminal association. Defense lawyers have denied involvement and asked for acquittal.

Peña, 22, vanished on Jan. 1, 2022, after taking a Jet Ski ride during a family vacation on Roatan, an island off Honduras' coast. Investigators first treated it as a possible accident, then widened the probe into trafficking after the Jet Ski turned up in Belize, roughly 90 nautical miles (170 kilometers) away. In April 2024, authorities issued arrest warrants for Green, Murdock and Trejo, and are seeking an Interpol notice for a fourth U.S. citizen, Antony Frank Grayson.

Johnston was already convicted in a separate case. When authorities searched his Roatan home in August 2022 in connection with Peña, they found a minor there. He was accused of commercial sex trafficking and child pornography and sentenced to 32 years.

Prosecutors say the suspects belonged to a sex trafficking network that included minors and carried out other crimes, including drug trafficking. The public prosecutor's office alleges police and at least one judge helped facilitate the ring, without naming the officials. The proceeding has drawn scrutiny: it was closed to the press and public, and Peña's family says it has received death threats.

The dangers of the case hit home in August with the killing of Dereck McNeil, a key protected witness. In videos released after his death, McNeil alleged corruption inside a special prosecutor's unit known as ATIC, accusing it of leaking case information and ties to drug trafficking networks. The ATIC director has denied corruption and said the unit was not involved in investigating Peña's disappearance.

Kenia Paz, a lawyer with the Legal Team for Human Rights representing Peña's family, said the case revealed a criminal network stretching far beyond what has been charged, and demanded the state answer for what happened to Peña. Julissa Villanueva, a former vice minister of security involved in the investigation, accused prosecutors of mishandling it from the start with a quote-unquote tunnel vision theory that conceals the wider structure. She compared the ring to Jeffrey Epstein's network; a Honduran media analysis found the country mentioned more than 100 times in the Epstein files, with repeated references to Roatan.