This is an archived article that was published on sltrib.com in 2014, and information in the article may be outdated. It is provided only for personal research purposes and may not be reprinted.
Utah investigators have found a convicted sex abuser who was hiding in Mexico after he fled Lehi six years ago.
Santos Ismael Hinojos, 49, was convicted in February 2008 of sexually abusing a girl who was about 8 or 9 at the time, Utah County sheriff's deputies wrote in a press release on Tuesday.
However, he was allowed to remain free on bail after the trial, and he disappeared before his April 2008 sentencing. Lehi police and sheriff's deputies worked with U.S. Marshals and police in Baja California, Mexico, where authorities received an anonymous tip that Hinojos was living there. Officers arrested Hinojos on Jan. 22 in Ensenada, Baja California.
He was taken to the Utah State Prison on Feb. 6 to begin serving his sentence. In 2008, he was sentenced in absentia to 5 years to life in prison for each of three first-degree felony counts of sodomy on a child.