STAY CONNECTED: Have the stories that matter most delivered every night to your email inbox. Subscribe to our daily local news wrap.

Suspect in 2010 Cabanas shooting gets 20 years in Mexico

Feb 17, 2019 | 2:00 PM

MEXICO CITY — The man suspected of shooting former Paraguay national soccer team standout Salvador Cabanas in the head in 2010 has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Mexico.

But federal prosecutors said in a statement Sunday that a man known as Jose Jorge “B,” with no full last name given, was sentenced for organized crime, not attempted murder.

Multiple Mexican media outlets said the sentenced man was Jose Jorge Balderas Garza, alias “El J.J.,” an alleged associate of the former Beltran Leyva cartel. The newspaper El Universal said the judgment was “not related to the attack on the player.”

Cabanas starred with the Mexican club America at the time of the shooting in the bathroom of a Mexico City bar. It effectively ended his career despite several comeback attempts.