By Lisa Redmond
Sentinel & Enterprise
GARDNER, Mass. — An NCCI-Gardner inmate who is serving a life sentence for murder and has a history of headline-grabbing actions is asking to be brought before a state judge to argue his civil rights are being violated with an illegal sentence.
Luis Perez says he was 19 and a minor when he began serving a life sentence for the 1971 murder of a Lowell man over what turned out to be $1,000 in fake bills.
Perez, who is representing himself, wrote in documents not yet filed in Middlesex Superior Court that he is being held illegally in state prison.
Perez is relying on a June decision by the country’s highest court to bolster his cause. In a 5-4 vote, the U.S. Supreme Court struck down mandatory-sentencing laws of life without parole for “juveniles” under 18 under the Eighth Amendment, which prohibits cruel and unusual punishment.
While Perez was 19 at the time of his sentencing in 1973, he argues in documents provided to The Sun that he was a minor -- someone under 21 -- and the new federal law should be applied to his case.
A U.S District Court “report and recommendation” notes that the state Parole Board and the governor have denied Perez a parole hearing and that he has filed a handful of motions for new trials. All have either been waived or denied.
Perez has been in the headlines before.
In 2002, he wrote a book from prison, “Despartriado: Man Without Country.” In 1993, Perez, while attempting to run for governor from behind prison walls, he went on a hunger strike to stop his transfer to another prison. And as recently as March, he issued a “press release” about prison overcrowding.
Under Massachusetts law, anyone 14 and older charged with first-degree murder is tried as an adult and, if convicted, automatically sentenced to life without parole.
Perez was convicted of first-degree murder, armed robbery, arson and larceny under the joint-venture theory with Luis Alvarez, who pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the fatal shooting of Peter Kyriazopoulos, also known as Peter Poulos, on April 22, 1971, in his Lowell apartment.
According to court documents:
Kyriazopoulos was entertaining Judy Varoski, Maureen Donahue and a man identified as “George’’ in his Lowell apartment on April 21, 1971. Varoski testified at trial that George showed Varoski five $1,000 bills belonging to Kyriazopoulos.
The next day, Varoski told Luis Alvarez about the money, knowing that his friend, Perez, needed money. Alvarez mentioned to Perez that Varoski knew someone who had money. A plan was hatched to steal the money from the victim’s apartment.
Bringing a rifle with him, Perez and Alvarez went into Kyriazopoulos’ apartment, shot him three times in the head and stole his money. Upon reaching the car, Alvarez threw a bank book containing $1,000 at Tony Mangula and told him that the money was “fake” and that Perez had shot Kyriazopoulos.
Perez stopped at a bridge and threw the rifle into a river, the documents then say. Alvarez and Perez drove the white car used to drive to Kyriazopoulos’ apartment to another area and Perez set the car on fire.
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